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Herbal Essences have shrunk their conditioners by almost a third (but it still costs the same)
Herbal Essences have shrunk their popular conditioners by almost a third, but continue to sell them for the same price.
The product has been revamped and is now sold in tubes, rather than plastic bottles, but eagle-eyed shoppers have noticed the packaging isn’t the only change.
Whereas before you could get 400ml of their Dazzling Shine, Hello Hydration, Daily Detox and Ignite My Colour conditioners for around £2, now a 275ml tube is all that is available.
That’s 31% less for the same price.
On the Tesco website, the original Dazzling Shine 400ml bottle is listed at £1.95. But when we signed in and tried to add it to our online basket, it changed to show it as out of stock.
Customers are instead directed to this listing, which shows the same conditioner, but in a tube and sized at 275ml – for the same price.
This has received an angry one-star review from one customer, complaining about the reduced size.
Both of the Hello Hydration conditioner sizes are showing as available on the Boots website (presumably while they clear out old stock), but despite one being 125ml smaller, both are listed at the exact same price.
One person wrote on X: “Why are you no longer selling 400ml bottles of conditioner? Now I can only find 275ml tubes, which means I’ll need to replace them more often – and they’re not that much cheaper!”
Proctor & Gamble has been contacted for comment, but they’re not the only example of companies shrinking their products.
Major brands have denied so-called “shrinkflation”, despite selling smaller quantities of a product for similar prices.
A boss at Kraft Heinz previously told MPs that reducing the percentage of beans in a tin, without bringing down the price, was not shrinkflation.
Meanwhile the price of a Cadbury Dairy Milk sharing bar has been reduced by 10% – though it is still on sale for the same price.