GUHL

GUHL is a haircare brand founded in Switzerland in 1937 by the Swiss hairdresser Gustav Guhl, who built his first products from natural ingredients grown on his own farm [6]. Since 1991 it has been wholly owned by the Japanese consumer-goods company Kao Corporation and operates today as Guhl Ikebana GmbH, a Kao group company based in Darmstadt, Germany [3][6]. It is no longer an independent business; it runs as a Kao submark, though it remains commercially active, with a live brand site, more than twenty product lines and an ongoing blog.

The brand's origins are Swiss, but its centre of gravity has long since shifted to German-speaking Europe. Sources record the country of origin as Switzerland, where the company was founded, while its present headquarters, manufacturing and "developed and made in Germany" positioning reflect its current German operations rather than its birthplace.

Gustav Guhl — full name Gottlieb August Guhl — was born in Zurich in 1910 and trained as a ladies' hairdresser. According to the Swiss National Museum, he made his name styling wealthy clients in Zurich and aboard cruise ships, and travelled to China and Japan introducing shorter haircuts for women [5]. In 1932 he won a world championship in the "day hairstyle" discipline in Zurich. After completing cosmetological training in Paris, where he became interested in the link between cosmetics and chemistry, he founded Laboratoires Guhl in 1937 on a farm he had bought in his home village of Schöfflisdorf, in the canton of Zurich [6].

What set the early business apart was its raw material. Guhl experimented in his barn with natural substances — chamomile, birch extract, wheat germ, beer and egg cognac — formulating hair products meant to address different hair problems. The Swiss National Museum describes the result as what was then called the "caviar of shampoos" [5]. The brand name itself is a Swiss play on the word Gockel, meaning rooster, which gave the company its early cockerel trademark.

From 1966 the products moved beyond Switzerland into Germany and Austria under the slogan "Es gibt nichts Besseres für Ihr Haar" ("There is nothing better for your hair"), and shortly afterwards into Britain and France. Gustav Guhl died in 1978, and after his death the company was taken over by the German group Beiersdorf, maker of Nivea [7]. The cockerel trademark survived only briefly before being dropped [5].

Ownership then passed eastward in stages. By the brand-encyclopedia Markenlexikon, Beiersdorf brought Guhl into a joint venture with its Japanese partner Kao in 1980, before selling the brand entirely to Kao in 1991 [7]. The Swiss National Museum's account compresses the handover, dating the Kao involvement to the period around the 1978 Beiersdorf takeover rather than naming a separate 1980 venture [5]; the two sources agree on the start (Beiersdorf, 1978) and the end point (full Kao ownership, 1991).

GUHL has been wholly owned by Kao Corporation since 1991 [6]. Its legal entity is Guhl Ikebana GmbH, identified in the brand's imprint as "a Kao Group company," with its registered address in Darmstadt [3]. Within Kao's stable of beauty brands it sits alongside names such as Goldwell, John Frieda, Molton Brown, Oribe, KMS and Bioré.

GUHL presents itself as dependable, genuine-quality haircare drawing on more than eighty-five years of experience, with formulas intended to engage the senses. The company frames its identity around quality and trust, summarised in its own words as "real quality you can trust," and emphasises ingredients of up to 99% natural origin, developed and manufactured in Germany. It is positioned as a mainstream drugstore haircare range rather than a premium line.

GUHL's catalogue is organised into more than twenty named lines, each aimed at a specific hair need — among them Kraft & Fülle (volume), Anti-Schuppen (anti-dandruff), Reparatur & Aufbau (repair), Blond Glanz & Pflege (blonde care) and Bond+ Reparatur. The range also includes dedicated Kids and MEN lines, dry shampoos and rapid intensive treatments. Hero ingredients reach back to the founder's natural formulations — peach oil, wheat germ oil, beer and egg cognac — alongside more contemporary additions such as hyaluronic acid and panthenol.

On responsibility, the company states that its products are vegan and not tested on animals, citing PETA-Approved Vegan status, and that formulations are up to 99% biodegradable. It describes individual lines as dermatologically confirmed, and its sensitive-scalp line (Kopfhaut Sensitiv) as certified by ECARF, the European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation, for relieving itching.

In 2021 the Swiss National Museum published a feature titled "The hair magician Guhl," profiling Gustav Guhl as a pioneer of Swiss shampoo and tracing the brand's beginnings [5].

GUHL is an active brand under acquired ownership. It has been part of Kao Corporation since 1991 and trades as Guhl Ikebana GmbH out of Darmstadt. As of 2026 it maintains a live website with more than twenty current product lines, a creator community and a running blog, and markets its "over 85 years" of haircare heritage. Its commercial footprint centres on German-speaking Europe, with a separate Dutch-language market site, and its products are also sold across Nordic markets.