30+ HUL Brands You Use Every Day — All Flowing Profits to Unilever, UK

Hindustan Unilever Limited is the single most pervasive foreign brand owner in India. Its products appear in over 9 out of 10 Indian households, across income levels and geographies. Yet most Indian consumers do not think of HUL as a foreign company — the name is Indian, the brands feel Indian, and the products are made in India.

HUL is 61.9% owned by Unilever PLC, headquartered in London. Here is the full portfolio.

Personal wash

• Dove — premium skin care soap and body wash
• Lux — beauty soap, one of India's oldest and largest soap brands
• Lifebuoy — hygiene soap, present in India for over 125 years
• Pears — transparent glycerine soap, premium segment
• Hamam — a South India heritage soap brand, acquired by HUL
• Breeze — economy soap segment

Laundry

• Surf Excel — premium laundry detergent, India's largest detergent brand
• Rin — mid-segment detergent and bar soap
• Wheel — economy laundry segment
• Active Wheel 2-in-1 — economy detergent with added fragrance

Hair care

• Clinic Plus — India's most distributed shampoo
• Sunsilk — premium women's shampoo
• TRESemmé — salon-grade hair care
• Dove (hair) — extending the Dove brand into hair care

Skin care

• Pond's — face creams and talcum powder, an HUL heritage brand
• Vaseline — petroleum jelly and moisturisers
• Glow & Lovely (formerly Fair & Lovely) — India's largest skin lightening cream brand
• Lakmé — India's most recognised cosmetics brand (HUL acquired it from Tata)
• Simple — natural skincare range

Oral care

• Closeup — gel toothpaste, competing with Colgate
• Pepsodent — economy toothpaste segment

Deodorants and fragrances

• Axe — men's deodorant and fragrance
• Rexona — deodorant, sports-focused positioning
• Dove (deo) — premium women's deodorant

Foods and beverages

• Brooke Bond Red Label — India's largest tea brand
• Brooke Bond Taaza — economy tea
• Lipton — global tea brand sold in India through HUL
• Bru — India's second-largest coffee brand (after Nescafé)
• Knorr — soups, noodles, and seasonings
• Horlicks — health drink, acquired by HUL from GSK in 2020
• Boost — energy health drink, also from the GSK acquisition
• Kwality Wall's — ice cream (Cornetto, Magnum, Paddle Pop)

Home care

• Domex — toilet cleaner
• Vim — dish wash bar and liquid
• Cif — surface cleaner

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What 61.9% means

For every ₹100 of dividend that HUL distributes to shareholders, ₹61.90 goes to Unilever PLC in London. Additionally, HUL pays royalties to Unilever for brand and technology use. The total annual value transfer from Indian consumer purchases to UK corporate accounts runs into thousands of crores.

Indian-owned alternatives exist across every HUL category. Explore the Switch To India database to find them.