Metrosexual men and increasingly time-pressured women are driving the personal care market hard. They want the best possible results in the shortest possible time and they are prepared to pay handsomely to get these benefits.

The combined hair, shaving, oral and bath and bodycare arenas produced impressive growth last year, with almost every brand in the top 20 rankings growing in value.

Growth is coming from increasingly premium lines, with consumers adopting the same approach to products they use on the outside as to those they consume on the inside, and seeking naturalness and quality.

The most outstanding performers were the Johnson & Johnson bodycare brand, which grew 31.5%, Ambre Solaire sun preparations, with a 28.4% rise and Listerine oral care, which had a boost of 21.6%.

However, six other brands in the top 20 showed double digit year-on-year improvements and Alberto hair care, in ninth place, was the only brand to buck the trend, falling 3.3%.

Gillette is the undisputed king of the castle, with value totalling £267m and 5.3% growth. Its fortunes got an extra boost this year from the success of five-blade razor newcomer Fusion, which hit shelves in August, amid a marketing fanfare.

Second-placed Colgate made the most of more advanced toothpaste formulations with products targeting specific needs, such as Time Control, which claims to reduce gum recession. Its value was boosted by 9.2% to £192m.

In third place, Unilever's Dove brand continues to stake its claim as the hair and body care brand for real women. A plethora of new products joined its line-up, including a range of cream-oil bodywashes, all backed by further strands of the high profile ad campaign based around the theme of curvaceous beauty in all shapes and sizes. It also followed Johnson & Johnson's lead into the tanning moisturiser sector.

Oral B, now also a P&G brand and in fourth place overall, grew 11.8%, helped by growing interest in battery-operated toothbrushes such as its Pulsar line.n