Hong Kong heartthrob celebrity Andy Lau used to say in a hair-care product TV commercial in the early 1990s: "The girl of my dreams should have beautiful, pitch-black hair."
Uttered in his mellow voice, this simple message kept his admirers spellbound. It also marked the start of the booming Chinese hair-care product market.
It was at that time that major hair-care brands started to make their appearances in this huge market - Rejoice in 1989, Pantene in 1992 and L'Oreal Paris in 1996.
According to a report by market research company RNCOS, the Chinese hair-care market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.5 percent between 2011 and 2013.
Statistics showed that about 20 percent of Chinese people wash their hair every day while 75 percent of them do so every three days. The market value of shampoo is about 30 billion yuan ($4.5 billion) while the market value of other hair-care products is worth about 20 billion yuan.
On a per capita basis, the Chinese spent just $1.79 a year on hair-care products in 2009, according to Datamonitor Industry Market Research.
Li Shulin, a marketing expert based in Beijing, said: "Although the Chinese hair-care market has been dominated by international players, there is still scope for them to move forward as well as allowing newcomers in."
Procter & Gamble Co (P&G) has a 55 percent market share in terms of hair-care products, followed by Unilever, and is the world's largest consumer goods company by volume, said Li.
Last year, P&G announced it would invest at least $1 billion in China over the next five years and also launched an innovation center in Beijing with an investment of $80 million.
Richard Chen, director of the P&G Beijing Innovation Center, said: "Chinese consumers' major requirements for hair-care products have become more specific, which is where the major competition in the Chinese market is based."
Chen said technology development and innovation has always taken a large proportion of P&G's total budget to meet consumers' changing demands.
In China, shampoos accounts for 78.9 percent of products in the hair-related market. Conditioners make up 11.6 percent of the market and all other hair-care products combined account for the remaining 9.5 percent, according to Datamonitor.
The RNCOS report said that specialized shampoos and conditioners for moisturizing, repairing, dandruff treatment or straightening effects were widely adopted by Chinese consumers.
Last September, P&G launched Pantene Hair Care Science Institute in an effort to combine the research results of Chinese consumers' demands and P&G's global hair-care expertise.
In 2009, Peking University First Hospital and Pantene launched research involving 600 consumers in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou.
Yang Shuxia, an expert at Peking University First Hospital, said that about 88 percent of respondents in Shanghai and 70 percent in Beijing think their hair has been badly damaged while Guangzhou ranked No 3 with 58 percent.
In response, P&G's Pantene brand has launched many products focusing on repairing hair damage caused by styling and color processing.
Chen said that, for example, "leave-on" products in addition to daily shampoo and conditioning have become a trend. Pantene Clinicare Split End Fuser, a new member of the Pantene hair-care brand, is an example.
Jeni Thomas, a senior scientist at Pantene, added that another important aspect in the company's research is night-care products to provide deep and intensive treatment while people sleep.
In 2009, BaWang International (Group) Holding Ltd, China's largest herbal shampoo maker, undertook an initial public offering in Hong Kong, raising HK$1.55 billion ($199.5 million) for the company, which attracted much attention because Chinese traditional prescriptions were for the first time being adopted in modern personal care products.
Thomas said: "Chinese traditional prescriptions emphasize the value of nature. And, Pantene also highly values the application of natural ingredients.
"We have spent a lot of effort on maximizing the effect of nature through technology. And you can find our Nature Fusion Collection in the global market. The products are a great combination of hair-care technology and the power of nature to give gorgeous results."
According to RNCOS, there are nearly 3,500 domestic cosmetics players in China, but the majority of them operate on a small scale. Big foreign and domestic cosmetics players will adopt the merger and acquisition route to attain growth in the market.
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