Gen Z’s Shower Routine Obsession Boosts L’Occitane’s Sol de Janeiro

What’s in your “everything shower” routine?

For those who aren’t in the know, on TikTok, content creators are describing it as a multistep shower experience each week. In their videos, they describe their routines with various products, such as exfoliators, hair masks, shampoos, conditioners, shaving creams, oils, body washes, moisturizers and self-tanners. These routines are shared under the #showertok hashtag, and brands like Sol de Janeiro are taking advantage of this trend.

On Tuesday (Oct 24) L’Occitane, the parent company of Sol de Janeiro, reported net sales of €1.072 billion ($1.134 billion) for the six months ending on Sept. 30 (FY2024 H1), representing growth of 18.5%, which was primarily driven by Sol de Janeiro’s performance and the steady growth of L’Occitane en Provence, along with the recovering trend in China.

During the second quarter of FY2024, net sales reached €569.8 million ($603 million), showing a growth of 17.1%.

Gen Z and the ‘Everything Shower’

Apart from attaining the desired super-clean feeling, an everything shower essentially serves as an extension of one’s self-care routine — a practice prioritized by the Gen Z generation.

In fact, according to research, everything that Gen Z engages in is intricately linked to their health — encompassing their relationships, habits and technology usage.

Based on their analysis of saves and pins in 2022, Pinterest predicted that shower routines would be a trend for 2023.

Confirming that analysis is TikTok influencer Alex Warren, who shared a video in March of his influencer fiancé, Kouvr Annon, explained the concept of an everything shower. The video garnered over 9 million views and 2 million likes, and to date, the hashtag #Everythingshower has over 414 million views.

With that, Sol de Janeiro reported strong sales momentum, achieving €270 million ($285.7 million) in sales during FY2024 H1, marking a 188.8% growth at constant rates. This exceeded its FY2023 annual sales. The brand reportedly experienced triple-digit growth worldwide.

L’Occitane’s Other Brands

L’Occitane en Provence maintained consistent performance with a 3.5% growth rate during the first half of FY2024. This was primarily attributed to double-digit sales increases in China. When excluding Russia, from which the group divested in June 2022, the brand achieved a sales growth of 4.8% in the same period.

Meanwhile, Elemis achieved a 7.6% growth during the first half of FY2024. However, during FY2024 Q2, Elemis’s overall sales fell in both the U.K. and the U.S., which was in accordance with the management’s expectations as they implement their premiumization strategy. As a result, the brand experienced a 2.4% decline in sales in FY2024 Q2.

In the U.K., Elemis redirected its investment focus away from certain web partners, driving traffic to its eCommerce channel, which resulted in double-digit growth. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the maritime business faced an anticipated setback due to the timing shift of order shipments into the latter half of FY2024.

Excluding the maritime segment, the U.S. domestic business grew 18.3% during FY2024 Q2. Both markets saw strong growth in their eCommerce channels, with a persistent focus on reducing the extent and frequency of discounts.