KEVIN.MURPHY

KEVIN.MURPHY is an Australian professional haircare brand founded by session stylist Kevin Murphy. It built its identity around the idea of applying skincare thinking to hair: lightweight formulas made from naturally derived ingredients, sold primarily through salons. The company dates its launch to 2004, when it introduced a first line of seven products [5]; the brand's own About page describes the origin only as the early 2000s without naming a year [2].

The brand remains active and operates internationally as part of the independently held Kevin Murphy Group, with business units across Australia, North America, Europe and Asia. It is known for texturising "beach hair" styling and, more recently, for sustainability commitments centred on recycled packaging and emissions targets.

⚑ Thinner sourcing. The article relies largely on the brand's own statements (T2–T3). Glowpedia is seeking independent sources.

Kevin Murphy worked as an editorial and session stylist before launching the brand, training at Vidal Sassoon in London and building a career on runways, in fashion editorials and on film, including work on Moulin Rouge!. According to the company, the products grew out of practical frustration on set, where existing haircare underperformed under lights and long shoot days. Murphy's stated motivation was that "the lack of products that performed the way I needed them to on a shoot pushed me to look beyond traditional haircare."

That search led him toward skincare formulation. The brand traces its "skincare for your hair" philosophy to photo shoots in the early 1990s, when Murphy began improvising — mixing body lotion with hairspray, thinning gel with toner — to get effects that were not commercially available, an approach he says produced the precursor to the HAIR.RESORT line. KEVIN.MURPHY launched in 2004 with seven products built around naturally derived ingredients [5].

KEVIN.MURPHY positions itself as a salon-only professional range created for stylists. The company organises its identity around three stated pillars: Fashion, Performance and Environment. The first reflects its origins backstage and on set; the second its emphasis on results and use by professionals; the third its packaging and ingredient choices. The brand sums up its outlook with the line that great hair "should never come at the planet's expense."

Central to the positioning is the "skincare for your hair" idea — that lightweight, layered formulas drawn from skincare methods can deliver performance without weighing hair down. The company describes its products as designed to deliver "performance, strength and longevity, while being gentle for your hair and the Earth."

The range spans shampoo, conditioner, treatments and styling products, grouped by benefit such as hydration, volume, smoothing and colour protection. Among its signature styling items are HAIR.RESORT.SPRAY, a texturising spray, and ANTI.GRAVITY.SPRAY, a volumising product the brand says it has made "since 2004." The texturising, undone "beach hair" look became closely associated with the brand; Vogue credited Kevin Murphy as the originator of that style [5].

The company states that its formulas are not tested on animals and that this policy will not change. It says products are developed and tested on real hair by qualified professionals rather than on animals.

Sustainability has become a visible part of the brand's communications. In 2018 it announced a shift toward Ocean Waste Plastic (O.W.P) packaging, working with the packaging firm Pack Tech to collect plastic from oceans, rivers and beaches and recycle it into new bottles; the brand said at the time that all of its packaging was fully recyclable [6]. Fast Company reported the brand's pledge to source all of its packaging from ocean waste plastic, a programme it framed as removing around 360 tonnes of plastic from the ocean each year [9].

The company's current sustainability statements focus on emissions and circularity rather than ocean plastic specifically. It says it is targeting a 42% reduction in Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions from a 2024 baseline by 2030, and net-zero emissions by 2050, with figures submitted to the Science Based Targets initiative [4]. It also describes work on increasing recycled content in packaging, a supplier code of conduct and human-rights policy, and partnerships including the nature-restoration group Greenfleet and EY's climate and sustainability team. The brand references frameworks such as the GHG Protocol and B Corp Standards in this work, though no confirmed B Corp certification is documented.

KEVIN.MURPHY operates as the flagship brand of the Kevin Murphy Group, described in trade coverage as a global haircare company with a US entity in Salt Lake City and additional operations in Europe and Asia [7]. Laurent Misischi is named as global chief executive [8]. The group is independently held; no major beauty conglomerate has been identified as an owner.

In 2023 the Kevin Murphy Group expanded beyond haircare by acquiring Showpony, an ethically sourced hair-extensions brand [8].

Press attention has centred on the brand's packaging and sustainability moves, including Fast Company's coverage of its ocean-plastic packaging pledge and BeautyMatter's reporting on the Showpony acquisition. The brand's styling work, particularly its association with "beach hair," has also drawn editorial recognition from Vogue [5].

KEVIN.MURPHY is an active, internationally distributed professional haircare brand. Its most recent prominent activity was a 2024 campaign marking 20 years, which included limited-edition anniversary bottles [5], alongside continued sustainability reporting tied to its 2024 emissions baseline [4].