Herbal Essences

Herbal Essences is an American hair care brand owned by Procter & Gamble (P&G). It began in 1971 as a single green shampoo and has grown into a worldwide range of shampoos, conditioners, treatments, styling products and hair fragrance mists [8]. The brand remains active, sold across regional markets including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Brazil, and it positions itself around plant-derived ingredients under the line "We Are Plant Obsessed."

Much of the brand's modern identity rests on its bio:renew line and a botanical-authentication partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Its earlier cultural footprint, by contrast, came from the 1990s and 2000s advertising era built around the tagline "A totally organic experience."

The brand was established in 1971 by Clairol as a single product, the Clairol Herbal Essence Shampoo [8]. The shampoo was green and, according to Wikipedia, visible through clear plastic bottle packaging, with a cartoon "nature girl" pictured in a pool on the label. The sources do not name the brand's founders or an original headquarters city.

Herbal Essences expanded into the United Kingdom and other markets in 1997 [8]. In 2001, Clairol sold the brand to Procter & Gamble; Wikipedia notes that company leadership at the time described it as being in a long-term decline [8].

Under P&G, the brand reformulated around plant ingredients. In 2017 it launched bio:renew, a range of shampoos and conditioners free from colourants, parabens and gluten [9]. Two years later, in 2019, Herbal Essences introduced tactile packaging — raised lines and dots that help blind and low-vision shoppers tell shampoo from conditioner; the company presents it as one of the first such efforts to reduce barriers in the hair care aisle.

Herbal Essences has been owned by Procter & Gamble since 2001, when P&G acquired it from Clairol [8]. It sits within P&G's hair care portfolio alongside sister brands including Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Aussie and Olay.

The brand describes itself as "plant obsessed" and says it sources real botanicals — naming aloe as an example — for each bottle of its bio:renew shampoos and conditioners. According to the company, its stated values include ingredient transparency, a "safety first" approach, plant protection and biodiversity, and inclusive design. Herbal Essences also publishes a "no-no-no list" of ingredients it avoids in bio:renew formulas, among them parabens, mineral oil, phthalates, coal tar dyes and added colourants, and states that these formulas are made to meet the ingredient standards of the European Union's Cosmetics Directive.

The bio:renew shampoos and conditioners are the brand's signature line, sold in collections built around ingredients such as argan oil, coconut, honey, aloe, jojoba oil and rose. The range also includes a hair fragrance mist line. Herbal Essences is certified cruelty-free by PETA, and the company says its products and ingredients are not tested on animals.

Central to bio:renew is a partnership with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Botanists at Kew authenticate the key botanicals used in the line through a process the brand calls plant "fingerprinting," comparing extracts from Kew's collections against those in the products. Kew states that its Commercial Phytochemistry Unit authenticated histidine, described as a natural antioxidant, in the bio:renew formulas [9]. A 2018 press release announcing the collaboration described bio:renew as featuring active antioxidants intended to counter environmental factors, such as water impurities, that can compromise hair [10].

The start date of the Kew partnership differs between sources. A BusinessWire press release, mirrored on BioSpace, dates the global announcement to June 18, 2018, and calls Herbal Essences the first global hair care brand endorsed by Kew [10]. Kew's own website carries a later page, dated May 2019, describing the collaboration in a UK-launch context [9].

Herbal Essences ties several environmental commitments to its botanical sourcing. The company says it seed-banked 60 endangered plant species with Kew's Millennium Seed Bank in 2020, and in 2022 pledged funds to help replant 200,000 trees with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, following what it describes as Kew's "10 Golden Rules for Restoring Forests" [5]. According to the brand, its sites worldwide reduced total water consumption by more than 20 percent between 2010 and 2016. Wikipedia adds that in 2016 the brand began buying certified renewable wind-electricity credits for its Iowa City plant [8].

The Kew partnership drew trade coverage in 2018, including a BusinessWire announcement quoting Lynn Hicks, then Herbal Essences' North America brand manager, and Professor Monique Simmonds, deputy director of science at Kew [10]. Over the years the brand has also used celebrity endorsements in its advertising, among them Dr. Ruth Westheimer in 1998 and the singer Nicole Scherzinger in a 2014 commercial.

In 2021, Procter & Gamble recalled about 30 of its hair products, including some Herbal Essences aerosol items, after detecting small amounts of the carcinogen benzene [8].

Herbal Essences is an active, global brand. It maintains regional websites across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, continues to sell its bio:renew range, and made sustainability commitments as recently as 2022 [5].