Elgon

Elgon is an Italian professional haircare brand known mainly for salon hair colour, with a range that also covers lighteners, care products and styling. It is owned and run by Pidielle S.p.A., a company based in Nerviano in the Metropolitan City of Milan, which formulates and manufactures the products in Italy [3]. The brand is sold chiefly through hairdressers and distributors, and also directly to consumers through its own online shop.

Accounts from outside the company date Elgon's beginnings to 1970 in Milan [7]. In a 2018 trade-press interview, the company's chief executive described Elgon as the main brand in a small multi-brand group, generating the large majority of its turnover, with most sales coming from exports [6]. The brand remains active.

Elgon's own website gives neither a founding date nor a founder's name. Several outside accounts do, and they largely agree on the year. A company profile that Pidielle supplied to the trade publication Estetica Export lists the business as established in 1970 and describes it as "certified manufacturers and color experts since 1970" [7]. The history page of Elgon's Mexican importer also places the start in Milan in 1970, crediting the talent and experience of an unnamed founder in professional cosmetics [9].

The only account to name that founder is a 2024 blog article by Adel Professional, a UK salon wholesaler. It says Elgon was "born back in 1970" when a Milan hair stylist, Domenico Caimano, decided to use his industry knowledge to create hair products specifically for salon professionals [8]. The same article later says the brand has been making professional hair colour "since 1969", which contradicts its own opening. This article follows 1970, the year given by the company-supplied profile, the Mexican importer and the first date in the Adel piece. A 2018 FashionNetwork report describing Pidielle as having more than 45 years of activity behind it fits the same timeline.

The founding account that the company tells about itself is brief. Pidielle's profile says the business draws on "its founder's talent and experience in the field of professional cosmetics" and that, over more than 50 years, it has worked with professional hairdressers around the world.

According to the Mexican importer's account, Elgon grew from its Milan base by formulating and producing hair colours and haircare for salons and barbershops, and by pairing those products with training and specific methods for hairdressers. That importer, Elgon México, described itself in 2019 as fifteen years old and said it had built a network of more than 27 distributors across Mexico.

In 2010 the company began a long-running partnership with COOPI, a humanitarian organisation based in Milan. The first project, in Sierra Leone, helped local women build a business around growing and harvesting cashews. A later project supported water supply in Ethiopia.

The late 2010s brought a push into so-called green cosmetics. In 2017 Elgon launched Imagea, a line that added a "green" label to the brand. The same year, Pidielle's group sales grew by 25% to €19.7 million, according to chief executive Serena Caimano [6]. In 2018 the company added Phytoguard to the Imagea line, a hair nectar designed to counter the effects of city air pollution. It contained plant proteins from organic baobab, mongongo nut oil and plant-derived hyaluronic acid, and came in packaging made from sugarcane-based bioplastic. That year Elgon also renewed the formula of Moda&Styling, its main permanent colour line, and introduced a colour-consultancy service to help hairdressers choose shades for their clients. Caimano also said the group was returning to Egypt, a market it had left during a period of political instability.

In 2021 Elgon began using active ingredients made through biotechnology and started installing a solar power system at its production site. From 2023 its shampoo bottles and mask jars moved to fully recycled plastic. In 2024 the brand began supporting La Forza e il Sorriso, an Italian charity that runs workshops for women undergoing cancer treatment. A blog post in November 2024 announced Affixx, a capsule collection of styling products.

Elgon belongs to Pidielle S.p.A., whose registered office is at Via Bergamina in Nerviano. Pidielle is an independent Italian company; no acquisition of Elgon or its owner by a larger beauty group is documented.

In the 2018 interview, Serena Caimano described Pidielle as managing four brands, with everything from product concept and formulation to manufacturing, sales and logistics handled in Italy. Elgon accounted for 85% of turnover and Mood, the second brand, for 10% [6]. The remainder came from two smaller brands: Link-D, which covers chemical hair services, and OleaColor, a classic colour kit sold through wholesalers and specialist shops. The company then employed 80 people in Italy. Pidielle's trade profile lists its main brands as Elgon, Elgon Green, Mood and Link-D. According to the company's Italian website, women make up 60% of its workforce.

Exports have long been central to the business. In 2018, 85% of revenue came from outside Italy. The Americas formed the largest region, where the company had a local subsidiary and sold directly, followed by Europe, where Spain, Poland and the United Kingdom sold well alongside Italy. Russia came next, with smaller projects in Asia, including Japan and Malaysia. By country, the top three markets were Chile, Italy and Poland, with Chile the fastest-growing at 36%.

Published figures for the brand's international reach differ by date. The FashionNetwork report in 2018 put exports at 90 countries across five continents. The Mexican importer said in 2019 that Elgon was present in 73 countries [9]. Pidielle's trade profile says the company is distributed in 91 countries [7]. The figures may measure different things, such as export destinations rather than active brand presence.

Elgon presents itself as a partner to hairdressers rather than a consumer label. The company says it supports "passion and creativity through haircare with professional and effective products", and describes its promise as one of uniqueness, bringing inspiration and innovation from Italian manufacturing to the rest of the world. Its stated mission is to offer an experience tailored to "enhance the uniqueness of each and every individual".

Education is a large part of that pitch. The brand says it believes training and education lead to a salon's success, and it runs programmes for the hairstylists, salon owners and distributors it works with. Pidielle's profile frames its approach as pairing Italian-made products with business-development support, international education and bespoke services for salon partners.

Elgon also stresses what it calls a short supply chain. According to the company, it handles each product's journey itself, from idea and formulation to production, packaging and shipping, and producing in Italy without intermediaries lets it control quality. The brand's motto, "You Look Good", appears in its women-focused social projects. Its Mexican importer describes the brand as one that, in a world that shouts, chooses to speak softly and let the quality of its products do the talking.

Hair colour sits at the centre of the range. Moda&Styling, a permanent colour, was described in 2018 as the brand's main colour line. Pidielle's trade profile also presents Luminuance, a permanent colouring oil, and the Get The Color line, which includes a salon colour service called Natural Glow.

The care side is organised into lines by hair need. Yes Curls, for curly hair, uses a complex the brand calls Biotech Hydra Oils, which it says nourishes the hair and keeps curls soft and defined. Yes Daily is a gentle everyday line built around hyper-fermented aloe vera, and Yes Shine targets dull hair. Other lines include Primaria, for scalp care, and Colorcare, for protecting coloured hair. Products the brand highlights among its most popular include Super Control Shampoo, an anti-frizz formula, Hydra Beauty Conditioner, for dry fine to normal hair, and Hair DD Cream, a spray cream that the company describes as having ten benefits in one. The ultra-strong hairspray 101 Fix It! was a new addition in 2026.

Since 2021 the company has worked with active ingredients produced through biotechnology. Elgon says this method uses less water and fewer natural resources than traditional extraction and creates less processing waste. The brand states that its formulas are free of SLES (sodium laureth sulfate, a common foaming agent) and not tested on animals. No third-party cruelty-free certification is documented.

Packaging is the focus of most of Elgon's environmental claims. Since 2023, according to the company, its shampoo bottles and mask jars have been made from fully recycled PET, with caps of recycled polypropylene. Styling products come in aluminium cans, and secondary packaging is cut back or made from recycled paper. Elgon also uses OceanAction labels from the label maker UPM Raflatac, made from plastic waste collected within 50 km of coastlines. The brand notes that this label material won the Sustainability Award at the 2023 Label Industry Global Awards [3]; the award went to the supplier's material, not to an Elgon product.

The company says the solar power system it began installing in 2021 is designed to meet all of its production energy needs. It stops short of claiming carbon neutrality, stating that it is not yet able to eliminate the emissions from its packaging entirely.

Social projects form the other half of the company's commitments. Through COOPI, Elgon has supported an initiative in Sierra Leone aimed at 2,500 women and their communities, with a focus on food security and the cashew supply chain. In 2018 FashionNetwork reported that the project supported 168 women in cashew growing and processing, with around 1,000 involved in training and 1,400 families affected. The company later backed a water-supply project in Ethiopia and, since 2024, beauty workshops for women in cancer treatment in hospitals across Italy.

Elgon is active. As of September 2026, its online shop was running a seasonal campaign for the Primaria scalp line and listing newly launched products such as 101 Fix It! [1]. The brand continues to sell mainly through hair salons and distributors worldwide, alongside direct sales from its own website and a salon locator for Italy. Its most recent blog post dates from November 2024.