What’s HOT in Beauty & Personal Care in India: my notes from the ‘WTF is Skincare’ podcast by Nikhil Kamath
How India buys, builds, and believes in beauty today
Last week I wrote about endocrine disrupting chemicals and their presence in BPC products on the 1am skincare club - referencing the podcast Nikhil Kamath hosted with Diipa Khosla (Indē wild), Shantanu Deshpane (Bombay Shaving Company) and Bhakti Modi (Tira Beauty).
I got several messages about how the podcast looked very promising, but was just too long (at 3 hours and 36 minutes) to fully watch. I couldn’t fully relate - because I can listen to and talk about skincare endlessly (clearly…).
But for everyone who’s a tad less obsessed about this market, here are my top #9 highlights from the podcast.
I’ve also layered in my own thoughts and reactions - from the perspective of someone who’s been a power user of this category + a consumer investor + been studying consumer behavior in skincare for a while.
Fair warning: If you’ve been a reader of the 1 am skincare club, this is slightly different from the previous newsletters. I won’t be investigating one topic but sharing my thoughts on the BPC category as a whole and highlights from the podcast. These are my insights / observations / opinions based on the podcast and not a summary.
1) Patriotism and cultural pride are showing up in Gen Z choices.
Inde Wild is positioned as a “proud global Indian brand”, combining Indian identity with global quality, and this positioning seems to be working for them. Indians now expect representation and products that reflect their culture (vs earlier when Western = better).
From my own conversations with users over the last year, I see two parallel sentiments.
One, a much greater awareness that Indians have different skin types and climate, and hence need specialized products.
Second, an inherent bias towards global products and a distrust in Indian brands.
In urban India, anecdotally, I’ve seen a big shift from Minimalist to The Ordinary post the latter’s India launch, with the narrative of “why would I buy Minimalist if I can buy The Ordinary”. I don’t have data to back me up on this yet, but this sentiment seems overwhelming across Reddit and skincare group chats as well.
Interestingly, I now see a lot of affluent urban Indians pushing for buying local - be it moving to Gully Labs or Comet for shoes, Mokobara for luggage, or Samsara for gin. We’re perhaps in a unique phase where ‘Made in India’ is becoming cool for western-exposed affluent Indians, but international is still aspirational for middle India.
2) Brands need to stand for an emotion and activate a community.
Community is king and Diipa swears by it: “You can copy product, you can copy branding, marketing, but you cannot copy a community.”
Authentic communities built on shared values help propel brands. It’s okay if these communities are small, as long as they’re deeply engaged.
Brands must anchor in one emotional territory (pride, self-expression, confidence) and consistently talk about it across product, content, customer service, and experiences.
This partly rings true for the brands I’m most loyal to. Clinique invokes trust, The Body Shop invokes fun, Whoop invokes athleticism, Ultrahuman invokes status x health-pride.
But, are there brands I love and consistently use that don’t invoke an emotion? Also yes.
➡️ Typically, I go to them for superior quality or brainlessly easy access. Moroccan Oil is a classic example. I’ve been a loyal user for years because it’s the only thing that keeps my hair from looking like Hagrid’s.
Does it invoke any emotion for me? Absolutely not.
➡️ I think emotional linkage is certainly one way to get customer love; but product quality (even without this deep emotional attachment) is a winning move too.
3) A celebrity isn’t enough for celebrity brands anymore.
A celebrity’s image or name is not sufficient anymore; authenticity and product quality are critical.
“You need to have a solid product… It’s not just about slapping your photo on a product.” - Bhakti Modi
“Celebrities are a great trampoline but only the product will bring you back”. - Diipa Khosla
Over the last 3-4 years, we’ve seen countless celebrities launch brands but very few have worked.
➡️ Kay Beauty by Katrina, HRX by Hritik, Superyou by Ranveer Singh, Palmona’s by Shradha Kapoor (early but seems to be working?) come to mind. I’m sure there are more!
I feel celebrity brands need a few things to work:
Product quality is key: Celebrities can give you the first purchase, but retention only comes from product quality.
Congruence between what the brand stands for and what the celebrity stands for: Superyou and Ranveer Singh share the loud, bold energy. HRX and Hritik both stand for health and fitness. She’s not a co-founder per se, but Shilpa Shetty was a stellar choice for Mamaearth given her own persona around all things natural, healthy, and a mother who cares.
Consistent and engaging content by the celebrity, in service of the brand: The best execution I’ve seen of this has been Kusha Kapila with Underneat - churning out consistent, hilarious, and on-brand content on Instagram showing each product.
4) Nostalgia has become powerful and consumers love buying ‘nostalgic things in new avatars’.
Inde Wild uses the concept of “reimagined old” for their product storytelling – older rituals, ingredients, or habits being fused with modern, aspirational packaging and younger storytelling. The champi hair oil is a classic example of this fusion.
I’m also seeing this pattern in the food space - with ragi, amaranth, ghee (which Diipa also referred to for lip balms and ‘gym bro cooking’) and shilajit make a huge comeback in the avatar of healthy ingredients or must-have supplements.
5) The hero product strategy has worked for Inde Wild.
Successful beauty brands often begin with one breakout hero SKU that solves a real problem. Take Mamaearth, for example (as Shantanu highlights), breaking out with their natural mosquito repellent for kids (I’ve seen my sister use it on her toddlers, but had no idea this was their hero product at one point!).
Conventional wisdom completely aligns with this theory. The BPC market has iconic examples of hero products propelling brands into new orbits – NARS Cosmetics with the “Orgasm” blush, Too Faced with the “Better Than Sex” mascara (interesting choice of names, both…). The most iconic, of course, has to be Red Bull with its single product strategy.
This theory, however, sits at odds with another growing trend - personalisation. People realising that their skin, hair, and other needs are unique (or at least, cannot be generalized) - which makes scaling a single hero product tricky.
6) Millennials trust salons and experts vs Gen Z wants DIY at-home experiences.
Millennials still rely on hair stylists for hair decisions, which explains why most large hair care brands have gone salon-first in their distribution. They invest in training stylists to use their products a certain way, and bank on post-service purchases by customers who listen to their hair stylists.
In contrast, Gen Z looks to digital influencers for guidance and prefer “salon-at-home experiences” - that is, using “smart” products that deliver the same outcomes at home. This includes bond repair, peptide treatments, or home hair colouring.
I see the same pattern emerging in skincare. The most classic example is the Reedle shot by VT Cosmetics, which is trying to replace micro-needling sessions with a single serum. Or Therabody in the US is trying to replace laser treatments with hand-held red light therapy devices.
7) The fragrance space is breaking out and has clear whitespaces.
Now, truth be told - I know nothing about the fragrance market. I learnt at least half a dozen new terms from Shantanu such as –
Gourmand fragrances (vanilla, food-adjacent scents)
Perfume layering (using multiple fragrances to create your own unique scent)
Scent wardrobes (having multiple fragrances that you use based on mood and occasion) among others.
India’s heat and humidity as a challenge that fragrance formulations must overcome (since they need to last longer and be stronger). And that there is a clear opportunity to build fragrances in the INR 1-10k price point in India - perhaps even for the global market.
I had to pause the video to take a laugh break when Nikhil asked if “Gutter” or “Stench” could be potential fragrance brand names. Would I buy this brand? No. Would it catch my attention and stay rent-free in my head? 200% yes.
8) India is the capital of the ‘minis’ economy.
India’s sachet economy is famous. Ironically, my most vivid imagery of it is the 5-rupee Sunsilk shampoo sachet I would see everywhere. But to imagine (mass) premium ‘hyaluronic acid’ sachets in local kirana shops is hilarious.
But minis (in beautifully packaged bottles, not plastic sachets) are indeed all over. From d’you to Forest Essentials to even Too Faced - everyone has a half-sized version of their expensive full-sized products, and clearly, Indian consumers are lapping them up. They’re also a great way to get consumers to sample your products - either as brand discovery or via cross promotion.
“Making minis is expensive and margins are thin, so while they help in sampling and conversions, they can be a challenging P&L lever” - Bhakti Modi
Some great examples of sampling in offline settings (thanks, Shantanu and Bhakti for these): gamified free samples in Tira stores, Lifebuoy samples at the Kumbh Mela, and Paperboat samples on Indigo Airlines.
9) Ingredient names and ‘clean beauty’ are becoming part of the Gen Z lexicon.
Indian consumers now demand complete transparency: they read INCI lists, expect declared actives and percentages, and want “clean” beauty. Claims, ingredient ethos, and transparency are now table stakes, not differentiators.
One of the things they said that did not ring true for me was “consumers care more about what is inside the bottle than the bottle itself” (i.e. formulation over packaging). When asked point-blank, most consumers would say “yes, of course”.
But how they shop and pick products tells a different story. It is also at odds with how brands are now trying as hard to innovate on packaging design as they are on the product itself.
Other highlights
Here are the other things that stood out to me but didn’t make it to the top 9:
In addition to being a product company, you have to be a media company. Because it’s the content economy and young brands can only dream of the media budgets their MNC counterparts have.
If you’re building a global brand out of India, bank on things India is known for - Ayurveda, Bollywood, food, etc.
While there is ‘premiumisation’ across all levels and customers, a truly “premium” brand is still a niche market in India - no brand in this bracket has hit 1,000cr revenue yet.
Use mega influencers for awareness. Micro and nano influencers for conversion. The latter are great options for brands to work with early on when budgets are tight.
Skincare, combined with other segments, is interesting. Like skincare x stress management (like magnesium roll-ons) or skincare x cosmetics (skinification of makeup).