We’ve all seen the television ads: An attractive woman hears the word “urge” and goes into a wild daydream about getting shampooed by strong, handsome men. Is shampoo ever marketed toward men? To research how Aussie, Pert Plus, Pantene, Herbal Essence, and Physique market their products, I called each product’s 1-800 number on the bottle, examined the product Web site, and went into my local grocery store to look at the bottles, scents, and types of each shampoo brand. I found that all shampoo is made from the same basic ingredients and does the same basic job. Every brand I looked at offered the same basic types of shampoos: clarifying, moisturizing, and dandruff control. But that doesn’t stop the marketers from making all kinds of promises, mostly to women.

Here’s what I discovered about each shampoo:

Herbal Essence. This product claims that it leaves “gorgeous, luxuriously soft” hair – not results many men would be concerned with. Both the packaging of this product (translucent flowery bottles with pastel-colored shampoo inside) and the advertising campaign-- featuring beautiful young women who seem to gain sexual pleasure from washing their hair with this product—indicate that this product is for women.

Pantene. Touted as “serious care for beautiful hair,” Pantene promises to keep hair “bouncy and shiny.” This marketing seems targeted directly and exclusively at women. Bottles are pearly white colored, and the scent is slightly perfume-like. Commercials generally feature beautiful women with long shiny hair talking about how healthy their hair is. Because of the commercial use of female sex appeal and the use of printed words like “bouncy” and “shiny,” this product markets to women.

Physique. Physique claims it can “give you the hair nature didn’t.” The packaging (shiny, techno silver bottles with bright colored letters in teals and purples) and descriptors such as “Amplifying Shampoo” and “Structuring Gel” presents hair care as a science. Bottles are decorated with the Sigma symbol, and it’s even used as a bullet on the web page, which also offers a DNA strand and molecule images. Scientific looking symbols are thrown around to make this product look important, but they are all used incorrectly or in no particular context, implying perhaps that they think most people won’t know the difference anyway.

Aussie. The bottles are white and cream colored, featuring their logo of a kangaroo. The shampoo products do not have specific scents or names, and commercials feature very heterogeneous groups of people: children and adults, men and women, from different cultural backgrounds. Even Aussie’s Web page was very basic – except for one page called “Tips and Tricks” which featured six women with different hairstyles and a caption telling women to pay special attention to their hair to attract a man for Valentine’s Day. Overall, though, Aussie markets their products as gender-neutral.

Pert Plus. This shampoo is marketed to “active people” who want convenience. The bottles are blues and greens and offer no scents. This product was the least gendered of all five I researched. Pert even offers “Family Sized” bottles, adding to their appeal as a shampoo everyone can use.