Sally Beauty Sold 8% More Hair Colour and 6% Less Care in One Quarter

Read Sally Beauty’s colour and care split before you pick a haircare product

Sally Beauty, the US$3.7 billion hair and beauty retailer, sold 8% more hair colour in its third quarter of fiscal 2026. In the same three months Sally Beauty sold 6% less hair care. Same shops, same customers, same quarter, opposite directions.

You will never run Sally's stores. But that split is about your shelf. It shows which part of a routine your customer protects when money is tight. And one company that supplies the same salons just reported the reverse.

What did Sally Beauty say was selling?

Colour, and one thing nobody expected. Sally Beauty chief executive Denise Paulonis told investors: "Color continued to be a standout performer. On a total Sally segment basis, color was up 8%, while Sally U.S. and Canada delivered growth of 9%. Additionally, fragrance continues to build impressive momentum."

Fragrance is now in 2,000 Sally stores. Paulonis was plain about who buys it: "We're generally finding it's not necessarily a new customer. It is our existing customer adding to their basket. And that's a nice basket add. These are items that are priced, you know, north of $20 for the most part in the stores."

In Sally's professional arm, Beauty Systems Group, colour rose 1% and care fell 5%. Two channels, one pattern.

Our reading: the product that grows a basket does not have to win a customer. Sally's fragrance works because the shopper is already at the till for hair colour. On cold traffic the same bottle has to pay for its own click. First-order margin against lifetime value is the sum that separates the two.

Why does Wella say the opposite?

Because it is measuring a different customer over a different period, and that is the lesson. The Wella Company, which is filing to list in the US, reports constant-currency growth of about 2% in professional colour and about 10% in professional care between fiscal 2024 and fiscal 2026. Wella's salon care grew five times faster than its salon colour. Sally's salon care fell.

Wella's filing even names the plan for salons: "Gain with Color, Grow with Care". Wella also says shoppers outside salons now bring in about 52% of its sales, up from about 45% in fiscal 2023.

There is no single haircare number to ride. That haircare is growing is true at L'Oréal. Its half-year release says of its mass-market brands: "With double-digit growth, haircare remained the standout performer". It tells you nothing about which bottle moves in your store, or whether your customer is the salon kind or the supermarket kind. The growth-driver guide is about exactly this trap.

How is Sally getting people to buy?

With advice and with pickup, not with parcels. Sally runs a Licensed Colorist On Demand service. Paulonis said: "In fiscal Q3, average weekly consultations exceeded 5,200, and the number of new customers increased by 28% versus the prior year." Someone unsure about a shade gets a professional to choose. Then they buy.

Online, the winner was the shop down the road. Paulonis again: "Average order value is strong, up 6% in fiscal Q3. Notably, buy online, pick up in store represented the majority of app order volume in the quarter, our most efficient delivery channel."

That is the hard part for you if you ship from China. Hair colour is bought for this weekend. A planned purchase will wait ten days. A root touch-up will not. The delivery gap sets out what a product has to earn to survive that wait.

Is it getting harder to sell at full price?

Sally thinks so. Paulonis said: "We are seeing promotional activity on the rise." Her answer was to shout about price: "We have recently started to action stronger price forward messaging, which is translating to higher customer engagement and an improvement in trends."

So here is the argument. Sally says the customer protects colour and trims care. Wella says care is where salons are growing. Both are telling the truth about their own customers. Which one is yours: the person who needs the job done this weekend, or the one building a routine? And can your delivery promise serve the first at all?

If you are choosing a haircare product to source, ask us to check the China side before you list it.