Which company owns the Nivea skin-care brand?

Beiersdorf owns the NIVEA skin-care brand. NIVEA is a German personal-care brand and one of the flagship consumer businesses of Hamburg-based Beiersdorf AG.

The brand’s modern story began with NIVEA Creme, introduced in 1911 after Beiersdorf chemists developed a stable water-in-oil emulsion using Eucerit, a lanolin-derived emulsifier. The name NIVEA comes from the Latin word niveus, meaning “snow-white,” a reference to the cream’s appearance.

A common mix-up is to treat NIVEA as an independent company or to confuse its owner with another multinational beauty group such as L’Oréal, Unilever, or Coty. Those companies own competing personal-care and cosmetics brands, but NIVEA belongs to Beiersdorf. The group also owns or manages brands including Eucerin, Hansaplast, Labello, and La Prairie.

NIVEA expanded from its original face cream into body lotions, cleansers, deodorants, shaving products, sun care, and men’s grooming. Its blue-and-white packaging, introduced in the 1920s, became one of the brand’s most recognizable visual signatures.