Key Takeaways:
The haircare category experienced steady growth in 2025, posting an 8% increase to $3.5 billion, with unit sales also up, according to Circana. Shampoos and conditioners increased by single digits, while styling and treatment products grew by double digits. Haircare accounts for the largest share of the mass beauty business, which also performed well in 2025.
According to Alexis Androulakis, one half of the duo behind The Lipstick Lesbians, haircare is “the most underpenetrated category” in beauty right now, making it one to watch in 2026. The opportunity is there for the taking for brands that can lay claim to a white space in the market, but what are those white spaces?
BeautyMatter tapped industry experts to forecast which trends will dominate the haircare category in 2026. At a high level, personalization and specialization will continue to drive growth and innovation. The focus on scalp care isn’t going anywhere, and in fact, is only becoming more important as consumers are more knowledgeable about the link between scalp health and hair growth. As the variety and quality of at-home products continue to grow, salon services are expanding to become more sophisticated than ever before, elevating the professional channel to new heights.
Historically, the haircare category’s stability has been its greatest strength, driven by consistent replenishment and daily-use routines. In 2026, innovation has the potential to supercharge that stability, transforming haircare into a growth engine that rivals the fragrance boom of recent years. Below are the trends industry experts expect to drive growth in the haircare category in 2026.
Scalp and Hair Specificity
The one-size-fits-all approach worked in haircare for a while, but 2026 will prove to be the final nail in the coffin for this philosophy. According to Krupa Koestline, founder and cosmetic chemist at KKT Innovation Labs, today’s consumers are gravitating toward products designed for very specific hair and scalp conditions, including hormonal changes, post-treatment recovery, travel stress, environmental exposure, and pattern-specific damage. She expects artificial intelligence to play a growing role in both diagnosis and product selection.
“Consumers are increasingly understanding the scalp as skin that ages, with age-related concerns such as hair loss, graying, dryness, and texture changes driving demand for preventative, long-term scalp and hair health rather than surface-level fixes,” added Cristina Nuñez, co-founder and Managing Partner of True Beauty Ventures. As a result, she argued, haircare is being fundamentally repositioned as scalp care rather than fiber care. “Haircare continues to shift from the cosmetic treatment of strands to the biological care of the scalp ecosystem.”
Haircare Localization
The Future Laboratory’s annual Future Forecast 2026 report echoed Koestline’s and Nuñez’s prediction and went one step further, anticipating that haircare products will soon become hyper-specific to consumers' locations around the world. The trend-forecasting consultancy cites Indian haircare brand Moxie Beauty, which creates protective and restorative hair products tailored to Indian hair types and weather. Also in India, dermatologist Dr. Bindu Sthalekar offers treatments designed to counteract conditions such as pigmentation and sun damage, as well as excess oil production and skin sensitivity caused by high humidity, salt exposure, and intense UV levels. Environmental conditions, such as the hard water found in places like the Middle East, might also impact haircare formulations in 2026.
Safer, Less Toxic, and Less-Damaging Salon Services
Nuñez anticipates that innovation in professional color and chemical services will accelerate with new technologies aimed at minimizing damage during and after treatments. “While bond repair hair biotech pioneers like Olaplex and K18 paved the way, early signals suggest the next wave will focus on even greater efficacy alongside less toxic, more scalp-conscious salon experiences,” she noted.
Scalp “Zoning”
Beauty product developer Kristen Sgarlato predicts that the “skinification” of haircare will continue to evolve beyond broad concerns like dandruff, hair loss, or gray hair and into a more dermatology-inspired understanding of the scalp.
“Rather than treating the scalp as one uniform surface, brands will begin to acknowledge multiple zones with different needs,” she told BeautyMatter. “Just like skin on the body, the scalp can experience localized dryness, oiliness, sensitivity, or inflammation in different areas. This opens the door to more targeted treatments designed around micro-environments on the scalp.”
Clinical Hair Solutions Enter the Mainstream
The normalization of procedures such as hair transplants, PRP, injectables, lasers, and red light therapy accelerated demand for in-office clinical interventions targeting hair concerns across both men and women. Nuñez anticipates that consumer requests for these treatment offerings will increase in 2026.
“As stress- and hormone-related shedding and thinning move into everyday conversation, consumers are increasingly combining clinical care with supplements and at-home routines as part of a more comprehensive approach to hair health,” said Nuñez.
The Reframing of Hair as a Long-Term Asset
Consumers have historically treated hair as something disposable: if it gets damaged, you cut it off, and it grows back. This understanding has resulted in haircare focusing on short-term improvements, such as increasing the shine and smoothness of strands or temporarily masking damage.
According to Sgarlato, that’s starting to change. Consumers are increasingly understanding that hair is an aging biomaterial, one that undergoes protein overload, lipid depletion, and UV-induced structural change over time.
“Instead of attributing everything to heat or color damage, there will be a push to understand the why behind hair aging and a race to intervene earlier,” she said. “In 2026, haircare will increasingly focus on preservation rather than repair, reframing hair as a long-term asset instead of continuously and reactively correcting visible damage.”
Koestline echoed that view, arguing that haircare formulas of the future need to be fundamentally redesigned to respect the biology of the scalp and the structure of the hair fiber, rather than relying on heavy conditioning agents or cosmetic masking effects.
“Consumers are becoming more aware of how products behave over time, and they are looking for explanations that feel grounded in real science rather than performance claims,” she said. If products aren’t designed to support long-term hair health, they’re no longer convincing, no matter how glossy the results look.
Hair and Scalp Diagnostics and Tracking
Consumers are beginning to connect changes in hair health to broader lifestyle factors such as stress, diet, medication, hormones, and environment. Nuñez expects that the ability to measure, track, and understand how these variables impact hair and scalp health will become more mainstream, reflecting a wider shift toward data-informed personal care. Tools such as Malibu C’s Digital Scope and Kérastase’s K-Scan are already appearing in salons globally, capturing magnified imagery, analyzing key hair metrics (such as thickness and vellus-to-terminal hair ratios), and tracking changes over time. The result is more personalized treatment plans, clearer diagnostics, and visual proof of progress that helps elevate haircare from a subjective experience to a measurable one.
Innovation Backed by IP
Will 2026 see the launch of the next Olaplex or K18? Beauty industry veteran and exited founder Angela Ubias thinks so, and not just one brand, but potentially multiple. She predicts the haircare category is on the cusp of a surge in IP-backed brands, specifically in hair removal and hair growth segments.
“From founder to lab to investor, I’m hearing growing excitement around innovation’s shift away from table-stakes efficacy claims and toward earlier-stage, proprietary raw materials, formulation systems, and component-level technology that meaningfully impacts efficacy, delivery, and shelf life,” she said. “We're talking brands backed by scientists extracting entirely new types of raw materials at the cellular levels. Real innovation.”
Ubias also noted that macro pressures are accelerating the importance of defensible IP. “As global tensions strain access to specialty ingredients, brands that have invested in defensible ingredient or component IP will pull ahead, while others quietly reformulate, reduce efficacy, or sacrifice differentiation altogether.”
“No-Color” Colored Hair
Jay Small, a trichologist and co-founder of Arey, predicts a shift away from regular hair color services in 2026. He noted that he’s already seeing a slowdown in the repeated bleach applications and delay in color services among consumers. “My hunch is that they are starting to see the correlation between damage and dye,” said Small. “As we know, everything in moderation; chasing the perfect color is out and embracing the best version of your natural color is in.”