SO FRESH AND SO CLEAN

Good news, friends. Although the personal care market looked quite bleak when we last covered it in April, your co-workers and friends have returned to showering and using deodorant as they’ve started to re-enter society.

During the month of April, products like shampoo, lotion, deodorant and shavers were claiming a significantly lower spot in the American shopping basket than they had the year prior. Part of this was due to significantly increased food purchasing, knocking non-food items down a few rungs on the ranking ladder. But sales for these products also saw significant decreases as consumers adopted a home-confined lifestyle.

During the month of May — as socially distanced gatherings grew more common, some returned to the office and businesses across the services sector reopened —  personal care products increased steadily in the CPG purchase rankings. By May 30th, most of the categories below had returned to a very similar purchase ranking they saw during the same week in 2019.

Hair spray and hair styling are an exception, still coming in 9 places below where they were for the same week last year. Perhaps we’ve all grown a little more lax about containing those flyaways or more comfortable wearing baseball caps to work.