Sanex is owned by Colgate-Palmolive (the United States, NYSE: CL), which acquired the brand on 1 June 2011 for €672 million from Unilever.[1][2]
Evidence: Colgate-Palmolive Company Annual Report on Form 10-K filed 2026-02-23, SEC EDGAR, 23 February 2026. Verified from filings; last checked .
Sanex is a European body care brand created in Spain in 1977 and positioned around skin health rather than fragrance, with pH-balanced formulations. Colgate-Palmolive acquired it from Unilever in 2011 in an exchange that also saw Unilever take Colgate's Colombian laundry detergent business.
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 USPTO record for the Sanex mark lists Colgate-Palmolive Europe Sàrl as the owner of record (serial number 79391506). That name matches the owner named above.[3]
Controlling ownership as of . Brands grouped under the entity that owns them; large groups are collapsed.
Open the full Colgate-Palmolive ownership tree →
See the full Colgate-Palmolive brand portfolio (15) →
Colgate-Palmolive controls 15 brands on Brandtree, 10 of them in personal care & beauty.
The 42 brands in bar soap & body wash on Brandtree belong to 29 owners. The largest is Unilever, with 5; Colgate-Palmolive has 2.
| Brand | Owner | Owner based in |
|---|---|---|
| Dove | Unilever | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom |
| MediHerb | Trade Kings | 🇿🇲 Zambia |
| Cavaillès | Bolton Group | 🇮🇹 Italy |
| Cristalino | CasaLuker | 🇨🇴 Colombia |
| Bath Roman | Earth | 🇯🇵 Japan |
| Jovia | Jyothy Labs | 🇮🇳 India |
| Ivory | Procter & Gamble | 🇺🇸 United States |
| Claire | Sulfo Rwanda | 🇷🇼 Rwanda |
Colgate-Palmolive is a publicly listed company headquartered in New York, United States, founded in 1806. Brandtree records 15 brands under its control, and it is listed as NYSE: CL.
Colgate-Palmolive traces to a New York soap and candle business started in 1806 and took its present form in 1928. Oral care is its largest business, and its Hill's Pet Nutrition subsidiary is a major veterinary pet food maker.
Colgate-Palmolive: full profile, brands and acquisition history →
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 119 brands that began in Spain. 55 of them (46%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country, Sanex among them.
Colgate-Palmolive bought Sanex from Unilever for about EUR 672 million. Unilever was selling because competition authorities required it to divest Sanex before it could complete its purchase of Sara Lee's personal care business, so one company's remedy became another's acquisition.
The parent company of Sanex is Colgate-Palmolive, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United States.
Sanex originated in Spain in 1977, but it is owned today by Colgate-Palmolive, which is headquartered in the United States. So Sanex is a Spanish-origin brand under American ownership.
Colgate-Palmolive completed its acquisition of Sanex on 1 June 2011, after announcing the deal on 27 September 2010. The deal was valued at €672 million (enterprise value).
Yes. As of 4 October 2026, Sanex is still owned by Colgate-Palmolive. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Last verified . Every ownership fact above is backed by one of these primary documents. Numbers in brackets in the text refer to this list.
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