The 28-year-old businessman Fritz Henkel founded the company Henkel & Cie in Aachen on September 26, 1876 with two partners. The first product was a silicate-based universal detergent, followed in 1878 by “Henkel's Bleich-Soda”. Because there was not enough space, the company moved to Düsseldorf. In 1900, Henkel moved into its new headquarters in what is now the Holthausen district. The company's headquarters are still located there today.
The adhesives business was founded in the early 1920s. In 1985, Henkel went public and was one of the founding companies of the Dax. In 2008, the US adhesive producer National Starch was bought from Akzo Nobel for the equivalent of around 3.7 billion euros - to date the largest takeover in the company's history. In 2023, the branded goods business, i.e. laundry and household as well as cosmetics and personal care, was merged to form the new Consumer Brands division. As a result, around 3,500 jobs were cut worldwide.
In 1907 the well-known detergent Persil came onto the market. In the following year, Henkel said it produced 4,700 tons of Persil, and in 1915 it had already produced seven times as much. Since 1922, Henkel has been advertising the product with the White Lady advertising figure.
In the 1920s, the company developed cleaners for industry and agriculture under the name P3. In 1969, the Pritt pen came onto the market - inspired by the twisting mechanism of a lipstick. Since 1995, Henkel has owned the Schwarzkopf brand, which is also known for the Taft hairspray. In 1997 the company took over the US brand Loctite. Other well-known brands include Spee, Pril, Somat, Schauma, got2be and Pattex.
Henkel recorded annual sales of 20.5 billion euros in 2025. About half of the revenue comes from the consumer goods sector, with body and hair care products as well as detergents and cleaning products, and the adhesives division. Henkel employs around 50,000 people in 53 countries and at 165 production sites, around 8,000 of them in Germany. Carsten Knobel has been chairman of the board since 2020. Simone Bagel-Trah, great-great-granddaughter of founder Fritz Henkel, heads the supervisory board and the shareholders' committee.
Henkel's biggest competitors in consumer goods include Procter & Gamble, Unilever and L'Oréal, and in the area of adhesives H.B. Fuller, Sika and 3M. According to its own information, Henkel is the global market leader and important supplier in the area of adhesives, sealants and coatings, including for the automotive and electronics industries.
“They are the Coca-Cola and Pepsi of the adhesives world,” a Federal Trade Commission lawyer said in July. The US antitrust authorities filed a lawsuit against Henkel's takeover of a US adhesives manufacturer. It is argued that the transaction would significantly impair competition.
After the start of the Ukrainian war, energy costs rose significantly. The industrial adhesives business is vulnerable to economic fluctuations. The consumer goods division is also under pressure. According to a study by management consultancy Roland Berger, brands have lost influence. For 71 percent of consumers, price is one of the three most important reasons for purchasing, while brand reputation is only for 21 percent. “The value of a product is much more important than the logo,” they say.
Because of the increased prices, consumers are more often turning to cheaper retail brands instead of manufacturer brands such as those from Henkel. According to the market research company YouGov, the share of own brands for detergents rose by 2.3 percentage points over the past four years, for cleaning products by 4 percentage points and for hair care products by 3 percentage points. Retail sources say that brands are coming under pressure, but when it comes to detergents they have remained surprisingly stable. Brand affinity remains high. According to YouGov, Henkel's Persil has long been scoring not only with older consumers, but increasingly with younger consumers as well.
Traditional brands like Persil still have enormous power, says marketing expert Andreas Baetzgen. “The slogan 'You know what you have' still sums up this credo today.” But continuity alone is not enough. Henkel must write new growth stories. “Many of the most successful brands of tomorrow will no longer be built in-house, but will be purchased as young, growing brands.”
According to the Bonn historian Joachim Scholtyseck, the 1930s were among the most difficult and critical phases in Henkel's history. In 1930, a takeover attempt by competitor Unilever failed. A few years later, Werner Lüps, grandson of the company founder, tried to get Henkel on a National Socialist course. Like other companies, the group adapted to the Nazi regime. In 1940, Henkel was designated a National Socialist model company and was subsequently part of the war economy.
After the Second World War, according to Scholtyseck, the reappraisal was initially rather slow. “At Henkel, inquiries about the Nazi era were rejected for decades.” Only later did the company have its role in National Socialism and the employment of forced laborers investigated. The historian says the chapter was thoroughly reworked in a scientific study in 2001. This was by no means common practice among companies at the time.
Like many consumer goods manufacturers, Henkel came under criticism for its business in Russia after the start of the Ukraine war. The company initially stopped planned investments as well as advertising and sponsorship, but allowed production to continue. In April 2022, Henkel decided to withdraw from Russia, and the sale took place a year later.
