Who Owns Sally Beauty?

C. Ray Farber opened the first Sally Beauty Supply store in New Orleans in 1964, selling professional-grade beauty products directly to consumers at a time when those products were generally available only through salon suppliers. The do-it-yourself positioning, especially in hair color, became the brand's defining niche.

Alberto-Culver, the Chicago consumer products company, acquired the young chain in 1969 and expanded it nationally through the 1970s and 1980s. Growth came through a mix of new stores and acquisitions of regional beauty supply distributors, many of which were converted to the Sally name.

The professional side of the business grew in parallel through Beauty Systems Group, built largely from acquired salon distributors serving licensed stylists under the CosmoProf banner. Together the two channels gave the parent both retail consumer and professional trade coverage.

In November 2006, Alberto-Culver separated its Sally operations into a newly independent company, Sally Beauty Holdings, distributing shares to Alberto-Culver stockholders. The new public company established headquarters in Denton, Texas, and continued consolidating the fragmented beauty supply industry, including the 2017 acquisition of UK-based Salon Services.

Recent years have focused on modernization. In fiscal 2025 the company launched Sally Ignited, a brand refresh repositioning the banner from a functional supplier toward a more engaging beauty destination, alongside expanded delivery partnerships with DoorDash, Uber Eats, Instacart, Amazon, and Walmart marketplaces. Fiscal 2025 consolidated net sales reached $3.7 billion with e-commerce at $397 million, roughly 11 percent of total sales.