In ECGO's 2026 State of Gen-Z Consumption Report, personal care is defined by a single word: trust. It is the most brand-loyal category we track, the most resistant to switching, and the most concentrated around a small group of established players. And two names that show up consistently in that concentration are Unilever and Kimberly-Clark.
Together they represent two distinct approaches to earning Gen-Z's loyalty in the most trust-dependent category we measure. Understanding how they compare — and where each has a structural advantage — tells us a lot about what it actually takes to win in personal care right now.
What ECGO's Data Shows
Personal care represents 6% of total submissions in our dataset, reflecting behavior from 286 Gen-Z users. While that share is smaller than food or beverage, the behavioral signals it produces are some of the clearest in the entire report.
Personal care shows the lowest switching rate of any category we track. It also shows the highest rate of single-brand loyalty at the family level — 38% of users exhibit loyalty to a single family brand, the highest across all categories. And unlike food, where loyalty is partitioned across sub-categories, personal care loyalty tends to extend across an entire brand portfolio once trust is established.
Within that structure, Procter & Gamble leads the category at 15.9% of personal care submissions. Kimberly-Clark follows at 7%, and Unilever at 6%. Together they represent a significant share of the concentrated top tier — and they sit just behind the category leader in a space where the gap between first and second is meaningful but not insurmountable.
Two Different Portfolio Strategies
Unilever and Kimberly-Clark compete in personal care through fundamentally different portfolio architectures — and understanding that difference is critical to reading what ECGO's data means for each of them.
Unilever operates across a broad range of personal care sub-categories — skin care, hair care, body wash, deodorant, oral care, and more — through brands that span mass and premium positioning. Its portfolio is built around daily-use personal care rituals, which aligns directly with ECGO's finding that personal care loyalty compounds in categories tied to routine and consistent sensory experience.
Kimberly-Clark's personal care footprint is anchored differently — concentrated in household and hygiene products like tissue, paper towels, and feminine care through brands that are deeply embedded in household routine. This positions Kimberly-Clark squarely in the sub-categories that lead ECGO's personal care basket. Household products account for 26.4% of all personal care submissions — the single largest personal care sub-category in our data. Feminine care represents 3.8%, and these are categories where Kimberly-Clark has long-established brand presence.
What the Sub-Category Data Reveals
ECGO's personal care sub-category breakdown tells a story that benefits both companies — but in different ways.
Household products lead at 26.4%, followed by skincare and cosmetics at 16%, vitamins and supplements at 15.1%, oral hygiene at 9.4%, and bath and body at 9.4%. These top five sub-categories account for the majority of all personal care behavior.
Kimberly-Clark's strength in household products and hygiene puts it in the highest-frequency personal care sub-category — the one that appears most often in Gen-Z's recycling basket and therefore generates the most repeated brand exposure. In a category where loyalty compounds through repetition, showing up most frequently is a structural advantage.
Unilever's strength in skincare, body care, and hair care puts it in sub-categories where the perceived switching risk is highest. ECGO's data shows that Gen-Z is far less willing to experiment with unbranded alternatives in skincare, hygiene, and cosmetics — precisely the territory where Unilever's portfolio lives. When Gen-Z finds a skincare product that works, the report tells us they become intensely loyal to it. For Unilever, the opportunity is in being that product.
The Claims and Flavor Signals
Personal care flavor and claims data from ECGO's report adds another layer of nuance. The top personal care claims are hyaluronic acid and aloe, hygiene, anti-allergy, hydrating and moisture, and sensitive and gentle. These are not aspirational or trend-driven claims — they are functional, efficacy-focused, and trust-building.
This matters for both companies. Gen-Z in personal care is not looking for novelty. They are looking for products that demonstrably work and communicate why they work. The report is clear: in personal care, the product must work and visibly communicate why.
For Unilever, whose skincare and body care brands are built around ingredient-led positioning — hyaluronic acid, aloe, moisture — this is a direct alignment with where Gen-Z's attention is going. For Kimberly-Clark, whose household and hygiene brands communicate through efficacy and reliability rather than ingredient storytelling, the signal is to continue reinforcing the functional trust that makes their products feel non-negotiable in daily life.
Loyalty and Switching: The Structural Reality
Personal care's low switching rate is the defining behavioral characteristic of this category — and it creates both a defensive moat and a barrier to entry.
For Unilever and Kimberly-Clark, both of which have established behavioral footholds with Gen-Z, the primary mandate is retention, not acquisition. ECGO's data shows that once Gen-Z trusts a personal care brand, they rarely leave. The risk isn't losing current users — it's failing to earn first-time trial from Gen-Z users who haven't yet formed their personal care habits.
This is particularly significant given that the Gen-Z users in ECGO's dataset are largely college-aged and in the early stages of forming independent household and personal care routines. The brands that earn trial now are building loyalty that, based on the behavioral patterns in our data, will be genuinely difficult to displace later.
What Both Brands Should Take Away
For Unilever, the opportunity is to lean into ingredient credibility and efficacy communication in the sub-categories where Gen-Z's switching risk aversion is highest. Skincare, body care, and hair care are categories where trust, once earned, compounds deeply. The portfolio breadth that Unilever brings across these categories is an advantage — but only if each product reinforces the same credibility signal.
For Kimberly-Clark, the opportunity is frequency. Household products and hygiene are where Gen-Z shows up most often in personal care — and showing up most often is how behavioral loyalty is formed. Maintaining availability, consistency, and pricing alignment in these categories is not a defensive play. It is an offensive one.
For both companies, the report's closing insight applies directly: personal care is not a rotation category. It is a retention category. And in a price-conscious environment, trusted brands with strong functional positioning will stand the test of time.
These insights are drawn from the ECGO 2026 State of Gen-Z Consumption Report, based on 25,000+ real product submissions from 760 Gen-Z users. Download the full report at ecgo.co.
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