Personal Care Industry

Personal care products are consumer products associated with hygiene and personal grooming, applied to external parts of the body including the skin, hair, nails, lips, external genital and anal areas, teeth, and the mucous membrane of the oral cavity, a broader category than cosmetics, which are used specifically for grooming and aesthetic enhancement of appearance. The global personal care products industry is worth several hundred billion dollars as of the early 2020s, and by 2025 the average adult in the United States used a dozen personal care products daily containing more than 110 unique ingredients. Leading companies include Procter and Gamble, L'Oreal, Johnson and Johnson, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Gillette, Avon, Natura and Co, Kimberly-Clark, and Shiseido. Regulatory treatment of the industry's ingredients differs sharply between markets: as of 2025 the European Union had banned more than 2,400 personal care ingredients, while the United States had banned only 15.