RÖWO

RÖWO is a German brand of massage and skin-care preparations made for physiotherapy, physical therapy, sports medicine and rehabilitation. Its range covers massage oils, lotions, creams, salves and waxes, alongside gels and sprays for heat and cold treatment. The brand is run by Sportomed GmbH in Flörsheim-Dalsheim, Germany, and it is no longer independent: Sportomed has belonged to the Eimermacher Group, a family-owned German manufacturer, since 2004 [8].

Unlike most skin-care brands, RÖWO is aimed first at professionals. Its business portal is reserved for physiotherapists and other trade users, while a separate shop serves private customers [6]. The brand's own founding year is not documented; the company says only that RÖWO has stood for quality "for decades".

Little is known publicly about how RÖWO began. No founder is named, and the brand's website does not give a founding date. The clearest fixed point in its early history concerns the company behind it rather than the brand itself: according to the Eimermacher Group's corporate timeline, SportoMed, the business that now operates RÖWO, was founded in 1986 [8]. That timeline does not mention RÖWO by name, so 1986 should be read as the founding year of the operating company, not necessarily of the brand.

Sportomed GmbH is registered at Willy-Brandt-Ring in Flörsheim-Dalsheim, and both the consumer site and the professional portal identify it as the operator. The business portal describes itself as the RÖWO online shop "of Sportomed GmbH" [6].

RÖWO sits inside a much larger and older group. The Eimermacher Group traces its roots to 1910, when Ferdinand Eimermacher set up a small business in the Münsterland region of north-western Germany supplying oils and fats for uses ranging from animal care to motoring. The group's own history credits his breakthrough to an udder salve developed around 1930 with natural balsams brought back from Peru by a doctor friend, which led the company into dairy hygiene for decades.

From the 1980s the business widened its scope. In 1983 it received a manufacturing licence under the German Medicines Act and, in the group's words, expanded into a pharmaceutical and cosmetics producer; good manufacturing practice (GMP) standards followed in 1994. A series of acquisitions then turned it into a group of companies: Schweizer-Effax in 1997, SportoMed in 2004, Holmenkol in 2012 and Pharmaka in 2019 [8].

Today the group lists Ferdinand Eimermacher GmbH & Co. KG, Schweizer-Effax GmbH, SportoMed GmbH, Holmenkol GmbH, Pharmaka GmbH, E Analytics GmbH, Schweizer-Nova AG and Eimermacher Handels GmbH & Co KG as members [7]. It says it employs more than 200 people and sells over 2,500 products under 17 brands, reaching customers in more than 70 countries [7]. The group describes itself as run by the fourth generation of the founding family, and its main production site is in Nordwalde, in the Münsterland.

The group features RÖWO among its brands on its corporate website. In Austria, RÖWO's professional catalogue is distributed by the group's trading company, Eimermacher Handels GmbH & Co KG, based in Steinhaus near Wels [5].

RÖWO presents itself as a working tool for therapy practices rather than a consumer beauty label. The company says it develops products and applications that accompany therapists through their daily work and complement their treatments. Its stated aim is to make the therapist's working day "simpler, more efficient and more successful", both for practitioners and for patients hoping for lasting results [2].

The brand sets out eight values on its website: practice orientation, effectiveness, quality, skin tolerance, user orientation, efficiency, partnership and continuous development. Two of these carry most of the weight in how RÖWO describes itself. On skin tolerance, it says it puts particular emphasis on skin-friendly formulas, because good tolerance is part of effective therapy. On user orientation, it says close exchange with physiotherapists, masseurs and other specialist users forms the basis for developing its range. Its tagline, used across its sites, is "Feel the difference."

The brand's homepage describes its products as "scientifically grounded" and frames the range around three goals: efficiency in the practice, freedom of movement for patients, and results that can be felt. These are the company's own descriptions of its range.

The core of RÖWO's cosmetic range is LiproSens, a family of massage products that includes oils, lotions, creams, salves, wax, a tonic and the Med Balance gels. According to the brand's catalogue, the name combines "LIpo-PROteine" and "SENSibilität"; the company explains that lipoproteins play a key part in maintaining the skin's natural protective mechanisms [5].

To help therapists choose between textures, RÖWO sorts its massage products on a scale it calls Grip & Glide. Each product is rated for how much it lets the hands hold the skin (grip) and how far it lets them slide (glide), with the brand describing this as a classification of its consistencies by friction behaviour [5]. LiproSens Lotion Basis, for example, is labelled Grip 1 and Glide 3, meaning a strong glide effect suited to long, flowing strokes over large areas. The company says this lotion is free of microplastics and parabens, is vegan, and was tested by physiotherapists [1]. These claims are made for that product rather than for the whole range.

Several other products are featured prominently on the brand's own pages:

- LiproSens Salbe Sport, a salve with mint oil that the brand describes as refreshing and invigorating, intended for sensitive, stressed, dry and brittle skin. - Flexi Forte Gel, a warming gel that the company says gives an intense, long-lasting sensation of heat, absorbs quickly without leaving a greasy film, and works as a base under kinesiology tape. - Bein und Venen Balsam (leg and vein balm), a light, moisturising balm with horse chestnut extract and aloe vera, described as accompanying skin care for venous congestion and varicose veins and as a refreshing massage for tired legs.

Beyond massage products, RÖWO groups much of its range under what it calls functional preparations for cold and heat therapy. The catalogue explains that local cold treatments, applied as salves, sprays, rollers or gels, play an important role in physiotherapy and sports medicine. Products in this line include Sport Gel, made with mint oil, arnica and echinacea, which the brand says has a strong cooling effect and is suitable for use under tape and with ultrasound treatment. Magnesium Forte Gel combines magnesium with menthol and mint oil for relaxation after physical exertion, and an ice spray with menthol is intended to ease pain after bruises, falls and sprains. A horse-chestnut, arnica and rosemary salve is sold under the German name Pferdesalbe ("horse ointment") and described as cooling and refreshing.

For heat therapy, the catalogue describes three ways of applying warmth: by placing a pack on the body, by radiant heat lamps, or by rubbing a preparation into the skin. RÖWO supplies all three, from heat packs and compresses to warming salves, some containing finely ground pumice for a peeling effect.

RÖWO's shops also sell a wide selection of non-cosmetic practice supplies, including treatment couches, stools, tapes, exercise bands, balance equipment, anatomical charts and hygiene products. The skin-care and massage preparations make up only part of what the brand offers.

### Quality standards

On its quality page, RÖWO says its products are made under certification to DIN EN ISO 13485, the standard for medical-device quality management, and DIN EN ISO 9001, together with compliance with GMP guidelines [3]. It adds that these are supplemented by regular testing and dermatological tests. The parent group's timeline records first certification to both ISO standards in 2018. These are quality-management and manufacturing standards; no third-party ethical or organic certifications, such as cruelty-free or COSMOS labels, are documented for the brand.

Where RÖWO products are manufactured is not stated explicitly. The Eimermacher Group says its production takes place at its site in Nordwalde, and also notes an additional production facility at the Flörsheim-Dalsheim location that houses SportoMed.

RÖWO is an active brand operating under group ownership. Sportomed GmbH, its operator, was taken over by the Eimermacher Group in 2004 and continues as one of the group's member companies, with RÖWO as its brand [8]. In 2026 the brand ran both a consumer web shop and a professional business portal, with German and English language versions, and promoted appointments with its team at the theraPro 2026 trade fair in Stuttgart [6]. Its documented distribution is concentrated in German-speaking markets, with a dedicated professional catalogue for Austria covering 2024–25.