Who owns Cif?
Cif is owned by Unilever (the United Kingdom, LSE: ULVR).[1]
Evidence: Unilever PLC Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2025, SEC EDGAR, 12 March 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Key facts
- Current owner
- Unilever PLC verified
- Owner HQ
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom, London
- Origin
- 🇫🇷 France
- Founded
- 1965
- Category
- Home care › Household cleaning › Surface & bathroom cleaners
- Parent ticker
- LSE: ULVR NYSE: UL AEX: UNA
- Trademark registrant
- Conopco, Inc. (USPTO)
- Last verified
- · 2 sources
About Cif
Cif is a cream cleaner launched in France in 1965 as Vif, using fine abrasive particles suspended in liquid so that it cleaned without scratching. Unilever renamed most markets to Cif in the early 2000s to consolidate a name that had varied by country; it is still sold as Jif in some markets and Vim in Canada and India.
What Unilever's annual report says about Cif
Sentences about Cif from Unilever's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
Home & Hygiene grew mid-single digit, led by Domestos and Cif, supported by premium innovations such as Infinite Clean.
To address rising consumer demand for convenient and longer-lasting cleaning solutions, we launched Cif Infinite Clean in 2025.
To support the formulation's performance, Cif Infinite Clean's premium packaging features mist technology for even surface coverage.
How often Unilever names Cif in its annual report
A plain count of the times the name appears in the text of each annual report, not counting the start of a sentence. A brand that an owner writes about more is usually one it treats as central. The brand is named more often than it was three years earlier.
Trademark record for Cif
The USPTO record for the Cif mark lists Conopco, Inc. as the owner of record (serial number 88811902). A trademark is often held by a group company rather than the listed parent, so the registrant's name can differ from the owner named above.[2]
Ownership timeline of Cif
Where Cif sits in Unilever
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
- Axe
- Bango
- Brut
- Cif
- Clear
- Close-Up
- Colman's
- Comfort
- Degree
- Dermalogica
- Domestos
- Dove
- Dove Men+Care
- Grüns (80%)
- Hellmann's
- Horlicks
- Hourglass Cosmetics
- Impulse
- Kate Somerville
- Knorr
- Lifebuoy
- Liquid I.V.
- Living Proof
- Lux
- Lynx
- Maizena
- Marmite
- Murad
- Nexxus
- Nutrafol
- OMO
- Paula's Choice
- Pepsodent
- Persil
- Pond's
- Pot Noodle
- Radox
- Rexona
- Royco
- SheaMoisture
- Signal
- Simple
- St. Ives
- Suave (outside the United States and Canada)
- Sunlight
- Sunsilk
- Sure
- Tatcha
- The Vegetarian Butcher
- TRESemmé
- Vaseline
- VO5
- Zendium
Open the full Unilever ownership tree →
See the full Unilever brand portfolio (53) →
Other brands owned by Unilever
Unilever controls 53 brands on Brandtree, 6 of them in home care.
Also in home care
Founded in the 1960s
Other brands in surface & bathroom cleaners, and who owns them
The 34 brands in surface & bathroom cleaners on Brandtree belong to 21 owners. The largest is SC Johnson, with 4.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Method | SC Johnson | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Formula 409 | Clorox | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Flash | Grupo AlEn | 🇲🇽 Mexico |
| Ajax | Colgate-Palmolive | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Armor All | Energizer Holdings | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Nufăr | Farmec | 🇷🇴 Romania |
| Bon Ami | Faultless Brands | 🇺🇸 United States |
| El Kef | Lesieur Cristal | 🇲🇦 Morocco |
About the owner: Unilever
Unilever is a publicly listed company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, founded in 1929. Brandtree records 53 brands under its control, and it is listed as LSE: ULVR, NYSE: UL and AEX: UNA.
Unilever is a British consumer goods company formed in 1929 by the merger of Dutch margarine producer Margarine Unie and British soap maker Lever Brothers. It reports through four business groups: Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care, Home Care and Foods. Its ice cream business was demerged as The Magnum Ice Cream Company in December 2025.
🇫🇷 Cif and other French brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 327 brands that began in France. 102 of them (31%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Cif among them.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Cif?
The parent company of Cif is Unilever, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Is Cif French or British?
Cif originated in France in 1965, but it is owned today by Unilever, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom. So Cif is a French-origin brand under British ownership.
Is Cif still owned by Unilever?
Yes. As of 29 October 2026, Cif is still owned by Unilever. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (2) & corrections
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
- [1] Unilever PLC Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2025 — SEC EDGAR, SEC Form 20-F, published 12 March 2026; retrieved 16 September 2026.
- [2] USPTO: CIF, serial 88811902, registration 6760992 — United States Patent and Trademark Office, Trademark registry; retrieved 26 September 2026.
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