admin
June 8, 2026
Arushi Jain, The Times of India
8 June 2026
Their faces have launched many campaigns and brought crores to the film industry. But can they sell a moisturiser as successfully? India’s beauty market is the hottest growth story globally, estimated to reach $40 billion from $23 billion (2026) and eyeing the fourth-largest spot by 2030 (currently at number seven).
Last month, Estée Lauder announced the buyout of Forest Essentials, one of India’s oldest, Ayurveda-based brands. In 2025, Hindustan Unilever acquired five-year-old skin and hair care brand, Minimalist. A 2025 McKinsey & Company x Business of Fashion survey found that 78% of global beauty executives see India as the most promising growth market. Even celebrities have shown up with chequebooks, but fans are no longer buying at face value.
While Hailey Bieber’s Rhode built a cult following through what she calls an “outside of the box” strategy, Deepika Padukone’s 82°E reported a 30% revenue dip in FY25. Nykaa is in talks to acquire a stake in the brand.
India’s consumer has evolved faster than the brands serving them. They are reading labels now, not just recognising famous faces on packaging. Star power, it turns out, only gets you so far.
Fame gets you in the door. Formulation keeps you there
If a celebrity is the invitation to the party, formulation is what keeps the guest at the after-party. Despite India’s celebrity beauty segment crossing an estimated `5,000 crore in GMV in FY24, scale has not translated into customer retention. The initial spike, familiar to anyone who has tracked a celebrity launch, gives way to an uncomfortable question: what brings a customer back?
“Celebrity isn’t necessarily a sustainable brand asset,” says Devangshu Dutta, CEO of retail consultancy Third Eyesight. “While celebrities can act as interest-creators and trial-generators, repeat purchases are built on functional reasons, not imagery alone.”
Founders echo the same reality from the ground. “Honestly, people come back for what works,” says Aashka Goradia Goble, co-founder of RENÉE Cosmetics. “If a product performs well, feels easy to use, is priced right, and becomes part of someone’s everyday routine, they’ll keep reaching for it.”
Price, too, remains a decisive filter. Sunny Leone, founder of StarStruck, says, “In India, price is the main component.” The journey from first purchase to loyalty is driven by habit, and habit, in beauty, is built on results.
Positioning over popularity
The gap between a viral campaign and a repeat purchase is wider than most A-listers realise. Brand guru Harish Bijoor locates the problem in what he calls the “spinal cord” of a brand: a single, clear positioning that holds the entire business together.
Rihanna’s Fenty is inseparable from its commitment to shade inclusivity. Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics was built around one obsession: lips. “It is extremely important to understand what you want to be and focus on just one thing and not on everything,” Bijoor says. That clarity is precisely where most Indian celebrity beauty brands are still finding their footing.
The old playbook: launch a brand online, wrap it in the language of “clean” or “natural,” and wait for a global conglomerate to come calling has run its course. Today, strategic buyers and consumers alike want a brand that can stand on its own. The question is no longer whether a celebrity can generate awareness. It is whether the brand they have built can survive them.
What the labels that last have in common
The brands breaking through are doing so quietly and methodically. In a category where fame can spark interest but not always guarantee repeat purchase, Katrina Kaif’s Kay Beauty, launched with Nykaa in 2019, has emerged as one of celebrity beauty’s more consistent success stories.
The main reason is less about star power and more about strategy. “If you contrast Kay Beauty and 82°E (Deepika Padukone’s brand), Kay Beauty has two distinct advantages,” says Dutta. “Firstly, being priced for a much larger audience, and secondly, having the active participation of Nykaa across channels in terms of merchandising and visibility push for the brand.”
Nykaa is candid about what made the difference. “When we co-created Kay Beauty with Katrina, shade ranges and formulations designed for Indian skin tones and climate were severely limited,” a spokesperson shares, adding that the celebrity association “amplified the brand rather than substituted for it.” The strategy appears to have paid off: Kay Beauty is now a ₹500 crore-plus annualised GMV brand, with new launches contributing 21% of revenue as of Q3 FY26.
Why Indian skin demands more than a famous name
For Indian celebrity brands, the challenge is not just performance; it is perception. “Domestically, we see the mentality for buyers is to look at international brands first based on trust, and then try domestic brands based on lower price value,” says Leone.
Indian consumers are also highly specific in what they expect. According to market research firm Mintel, shoppers are increasingly drawn to formulations that are clinically tested and grounded in both science and local familiarity. Products must perform in Mumbai’s humidity and Delhi’s pollution and suit the full spectrum of Indian skin tones.
“Indian consumers love products that do more than one job, last long in our weather, and actually match Indian skin tones,” says Goradia. They are cautious spenders, she adds, but willing to invest when they see real quality and innovation.
Nykaa says this ingredient awareness is now visible across the country, not just metros. “Consumers are reading about niacinamide and retinol, they know what they want from a sunscreen, and are making considered purchase decisions. Brands need to earn their place on merit in every market,” says the spokesperson.
“A brand that addresses these needs well and remains within the customer’s budget succeeds,” says Dutta.
Gen Z will drive 50% of India’s beauty consumption by 2030
By 2030, Gen Z will drive 50% of India’s beauty and personal care consumption, a third of all sales will happen online, and per capita income is forecast to rise 138% in real terms by 2040, according to Euromonitor. Nykaa founder and CEO Falguni Nayar told Bloomberg that comparing India’s beauty routines to South Korea’s famed 14-step regimens is premature, “It is still day zero for beauty consumption in India.”
The global conglomerates have done the math. Estée Lauder, L’Oréal, and Puig are all moving deeper into India, betting on a consumer who is younger, more digitally fluent, and more ingredient-literate than any previous generation. The brands they are acquiring, Forest Essentials, Minimalist, Kama Ayurveda, share a common thread: They are built on something that exists independently of a famous face. “This is an industry that is very crowded and takes a lot of time to grow,” says Leone. “Western brands focus on global distribution and profit and loss. Not just turnover at a loss.” The celebrities who will build something lasting are the ones who understand that the launch is the easiest part. As Bijoor puts it: “Celebrity beauty is not skin deep at all. It is a deep brand science.”
(Published in The Times of India)
admin
March 1, 2026
Apoorva Mittal, Economic Times
1 March 2026
Resshmi Nair, 31, had grown used to the dotted red bumps on her arms. Her dermatologist diagnosed it as keratosis pilaris aka strawberry skin. It is a harmless skin condition that often affects legs and arms but Nair, a Mumbai-based marketing consultant, wanted it gone. She slathered lotions and salves but to no avail. Then she chanced upon an Instagram reel which showed an oil-based in-shower spray that promised to take care of her problem. “It was very tempting as it resonated with a personal concern,” she says. She is now on her third bottle. The bumps haven’t disappeared entirely, but they have become smaller, she says.
Like Nair, there are many who seek solutions tailormade for their beauty bugbears. Consumers who once searched for moisturisers and shampoos now look for niche products for hair and skin. They want to repair skin barrier, tame baby hairs and minimise facial pores.
A new generation of Indian beauty and personal care (BPC) brands are both listening to them and leading them. Focused products, they realise, could help them stand out in a crowded sector dominated by FMCG giants. While problems like acne, frizzy hair and rough skin have always been around, experts say the commercial importance of solving them narrowly and packaging that specificity as a brand strategy have become more intense of late.
India’s direct-to-consumer (D2C) beauty and personal care market—which is heavily invested in micro-problem targeting—is estimated to be $4.5 billion in FY2025, according to consulting firm Redseer. The new-age brands could account for 25-35% of total BPC spends by 2030. “Three major factors have contributed to this: one, the rise of digital medium for both commerce and marketing, which created a segue for new brands to launch and scale; two, younger consumers (Gen Z and young millennials) have become ingredient literate and look for results over broad promises; and three, competitive intensity in the market is pressing brands to position as per the right niches,” says Kushal Bhatnagar, associate partner, Redseer.
The shift is measurable on beauty retailer Nykaa’s platform. “Consumer vocabulary is far more evolved,” says a company spokesperson. Searches driven by specic concerns or ingredients are growing faster than broad category items. While foundational concerns like acne and brightening remain relevant, the platform is seeing strong growth in queries around pigmentation, barrier repair, pore care and specic hair issues. “This fragmentation is actually a sign of a more informed and aware consumer base,” the spokesperson adds.
ZOOMING IN
For young D2C brands, this behavioural shift has opened a narrow but potent entry point. Instead of launching another shampoo or moisturiser, they launch a product targeting a single problem and market it in an easily demonstrable short-video format. In the current beauty landscape, the market has shifted from general solutions to hyper-targeted efficacy.
Moxie Beauty, founded by Nikita Khanna in 2023, illustrates the playbook. Khanna, who previously worked at McKinsey, began with a focus on wavy and frizzy hair, a segment she herself belongs to. But it was one particular styling product, the flyaway hair stick, that went viral, propelling the brand into visibility. She says, “The wavy hair routine required us to educate people, which took time. But one can understand the flyaway wand in five seconds.” And it targeted what she calls a “widely held pain point”. That helped Moxie cut through crowded feeds and end up on consumer shelves. “Being synonymous with a category helps,” she says. “When people want a wax stick or flyaway stick, they search for our brand.”
That shift—from paying for visibility to being searched for directly—is critical in a market where customer acquisition costs (CAC) can be punishingly high. For many D2C brands, launching a sharply defined product is a way to reduce discovery friction and lower early-stage CAC. But a brand cannot be built or scaled on gimmicks, says Khanna. “If you solve only for what will look good in a video and will go viral, you won’t be able to scale. And if it’s a gimmick, people won’t repeat the purchase,” she adds.
Divanshee Jindal, cofounder of the brand The Solved Skin, says companies have to get the “product-communication fit” right. Her brand’s liquid pimple patch, which is designed to mask acne under makeup, is quickly emerging as its hero product. “People get excited when a product feels relatable and authentic,” says Jindal. “A new, convenient format that solves a real pain point makes consumers willing to try a new brand. But if it’s a standard product, say, a salicylic acid face wash, they will often default to a brand they already trust.”
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL
The idea is to start small but evolve. Moxie, for instance, has moved beyond textured hair into solving broader “Indian hair problems” like damage repair and anti-dandruff that has brought in male consumers as well. “Curly or wavy hair was a huge, underserved problem,” says Khanna. “But the thought was always to solve other problems as well.” Moxie, which recently raised $15 million in a funding round led by Bessemer Venture Partners, says it has crossed Rs. 100 crore in annual recurring revenue on its two-year mark, and is seeing roughly 50% consumers coming back in six months across platforms. However, it says profitability is harder to crack because of intense competition from new brands and changing channel mix.
Mani Singhal, MD of the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal, points out that most successful D2C brands started out with a sharply defined hero product. “Earlier it was natural vs chemical or price disruption; today it’s much more about efficacy proof, ingredient transparency, visible results and credible
storytelling,” she says.
From the manufacturer’s side, Nishit Dedhia of Kain Cosmeceuticals, a cosmetics manufacturing company, says, “It is easier today for brands to target special concerns. That specificity helps them build a differentiated product earlier on.” Most brands, he explains, x a major problem such as acne, dryness, pigmentation and then layer in a niche twist. Strawberry skin, once not a mainstream concern, is now a category. “People didn’t know the term. Once you give it a name, they identify with it,” he adds.
Dedhia describes the portfolio strategy as 8-2 or 9-1 where eight or nine products are general, incremental variations of core needs, while one or two are “category-building products” that require significant consumer education or product communication but create their own search demand. “That is the only way you get out of the vicious cycle of paying for visibility,” he says. “When people search for your brand directly, CAC comes down.”
Devangshu Dutta, founder of management consulting firm Third Eyesight, says micro-problem framing is “co-created” by consumers and companies. “The fragmentation is real, but the language used to describe it is heavily brand-driven,” he says. Terms like “strawberry skin” or “glass skin” correlate with influencer campaigns but label pre-existing dissatisfactions that mass products did not address sharply.
However, sometimes, in the race to differentiation, brands go for outlandish ideas. Dedhia says brands increasingly approach manufacturers with amusing asks in the quest to stand out. For instance, beard fillers packaged like mascara or plumpers for face and neck.
PRODUCE & PERISH
The problem is that the mortality rate of skincare brands is very high in India. Dedhia estimates that around 60% companies shut down in three years. Many brands burn through capital chasing ads and trends without building repeat customers or a community.
“For a brand to cross over from being a curiosity-driven purchase to being part of a regimen needs a minimum 25-30% of customers showing up as repeats after three months, while truly successful brands reach higher repeat numbers,” says Dutta.
Subscriptions are an even stronger test. “Generic formulations, me-too products and influencer spends can get you first users, but repeats will happen only from the user getting demonstrated value,” says Dutta.
But growth does not equal stability. CAC typically starts low for niche products, rises during scaling-up and stabilises only if organic demand takes over, says Bhatnagar of Redseer. Quick commerce accelerates discovery but compresses margins due to the high commission rates on these platforms, promotional expectations and lower average order values.
Singhal, who says a consolidation phase is underway, adds: “Niche entry can work extremely well if the problem is frequent enough and the solution is demonstrably effective.” Durable brands deliver consistent performance, build adjacencies beyond the first niche and maintain disciplined unit economics.
“If repeat rates don’t stabilise, economics becomes very challenging, very quickly.”
PERSONALISATION AHEAD
For Aparna Saxena, founder of Delhi-based beauty brand Antinorm, the next decade will be defined by even greater personalisation. Her brand has multifunctional products that are timesaving. Saxena says she surveyed about 250 women above 25 years of age and found that five-step routines typically do
not last after two months. Antinorm’s architecture rests on multifunctionality, like a leave-in cream that doubles as heat protectant and promises a “presentable” hair look without a blow-dry. Its most popular product is a spray that cleanses and moisturises, which they dub as “instant shower” or “facial in a flash”.
She says the brand, which launched in July last year, will close next fiscal with about Rs. 25 crore in revenue. Repeat rates are currently under 25% “because the denominator is expanding rapidly”, she adds. “Between 2020 and 2025, customers moved away from incumbents and got used to having options and trying newer brands,” she says. “Now they have routines in place. The next five years will be defined by more and more personalisation and micro-problem solving.” The beauty is about to go really skin deep.
(Published in Economic Times)
admin
February 27, 2026
Samar Srivastava, Forbes India
Feb 27, 2026
India’s young consumers are discovering the next big beauty serum, protein bar or sneaker brand not in a mall, but on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts and quick-commerce apps that promise 10-minute delivery. What began as a trickle of digital-first labels a decade ago has now become a full-blown wave. Direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands—built online, fuelled by social media and venture capital—have reshaped India’s consumer landscape and forced legacy companies to rethink everything from marketing to distribution.
India today has more than 800 active D2C brands across beauty, personal care, fashion, food, home and electronics, according to industry estimates and consulting reports. The Indian D2C market is estimated at $12–15 billion in 2025, up from under $5 billion in 2020, and growing at 25–30 percent annually. The pandemic accelerated online adoption, but the structural drivers—cheap data, digital payments and over 750 million internet users—were already in place.
Unlike traditional FMCG brands that relied on distributors and kirana stores, D2C brands such as Mamaearth, boAt, Licious and Sugar Cosmetics built their early traction online. Customer acquisition happened through performance marketing; feedback loops were immediate; product iterations were rapid.
Importantly, these brands are discovered online—but as they scale, consumers buy them both online and offline, increasingly through quick-commerce platforms such as Blinkit, Zepto and Swiggy Instamart, as well as modern trade and general trade stores. The omnichannel play is now central to their growth strategy.
According to Anil Kumar, founder and chief executive of Redseer Strategy Consultants, the ecosystem is maturing in measurable ways. Brands are taking lesser time to reach ₹100 crore or ₹500 crore revenue benchmarks and, once there, mortality rates are coming down. There is also an acceptance that if a brand is not profitable in a 3–5 year timeframe, that needs to be corrected. “There is a lot of emphasis on growing profitably and not just through GMV,” he says.
Big Cheques, Bigger Exits
The D2C boom would not have been possible without capital. Between 2014 and 2022, Indian D2C startups raised over $5 billion in venture and growth funding. Peak years like 2021 alone saw more than $1.2 billion invested in the segment. Beauty, personal care and fashion accounted for nearly 50 percent of total inflows, followed by food and beverages.
Some brands scaled independently; others found strategic buyers. Among the most prominent exits:
> Hindustan Unilever acquired a majority stake in Minimalist, reportedly valuing the actives-led skincare brand at over ₹3,000 crore. For Hindustan Unilever, the annual run rate from sales of its D2C portfolio is estimated at around ₹1,000 crore, underscoring how material digital-first brands have become to its growth strategy.
> ITC Limited bought Yoga Bar for about ₹175 crore in 2023 to strengthen its health foods portfolio.
> Emami acquired a majority stake in The Man Company, expanding its digital-first play.
> Tata Consumer Products acquired Soulfull as part of its health and wellness strategy.
> Marico invested in brands such as Beardo and True Elements.
Private equity has also entered aggressively at the growth stage. ChrysCapital invested in The Man Company; L Catterton backed Sugar Cosmetics; General Atlantic invested in boAt; and Sequoia Capital India (now Peak XV Partners) was an early backer of multiple consumer brands.
Valuations were often steep. boAt was valued at over $1.2 billion at its peak. Mamaearth’s parent, Honasa Consumer, listed in 2023 at a valuation of around ₹10,000 crore. Across categories, brands crossing ₹500 crore in annual revenue began attracting buyout interest, with deal sizes ranging from ₹150 crore to over ₹3,000 crore depending on scale and profitability.
Yet exits have not always been smooth. “While it takes 7-8 years to build a brand most funds that invest in them have a timeline of 3-5 years before they need an exit,” says Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, a retail consultancy. This timing mismatch can create pressure—pushing brands to scale aggressively, sometimes at the cost of margins.
Integration Pains and the Profitability Pivot
For large FMCG companies, buying D2C brands offers speed: Access to younger consumers, premium positioning and digital marketing expertise. But integration brings challenges.
Founder-led organisations operate with rapid decision cycles, test-and-learn marketing and flat hierarchies. Large corporations often work with layered approvals, structured brand calendars and rigid cost controls. Cultural friction can lead to talent exits if autonomy is curtailed too quickly.
Margins are another sticking point. In the early growth phase, many D2C brands spent 30–40 percent of revenue on digital advertising. Rising customer acquisition costs post-2021, combined with higher logistics expenses, squeezed contribution margins. As brands entered offline retail, distributor and retailer margins of 20–35 percent further compressed profitability.
Large acquirers, used to EBITDA margins of 18–25 percent in mature FMCG portfolios, often discovered that digital-first brands operated at low single-digit margins—or were loss-making at scale. Rationalising ad spends, optimising supply chains and pruning SKUs became essential.
The funding slowdown between 2022 and 2024 triggered a reset. Marketing spends were cut by as much as 25–40 percent across several startups. Growth moderated from 80–100 percent annually during peak years to 25–40 percent for more mature brands—but unit economics improved.
Quick-commerce has emerged as a structural growth lever. For categories such as personal care, snacking and health foods, these platforms now account for 10–25 percent of urban revenues for scaled brands, improving inventory turns and reducing dependence on paid digital acquisition.
The next phase of India’s D2C journey will be less about blitz scaling and more about disciplined brand building—balancing growth, profitability and exit timelines. What began as a disruption is now part of the mainstream consumer playbook. And as capital becomes more selective, only brands that combine strong gross margins, repeat purchase rates above 35–40 percent and sustainable EBITDA pathways will endure.
(Published in Forbes India)
admin
February 14, 2026
This episode of theUpStreamlife is a freewheeling conversation between Vishal Krishna and Devangshu Dutta, founder of Third Eyesight, with insights into the growth of modern retail and consumption in India, brand building and M&A, the balance of power between brands and retailers/platforms, sustainability vs growth and many other aspects, and is well-suited for founders and teams who want to be building for the long run in India.
admin
January 28, 2026
What does it actually take to build a fashion brand in India?
This panel (“Beyond the Noise- How D2c Fashion Brands Are Reinventing Retail”) at the 25th Edition of India Fashion Forum focussed on some real answers, in a refreshing, down-to-earth conversation moderated by Devangshu Dutta (Founder, Third Eyesight), with the founders of DeMoza (Agnes Raja George), The Mom Store (Surbhi Bhatia), Miraggio (Mohit Jain), BeyondBound (Tejasvi Madan), and Bari (Sameer Khan Lodhi).
No fluff, no “disrupting the industry” talk. Just founders being honest about what’s worked, what hasn’t, and what they’d do differently. A few things that struck a chord:
• Every single brand started because the founder couldn’t find something they personally wanted: inclusive activewear, affordable handbags that didn’t look cheap, good maternity wear. Sometimes the simplest observation is the best business idea.
• Inventory management came up often. One founder took their inventory cycle from 6 months down to 4. Another re-shuffles stock every 15 days based on what’s selling where. Unglamorous? Yes, but this is what actually keeps a business alive.
• The marketing conversation highlighted a move away from traditional advertising toward things that actually make people feel something. One founder talked about turning a farmhouse into a full “apricot colour” experience for customers. Another shoots content with real customers, not influencers.
• And the most memorable line of the whole discussion came from the most experienced founder in the room sharing a learning: “I won’t open stores fast.” No explanation needed, really.
Building a brand is exciting. Keeping it alive is the harder, quieter work. This panel was a good reminder of that. Worth a watch if you’re building something in this space.
