Unraveling the Continued Growth of the Davines Group, Next Steps

MILAN – The Davines Group has been steadily rising for the past 40 years – and shows no signs of slowing down.

The beauty company of Parma, Italy, founded in 1983 by the Bollati family and working with the hair care machine Davines and the skin care skin Comfort Zone, has created a record of annual growth thanks to its knowledge of developing high performance, natural methods and implementing environmental protection initiatives.

These two factors have been a competitive advantage for Davines, which has built a global business serving consumers’ consistent desire for natural and professional beauty products.

The group, which debuted in WWD Beauty Inc’s top 100 of the world’s largest beauty companies in 2024 and confirmed its 98th position last year, continues to grow.

In 2025, its sales grew by 3.9 percent to 306.7 million euros compared to the previous year. Revenues generated outside Italy made up 82 percent of the total, while domestic sales were up 4 percent to 56.7 million euros.

Key drivers included growth in the US, the group’s best-performing market, where sales rose 9.8 percent against 2024 and Davines hair care is distributed in nearly 8,500 salons.

In an interview with WWD, Davines Group chairman David Bollati emphasized how “we have strengthened our relationship with the professional channel through our digital one.”

“We refer our customers to hairdressers and salons, which should not be taken lightly. It is an unethical step and does not return visible or easily measurable results,” Bollati said. “We are doing this at a time when the American market is very strong, many of our competitors in the professional channel are successful by talking directly to the end customer, and the salon is no longer a priority for them.”

Bollati estimates that 30 to 40 percent of total professional hair care sales in the United States are now generated outside of the salon environment.

Davines has taken a different approach, using services to help promote salon sales. A major driver of recent growth has been hair color, “which we developed to strengthen our service-driven business,” Bollati said.

The business of the Bollati family has recorded natural growth since its inception, except for the financial crisis of 2008 and the pandemic of 2020. But even during the COVID-19, Bollati was at the forefront of expressing the concerns of hairdressers and beauticians in Italy, and supported professionals by deferring payment terms, implementing free online training sessions and sharing guides and tips to get started their businesses after being set aside.

Led by Italy, Europe is the second best performing region for the Davines Group, with 2025 sales in France and the UK up 10.2 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, against 2024.

In 2025, the company invested 6 million euros to establish its new subsidiary Davines España in Bilbao, Spain, signing an agreement with its old supplier Beovipel. This operation was intended to strengthen the presence of the European group in the second market after Italy and together with France, and it meant that the company now deals directly with Beovipel’s work of 1,500 people in hairdressers, salons and spas in the market; has received its team of 60 employees and manages five loans for professional training in Bilbao, Barcelona, ​​​​Madrid, Valencia and Alicante.

Overall, Davines products are distributed in more than 90 countries and its workforce has grown by 5 percent to more than 1,000 employees worldwide in the past year. Looking ahead, Bollati is targeting other markets including Brazil, India, China and Australia.

To encourage further growth Davines Group has created an investment plan of 50 million euros for the next five years, mainly aimed at expanding the 30 hectares of the Davines Group Village to increase its production capacity while improving its technical innovation and overall sustainability. Last year the group took over a plant formerly owned by the Morris Profumi company, which is being converted from a fragrance manufacturing plant to a cosmetics one.

Other investments will include the creation of a foundation to be launched this year to promote Davines Group’s activities related to social, cultural and environmental causes, as well as a university with an auditorium designed by the architectural studio Matteo Thun & Partners, which designed the Davines Group Village project.

The R&D department, which currently counts 60 employees out of the 600 employees of the Parma HQ, will also be developed, along with a project developed with the Rodale Institute, a non-profit organization based in the United States that specializes in regenerative organic agriculture.

“We have done many experiments in our history, from slow food to renewable agriculture, to improve the performance of our products and the supply chain,” Bollati said. “It is still our reason for being: to create a partnership between product performance and performance, which is now not under the slogan of ‘Sustainable beauty’ but has become a claim of ‘For health’,” Bollati said.

In fact, after 20 years, the company changed its tagline to simply describe “what we do…[but] why we do it” and the deep purpose of its work, to expand the vision to include cultural improvement and emotional connection, as represented by the animated video campaign released last month.

Bollati has also received personal attention for the sustainable business model of his company, such as an award from the consulting firm EY in 2024. It is not surprising that over the years his firm has attracted the interest of the financial world, but Bollati is always determined to be independent. On the contrary, he is now willing to invest in or acquire new products with the same vision, he said.

Meanwhile, he has made a personal decision to receive visitors. Bollati and the family behind the Parma-based Chiesi Farmaceutici biopharmaceutical company have invested in the development of a hotel in their hometown, which is expected to open in September 2027.

While keeping the details in detail, Bollati said that the area could provide an “experimental area” especially for the Comfort Zone brand founded in 1996, which is a leading player in the professional skin care group in Italy and produces resorts and resorts in more than 40 countries around the world.

In what Bollati described as a “hybrid reception area,” he said, “there will be a Comfort Zone dedicated to the topics of anti-aging and longevity, focusing on skin care and science, but also the opportunity to explore other areas, such as mental health, holistic exercise and sleep science.”