Dove

Dove is a global personal-care brand owned by the Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever. It began in 1957 with the Dove Beauty Bar, a cleansing bar formulated with a moisturizing cream that was positioned against ordinary soap, which was claimed to dry the skin. The bar's distinctive formula and gentle positioning helped the brand expand from a single product into one of the world's largest personal-care franchises. Today Dove spans bar soap, body wash, body lotion, facial cleanser and moisturizer, deodorant and antiperspirant, shampoo and conditioner, hair styling and hair treatment products, hand wash, baby care and, in some markets, men's grooming under the Dove Men+Care line. Products are sold through mass-market retailers, drugstores, supermarkets and e-commerce channels in well over a hundred countries, making Dove one of Unilever's largest and most international brands. Dove's modern identity is closely tied to the 'Campaign for Real Beauty', launched in 2004, which used everyday women rather than professional models and challenged narrow beauty standards. The campaign, developed with agency Ogilvy, produced widely discussed advertising such as 'Evolution' and 'Real Beauty Sketches' and helped establish purpose-driven marketing as a mainstream approach. Dove has also run self-esteem education programs and the Dove Self-Esteem Project, and it has made commitments around body confidence and inclusive imagery. Dove sits within Unilever's Personal Care division and is one of the group's 'billion-euro brands'. Its positioning combines mass affordability with a mild, moisturizing, dermatologically oriented image, and it competes with brands such as Nivea, Olay, Palmolive and store-brand equivalents. The brand has periodically faced criticism and debate over its advertising, including accusations of inconsistency between its body-positive messaging and its product marketing, but it remains one of the most recognized personal-care names worldwide.

Dove was created within Unilever in the 1950s, when the company sought a cleansing product that would not dry the skin like ordinary soap. The Dove Beauty Bar, launched in 1957, combined cleansing ingredients with a moisturizing cream, and early advertising emphasized that it was not soap and would not dry skin like soap. The product's success in the United States and Europe gave Unilever a platform to extend the Dove name into adjacent categories. Through the late twentieth century Dove moved from a single bar into a broader range of body-care products, including body wash, body lotion and deodorant, and later into facial care and hair care. The brand's mild, moisturizing positioning carried across categories, and Dove became one of Unilever's largest personal-care franchises, sold in mass retail channels around the world. A defining moment came in 2004 with the launch of the Campaign for Real Beauty, developed with the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather. The campaign featured real women of varied ages, shapes and skin tones and questioned narrow media representations of beauty. It produced widely shared advertising, including the 'Evolution' film, which showed the retouching behind a model's image, and later 'Real Beauty Sketches'. Dove paired the campaign with the Dove Self-Esteem Project, an educational initiative aimed at young people's body confidence. In the 2010s Dove extended the brand into men's grooming with Dove Men+Care, launched in 2010, and continued to refresh its product lines with variants such as nourishing body washes and damage-repair hair care. The brand also became a frequent case study in purpose-driven marketing, and its campaigns generated both praise and criticism, including debates over whether its advertising consistently matched its body-positive message. Dove remains a core brand in Unilever's Personal Care portfolio and one of the group's billion-euro brands, marketed in more than a hundred countries through retailers and e-commerce. Its history illustrates the shift of mass personal-care marketing from functional claims about mildness toward social messaging about beauty standards and self-esteem.

• 2010

  Dove Men+Care men's grooming line introduced.

• 2004

  Campaign for Real Beauty launched with agency Ogilvy.

• 1957

  Dove Beauty Bar launched by Unilever.

Mass-market personal care with a mild, moisturizing and body-positive image; purpose-driven 'Real Beauty' branding.

• Dove Beauty Bar

• Dove Body Wash

• Dove Men+Care

• 2026.08.21

  Reported2026.08.21

  Unilever shares latest hair damage repair research and clinically validated repair technology[2]联合利华分享毛发损伤修护最新研究成果及临床验证修护科技prnasia.com

  At the ACMED academic annual meeting on August 21, 2026, Unilever shared its latest research on hair damage repair, including a glutamate core repair technology and a patented lipid-locking formula, validated through randomized controlled trials. The technology became Dove's first globally clinically validated repair technology and has been applied to Dove's Hair Native Protein Repair series and Dove's Golden Core Strengthening Repair Hair Mask.

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1. 1Dove official websitedove.com
2. 2联合利华分享毛发损伤修护最新研究成果及临床验证修护科技prnasia.com