• The Cincinnati Inquirer , Monday, September 8, 2008 9:31 AM

Procter & Gamble will announce today that it is selling its Noxzema facial cleanser brand, which it has owned since 1989, to Alberto-Culver. Based in Melrose Park, Ill., Alberto-Culver was founded in 1955 and bills itself as the fourth-largest hair-care products maker in the U.S. and the second largest in the United Kingdom. Its brands include Alberto VO5, TRESemme and Soft and Beautiful.

The sale fits a broad strategy of P&G shedding underperforming brands to focus on higher-margin ones. But perhaps nowhere across P&G's businesses is the strategy more evident than in its beauty unit, which includes skin- and hair-care products. In its 2007 fiscal year, P&G made $281 million from the sale of Pert shampoo, Sure deodorant "and several non-strategic minor Beauty brands."

While P&G has increased marketing spending on skin-care brands Olay and SK-II, which retail for higher prices than Noxzema, the company cut Noxzema's advertising budget by 84% between 2003 and 2007, according to TNS Media Intelligence.

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