Subrina Professional

Subrina Professional is a professional haircare brand that makes colours, care and styling products sold exclusively to hairdressers and salons. It traces its roots to Slovenia, where the Subrina name first appeared in 1958 [3], and it now operates across more than fifty countries in Europe, the Americas and beyond. The brand remains active: its site carries a current copyright notice for CPE GmbH, the German company listed as its present operating parent [1].

The lineage behind the name is layered. The Subrina brand was created by the Slovenian company Ilirija, and Ilirija's own group pages still list "Subrina and Subrina Professional" among its key brands [7]. The dedicated professional line for hairdressers, from which this brand takes its name, was introduced later, in 1998.

According to the brand's history, the story began in 1958 with the launch of what it describes as the region's first hair conditioner, in what was then Yugoslavia [3]. Through the following decades the operation grew alongside its Slovenian parent: a professional studio and a new factory in Ljubljana in the 1960s, a merger with the cosmetics company Vedrog in 1975, and a second factory in Lendava in the 1980s. During that period the company also manufactured products under licence and for other firms, including Koleston under Wella's licence and deodorants, toothpaste and other goods for Unilever.

The turning point for the professional identity came in 1998, when a line aimed specifically at hairdressers was introduced and production of the Tricolor Professional colours began. The company markets more than sixty years of experience, dating that heritage to the 1958 birth of the Subrina brand rather than to the 1998 professional launch.

Ownership is recorded differently across the brand's own sources, and both values are worth stating. Subrina Professional's current site names CPE GmbH, based in Kirchanschöring, Germany, as its parent and copyright holder [1]. The heritage owner and creator of the Subrina name is Ilirija d.d. of Ljubljana, Slovenia, whose corporate lineage reaches back to 1908 under the founder Franc Golob and the original firm "Golob & Ko" [6]. Ilirija's group pages continue to identify Subrina and Subrina Professional as key brands and describe the company as one of the larger cosmetics manufacturers in that part of Europe. In 2006 Ilirija acquired the company Lek Kozmetika [6]. The professional arm now appears to operate under CPE GmbH, while the brand's manufacturing and heritage remain tied to Slovenia.

The company describes Subrina Professional as "a brand of professional cosmetics for hairdressers," offering a range that spans hair colours, care and styling for salon use [2]. Its stated ambition is for the brand "to be the first choice of every hairdresser" [5]. Positioning rests on decades of accumulated experience and on quality standards the company says are demonstrated through various certificates. Distribution is deliberately closed to consumers: the brand states that its products are offered "exclusively for hairdressing professionals" [5], reaching salons through professional distributors in each market. Its support for partners extends to seminars, an ambassador programme, in-salon training and catalogues and salon branding materials.

The professional range is organised around colour, care, styling and refresh products. Among the items the brand lists as best sellers are its Keratin Mask and Keratin Therapy treatments, Colour Mask tints, a Silver Mask, permanent hair colours and a repair oil, with keratin recurring as a hero ingredient across its care line. The company describes its own research and development department, an experimental studio for testing on volunteer hair, and in-house laboratories, and it says each product passes through more than twenty stages including in-vivo testing [5]. Testing collaborations named by the brand include the Fresenius Institute and an Institute of Cosmetics.

The brand cites two Slovenian honours: an "Oscar for packaging" awarded by the Slovenian Chamber of Commerce in 2004, and the "Slovenia Superbrands 2007" title [3].

Subrina Professional is an active, multi-region brand. Its website is current, carrying a 2026 copyright notice for CPE GmbH, and it maintains education and ambassador programmes alongside a professional distributor network spanning more than fifty countries, including several Nordic markets [1]. Its Slovenian parent group Ilirija reports around 220 employees and opened a new finished-goods warehouse in 2022 [7].