When men’s skincare brand Crowned Skin scored a chance to reign as the official grooming partner of PLYRS House during NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles in February, CEO Darrell Spencer described the opportunity as “bigger than grooming.”

“It’s about showing up sharp, feeling good and owning your presence at every level,” he said. “To now stand alongside the world’s best athletes as the official grooming partner of PLYRS House is a full-circle moment for us and proof that men’s personal care deserves a premium stage.” 

The All-Star activation is the latest success in what’s been a breakout year for the brand. On top of high Amazon rankings and Walmart Open Call success, Crowned Skin was reported to be the first Black male-founded personal care brand to reach No. 2 on TikTok Shop. According to officials, the brand has reached “eight-figure sales,” through body butters and “lush” scented oils that they call “game changing.” One of the brand’s bestsellers, King Body Butter Cologne, is billed as a “seductive harmony” of mandarin, patchouli, dark vanilla to leave a “lasting impression of confidence and allure.” 

Products like body butters suggest a men’s market that’s come a long way from simple staples—and one that is finally ready for prime time.

Analysts say premium product demand and digital retail expansion are driving global market growth. According to recent data from Persistence Market Research, the global men’s grooming products market is experiencing a period of sustained growth as evolving consumer lifestyles, increasing awareness of personal care and the influence of digital culture reshape grooming habits worldwide. The market, which analysts say was valued at about $63.4 billion in 2025, is projected to reach $119.7 billion by 2032, expanding at a CAGR of 9.5% during the forecast period (2025-2032). According to Persistence Market Research, this steady expansion reflects a significant shift in attitudes toward male grooming.

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The Athletic Connection

Procter & Gamble’s Old Spice has been a staple in men’s grooming since the 1930s. In February, it introduced some of its most sophisticated cologne-infused scents to date with The Spice Alchemist Collection. The lineup embodies premium fragrances with scents that officials said were preferred over a $300 cologne in blind consumer testing. 

At Super Bowl LX, Old Spice gave fans a “sneak sniff” of Spice Alchemist at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, CA. Visitors were afforded the chance to saunter through a 53-foot “rolling fortress of freshness” which entailed interactive locker room scenes. The installment featured the new cologne-infused Spice Alchemist collection, Swagger and the Old Spice NFL Collection. 

The Spice Alchemist collection includes deodorant, body wash and cologne mist in scent profile combinations like Cashmere & Vanilla Wood; Velvet Sage & Driftwood; Yuzu Peel & White Wood; and Cardamom & Amber Wood.

Also capitalizing on 2026 sporting events is Native. The brand embarked on a “long-term bet” on the Winter Olympics with its first athlete partnership with the US men’s and women’s bobsled teams ahead of the Milano Cortina 2026 games. The partnership featured Native’s new, limited-edition Global Flavors collection. The line, inspired by international destinations, features five scents across deodorant, body wash, shampoo and conditioner and liquid hand soap formats: Italian Vanilla Gelato, Japanese Golden Pear, Brazilian Honey Melon, Moroccan Mountain Sage and Turkish Rose Water. 

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Tailored Scent Needs

While a few spritzes of cologne is a traditional final step in the personal care routines of many dapper gentlemen, Unilever’s Axe wishes to “axe” the intensity when it comes to overpowering scents.

In February, the Unilever-owned brand sought to rewrite history with new spray technology. Designed to deliver a more focused spray to prevent men from “overdoing,” this new technology debuted with Axe’s new Midnight Amber scent. Created by Jacques de Sarrazin, senior perfumer at IFF, Midnight Amber features notes of hazelnut, sandalwood and vanilla, delivering a “confident modern scent designed to leave a lasting impression.” The formulation is said to combine fragrance and odor-control ingredients with nitrogen and liquefied petroleum gas to deliver a soft-textured, long-lasting spray. 

Brand officials called the launch a “major milestone” in redefining Axe’s proprietary spray system to transform the way men experience fragrance. 

“Consumers have often said that traditional sprays from brands like Axe can be too heavy and overpowering, with dense misting that makes it easy to overapply and create an overly strong scent cloud,” said Brajin Vazquez, Unilever’s deo formats technology senior manager. “In response to consumer pain points, Axe’s new spray technology delivers a more controlled, lighter mist that helps consumers apply just the right amount, reducing overspray, which provides you with 10% more sprays per can. By improving spray precision and efficiency, the lighter application maintains functionality and performance without sacrificing coverage or scent longevity.” 

Another Unilever-owned brand doubling down on odor protection while boosting mood is Dove Men+Care. Its new Mood Boosting Collection “curates a vibe” designed to support how men want to feel throughout their day, whether that’s confident, relaxed, refreshed or focused, according to Dove.

“Our Mood-Boosting Deodorants help you choose your energy for the day through the power of fragrance,” said Lindsey Lapin, Unilever associate director of marketing, Dove Men+Care. “Before you log on, before you step out, you have the power to decide what vibe you want to put out into the world.”

To bring the collection to life, Dove Men+Care linked with Love Island’s Nic Vansteenberghe. Officials say the DJ, globetrotter and fitness aficionado embodies the mindset behind the collection and how scent can play a role in all-day confidence. The collection includes deodorant sticks in Midnight, Breeze, Paradise and Horizon with notes of white amber, fig, coconut water and vanilla bean, respectively. 

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Fast-Growing Players

With all the hype surrounding men’s grooming, a new player called Blvd & Co wants to capitalize on the bustle of the category. The CEO is Brett Simmons.

Blvd was launched by Creative Labs, a third-generation family-run contract manufacturing business in St. Paul, MN that was founded by Simmons’ grandfather. Initially focused on tanning lotion, Creative Labs has expertise developing salon-quality for the professional hair stylist community. 

“Blvd was developed with a deep understanding of what truly effective haircare looks like,” said Simmons. “We saw firsthand that men’s products were largely failing to deliver performance while prioritizing scalp and hair health – they were backed with kitschy humor and pine scents. Having grown up in the Creative Labs business and working across multiple women’s brands, I gained a clear insight into what worked, what didn’t, and what men, like myself, were actually looking for.”

Last month, Blvd debuted at more than 2,600 Walmart stores nationwide and online. Its assortment includes shampoos, conditioners and styling products including texture sprays, styling powder, pomade, clay, sculpting fiber crème and paste. 

Simmons believes Blvd fills this gap in men’s mass haircare.

“After years formulating women’s salon products—and being married to a hairstylist myself—I knew how good men’s haircare could be,” said Simmons. “This brand was intentionally created to empower men with products that are authentic to their lives. Blvd & Co is a nod to our brand mission, helping men find their lane no matter the routes you take and the styles you make.”

Another fast-growing new player in men’s grooming is Tone. Launched in 2025 by content creator collective Any Means Possible (AMP) in partnership with CEO Nathaniel Weiss, formerly of Nécessaire, Tone said it achieved “seven-figure sales” within 72 hours of launch. Last summer, the brand expanded into Target.

Tone was created for the “new generation of multi-faceted young men, who reject traditional career paths and expectations,” according to brand. Tone’s deodorant, cologne, body mist and body wash—formulated with ingredients that comply with Target’s “clean” standards—aim to yield an energizing feel with classic and clean scents of fresh water and florals like jasmine, atop crisp lime notes. The body mists are portable so men can carry them in their pockets for on-the-go refreshing. 

Fresh and Coconut are two of the brand’s most popular scents. Recently, three new scents were introduced to the brand’s portfolio at Target—Vanilla, Sunrise and Eucalyptus— in addition to a new format, a roll-on fragrance. 

More growth is possible as Tone will expand its distribution footprint to Amazon this year, according to officials. The growing brand also has limited-edition fragrance launches planned for summer, back-to-school and holiday.

Another brand that’s ready for the category’s growth is seven-year-old Particle for Men. The co-founders, CEO Ayal Ebert and President Guy Falkovitch, were approaching 40 and felt “completely lost” while scouring the local drugstore in search of anti-aging cream.  

“We didn’t understand the terminology, everything was brightly colored and clearly designed for women, and even after trying to get help from a sales associate, we walked out empty-handed and confused,” Ebert told Happi. “That experience crystallized something for us: men were being completely underserved by the skincare industry. There was no premium, results-driven brand built exclusively with men in mind.”

“Men today are far more aware that how they look is directly tied to how they feel—and that aging is something you can actively address, not just accept,” said Ebert.

— Ayal Ebert, founder, Particle

The friends launched Particle in 2019. The response, they said, confirmed their gut suspicion: men hungered for products designed specifically for them.

They leveraged their adtech backgrounds to build Particle as a direct-to-consumer brand. 

“We understood from day one that you can’t outsource media buying—it’s the lifeblood of a DTC business and you have to master it internally,” Ebert explained. “We also came in knowing that growth isn’t built on a single ad or a single touchpoint. It’s about building a funnel of dozens of interactions, with native, story-driven content at the heart of it. That philosophy took Particle from zero to a $100 million brand without a single dollar of outside funding.”

While the longevity movement is a new cultural catalyst, Particle’s founders claim they had their fingers on the pulse long before it became a leading trend. 

“Men today are far more aware that how they look is directly tied to how they feel—and that aging is something you can actively address, not just accept,” said Ebert. “That philosophy is baked into everything we do at Particle.”

Particle’s flagship face cream is a six-in-one formula that addresses multiple signs of aging simultaneously with hyaluronic acid for deep hydration, vitamin C for brightening and dark spot reduction, jojoba oil, shea butter, squalane and lactic acid for gentle exfoliation, and antioxidants to fight environmental damage. 

“Men’s skin is biologically different from women’s—it’s thicker, has larger pores, produces more sebum, and is frequently stressed by shaving—so everything we formulate is calibrated for those unique properties,” Ebert noted.

“For our neck cream, we built a triple-action formula around collagen, hyaluronic acid, and retinol—three of the most powerful anti-aging actives available—specifically because the neck is one of the most visible areas of aging, yet it’s almost entirely ignored by the mainstream men’s grooming market,” he added.

Particle also believes that fragrance is important to how men feel about themselves, not just how others perceive them. One of the brand’s bestsellers is Gravité Cologne, a scent that evolves throughout the day, opening with fresh citrus and settling into warm, masculine woods. 

“That arc mirrors the longevity mindset: vibrant and dynamic at the start, grounded and lasting over time,” Ebert said about the cologne.

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Turning Grey Into Gold

While men’s skin care is just ramping up, hair color was one of first mainstream grooming products to address men’s quest for eternal youth.

Particle’s Anti-Gray Serum for hair is formulated to gradually reduce gray head and beard hair without dye, offering natural-looking results without ammonia or peroxide. It is said to be ideal for light brown to black hair.

Another men’s brand, Rewind It 10—cofounded by It’s A 10 Haircare’s Carolyn and Jeff Aronson and Rapper Fat Joe—offers ammonia-free, at-home hair and beard color for men. The line is designed to cover gray hair in up to 10 minutes with long-lasting, natural-looking results.

While debonair Millennial celebrities like Brody Jenner and Travis Kelce have graced the Rewind It 10 boxes, this past year, the brand recruited former top 10 UFC Heavyweight Brendan Schaub as the newest face of its medium brown hair dye line. Fat Joe said the podcaster’s audience reach would help “kill the stigma” around men DIYing their own hair and beard. 

Since launching in CVS stores in fall 2024, Rewind It 10 has become one of the retailer’s top-selling men’s grooming products with a reported $50-plus million in sales, per the brand.

Viking Revolution, a men’s grooming brand that makes beard oils and hair care products, landed at 900 Walmart stores nationwide earlier this year. The move followed its successful debut at Sprouts last year. The company is said to have tallied $50 million in sales in 2025.

Officials say the retail expansion represents a key milestone in the brand’s decade-long evolution from digital-native to omni-channel. The brand’s core products include beard oil, balm, wash, conditioner, sea salt hairspray, shave cream and solid cologne. 

“Following the immense success we’ve seen on Amazon and TikTok Shop, expanding into Walmart is a significant inflection point for Viking Revolution and underscores the level of trust we’ve earned with consumers,” said Victor Mendoza, founder.  

Another growing men’s grooming brand specializing in hair and beard products is Cleverman, launched in 2021 by Carlos Barreto, a veteran of Procter & Gamble and Revlon. The brand is about “helping men look and feel good about themselves,” Barreto said during New York Society of Cosmetic Chemists’ Suppliers’ Day last year at the Javits Center in New York City.

Prospective customers can take a quiz on Cleverman’s website to obtain a kit with personalized application instructions to DIY full-to-partial gray coverage. Cleverman’s kit includes a precision application brush, designed with an ergonomic grip like a razor.  What’s more, the brand’s dye formula is enriched with organic oils in a drip-free, cream format that’s gentle on hair without compromising color performance. Argan, walnut and baobab oils comprise the brand’s proprietary Organic Triple Oil System to condition, rejuvenate and moisturize, respectively. 

In addition to selling customizable beard dye kits, Cleverman also sells face and beard scrub, facial wipes and grooming tools. The brand currently has approximately 10,000 digital subscribers and an Amazon presence with recent expansion into Nordstrom and Ulta Beauty.