Key Takeaways:
Unilever, one of the largest beauty corporations in the world, has just launched a range of refillable antiperspirants in the UK and Ireland under its Dove brand, with a wider European rollout set to follow. The launch is turning heads thanks to the sheer scale.
In 2025, Unilever generated €50.5 billion ($58.5 billion) in annual turnover and pulled in €6.2 billion ($7.2 billion) in net profit. The company's personal care business—where deodorants sit—remains its largest business arm, generating €13.2 billion ($15.29 billion) in turnover, ahead of foods at €12.9 billion ($14.94 billion), beauty and well-being at €12.8 billion ($14.83 billion), and home care at €11.6 billion ($13.44 billion).
“When a brand the size of Dove moves into refill, it helps shift the category from niche to normal,” said Jo Chidley, circular economy expert and founder of sustainable beauty startup Beauty Kitchen and reuse platform Reposit. “It signals to retailers, suppliers, and consumers that refill isn't just a sustainability experiment but something that can sit within everyday routines,” Chidley told BeautyMatter.
Large companies, she said, often pilot, learn, and iterate before something reaches scale, so it is encouraging to see Dove continuing to evolve refill models “rather than treating them as one-off experiments.”
Bold Ambition
Unilever has certainly been piloting, learning, and iterating. After more than five years of product testing and iterations—including its US refillable deodorant test launch in 2021—the brand managed to pack its unchanged flagship 72-hour antiperspirant formula into durable, refillable cases made from 70% recycled materials. Launched with three starter kits featuring a case and product refill in three colors and scents—original in light blue, Violet & Tonka in purple, and Peony & Pineapple in pink—the Dove reusable cases and refills are designed to be interchangeable.
In total, the brand has launched six standalone refills: the three original scents plus Macadamia & Coconut, White flower & Heliotrope, and Lily & Green Lime, each retailing at £16 ($21) in the refillable cases, with refills at £7 ($9).
The launch is backed by a £7.5 million ($9.9 million) marketing campaign spanning digital activations across YouTube, TikTok, Meta, Pinterest, TV placements, store pop-ups, and in-store displays. The end goal of the launch is to take these refillable antiperspirants from 3%-4% of the entire deodorant category to 15%-20% within five years, according to Chris Barron, General Manager of Personal Care at Unilever UK & Ireland.
“Anything up to 15% of the market, I think, is a really bold ambition,” Barron told BeautyMatter. “Think of it like 20% of the shelf—this is the kind of vision that we've built up for it. It's not just an innovation play; it's a genuine systemic change in the category, offering people a way to have refillable deodorants in the brands they love.”
Taking Refills “From Niche to Normal”
Chidley described the launch as a “positive and important move.”
Importantly, she said Dove's simplistic design—where consumers simply swap a refill into the reusable case—lowers barriers to entry and makes the behavior easier to repeat. “If you want behavior change at scale, the system has to feel intuitive and desirable for consumers,” she said. Beyond pack design, the product also has to be easy to understand and use, easy to find in store, and trustworthy in terms of performance.
Viola Jardon, Head of Innovation Programmes at the UK's Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), agreed, citing consumer ease and convenience, a clear value proposition, and pricing that reflects consumer expectations as key elements to ensure successful scale in refills.
“Behavioral evidence shows that people rarely adopt refill models unless they are as simple, intuitive, and reliable as the formats they already use,” Jardon said. “Modern consumers are time-pressed; the refill experience must remove friction rather than introduce it.”
Consumers are also looking for personal benefits with a refill purchase, she explained, be that around product performance, user experience, or meaningful cost savings, so brands must be aware of this when designing for scale.
“Refillable deodorants from a brand as large as Dove represent a meaningful step forward, but the sustainability impact will only be realized if consumers adopt the model at scale. Startups have already demonstrated that there is an appetite for beautifully designed, low-waste deodorants; the challenge now is to translate that early enthusiasm into mass-market behavior,” said Jardon.
Listening to Consumers, Learning from Wild
Barron said Unilever's goal is to make these refills accessible and desirable. “There's a clear signal out there that people are looking for these options,” he said. Consumers today are demanding sustainability alongside performance; they still want the best formulas, fragrances, and packaging, so desirability is absolutely key for the future of refills across beauty and personal care.
Wild, for example—the UK's leading refillable deodorant brand, acquired by Unilever last year—has been working in the refills sector since 2020 and has proven the importance of desirability in the wider sustainability category. The startup worked with award-winning UK industrial design and innovation agency Morrama on its sleek and fun refill designs made to stand out on shelf and in bathrooms.
Dove has been working closely with the Wild team since the takeover, Barron said. “We see [this launch] as very complementary to Wild, who are operating in deodorant sticks. We're operating in antiperspirant sticks, but both are refillable, so there is a lot of synergy in the learnings of how to do this; how to get this right.”
Wild is also working on refill concepts in other categories, he said, including roll-on deodorants and shower gels, which signals the positive direction beauty and personal care brands, including Unilever, can take in developing refill alternatives for routinely used products.
Paul Foulkes-Arellano, circular growth expert and Non-Executive Director at biodegradable pigment company Sparxell, said the purchase of Wild has evidently given Unilever confidence in the refill business model—finally.
“In a way, [this launch is] late to the market, as many other brands have launched refills already,” Foulkes-Arellano said. “It's great to see Unilever finally biting the bullet.”
The company now just needs “patience and determination,” he said, if it wants to truly scale the concept.
Refillable Beauty Future
Looking ahead, Jardon said if any category can meaningfully scale refills, it's beauty, given how many formats lend themselves to modular or cartridge-based designs that can significantly cut single-use packaging volumes.
Beauty is also superbly placed to create a true shift in consumer thinking, she said. “Beauty brands play an outsized cultural role. They shape aesthetics, norms, and consumer expectations. If refills are positioned as aspirational, convenient, and high-performing, the sector can accelerate mainstream acceptance of reuse models across other consumer categories.”
This influence angle is a large reason why Unilever is launching its refill antiperspirants with such a huge media campaign, Barron explained. Dove wants to raise visibility, fuel engagement, and educate via its work across social media, TV, pop-ups and in-store activations. “The main bit is really about getting people familiar with refillable formats,” he said. “We paid a lot of attention to how we built the instructions, how we signaled on the outside of the pack, and then we spent a lot of time on the shopper and marketing side in terms of what education might be on shelf in retailers.”
The overall goal, he said, is to “build desire at scale.”
Chidley said engaging consumers is one thing; the real test will be whether consumers stick to these refills or drift back to conventional formats. “Refill is still far from being standard practice across the industry. Momentum is building, but we're still in the early stages of embedding refill into everyday purchasing behavior,” she said.
“Circularity Is a Team Sport”
The circularity expert said that while refill innovation is a hugely important step forward in the sustainability push, it should not be the final destination. “Refill reduces single-use packaging, but the longer-term opportunity for beauty is designing systems that move beyond single-use thinking altogether.”
To achieve this, she said the rest of the supply chain also has to be on board, with solid alignment between retailers, suppliers, manufacturers, and communication teams. “No single brand can solve this alone; circularity is a team sport. Circular packaging only works at scale when the whole value chain moves together.”
Jardon agreed, noting how important retail and infrastructure alignment is in scaling refills. “Even well-designed refill systems falter without strong retail support. Visibility on shelves, consistent availability of refills, and integration into mainstream retail environments are all critical to normalizing the behavior.”
Onboarding policymakers is also central, she said. “While the EU is moving towards stronger packaging and waste rules, implementation varies across markets, creating complexity for brands operating region-wide.” Infrastructure gaps also remain, creating hurdles, she said, because not all markets have the retail or logistics systems needed to support widespread refill adoption.
“If industry, retailers, and policymakers work together to remove friction and support behavior change, refillables can become a mainstream part of everyday life rather than a niche alternative,” Jardon said.
“This Is How We Build Categories”
For Unilever, this is certainly the goal, according to Barron. “When you're selling a refillable product, it's a very different value proposition. So, you've got to get that right, in terms of desirability but also just pragmatically—how it works, how it clicks—and we spent a lot of time on that.”
Dove's multimillion-pound marketing campaign is also designed to build out consumer awareness and engagement across retail platforms, normalizing the concept of refills, he said. “For Dove, this is how we build categories and build new behaviors—that's a real change.”