Who owns Sunlight?
Sunlight 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
- 🇬🇧 United Kingdom
- Founded
- 1884
- Category
- Home care › Household cleaning › Dishwashing
- Parent ticker
- LSE: ULVR NYSE: UL AEX: UNA
- Last verified
- · 1 sources
About Sunlight
Sunlight was the soap that founded Lever Brothers in 1884, sold in wrapped, branded bars at a time when soap was cut from a block, and it gave its name to Port Sunlight, the model village William Lever built for his workers. It survives today as a dishwashing and laundry brand in Canada, South Africa and parts of Europe.
What Unilever's annual report says about Sunlight
Sentences about Sunlight from Unilever's latest annual filing[1], copied word for word.
Our investment in probiotic cleaning technology extends beyond Cif, with Wipol in Indonesia, Sunlight in Vietnam and Vim in India now offering the technology in various products.
How often Unilever names Sunlight 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.
Ownership timeline of Sunlight
Where Sunlight 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
Other brands in dishwashing, and who owns them
The 27 brands in dishwashing on Brandtree belong to 20 owners. The largest is Ypê, with 3.
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.
🇬🇧 Sunlight and other British brands
Brandtree records a controlling owner for 552 brands that began in the United Kingdom. 291 of them (53%) are now controlled by a company headquartered in another country; Sunlight is not one of them.
- Ariel — Procter & Gamble 🇺🇸
- Belling — Glen Dimplex 🇮🇪
- CDA — Amica 🇵🇱
- Cillit Bang — Reckitt 🇬🇧
- Daler-Rowney — F.I.L.A. 🇮🇹
- Dyson — Dyson 🇸🇬
Frequently asked questions
Who is the parent company of Sunlight?
The parent company of Sunlight is Unilever, a publicly listed company headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Is Sunlight British?
Yes. Sunlight originated in the United Kingdom in 1884 and its owner, Unilever, is also headquartered in the United Kingdom.
Is Sunlight still owned by Unilever?
Yes. As of 8 October 2026, Sunlight is still owned by Unilever. The ownership record was last checked against primary sources on that date.
Sources (1) & 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.
Report a correction Opens a pre-filled GitHub issue. See our corrections policy.