India’s beauty brands have been drawing a lot of interest from global capital recently.
Earlier this year in March, American luxury cosmetics maker Estée Lauder fully acquired, external the homegrown ayurvedic company Forest Essentials. France’s L’Oréal Group followed in June, picking up a majority stake in digital personal care brand Innovist, external. And Unilever has made at least four beauty investments in the country through its venture capital arm in the last couple of years.
Founded at the turn of the millennium in a garage in the Himalayan foothills by entrepreneur Mira Kulkarni – a single mother of two – Forest Essentials has grown from a fledgling startup into a billion-dollar company with a global presence over the last two decades.
Its rise mirrors the explosive growth being witnessed of the country’s beauty industry, which was valued at about $23bn (£17.08bn) in 2025 but is expected to nearly double in size to $40bn by the end of this decade, growing at twice the rate of the country’s GDP and the broader retail market.
Rising spending power in Asia’s third-largest economy is partly driving this boom, according to experts.
India’s per capita income crossed $2,000 in 2019, a threshold beyond which discretionary spending tends to grow exponentially, according to Redseer, a business consultancy. And by 2030, some 155 million households are expected to earn more than $9,500 annually, providing a further tailwind to growth.
“Historically we’ve underspent on beauty because there was just no purchasing power for anything other than the very basic stuff – such as all-purpose soap or face powder,” Kushal Bhatnagar, a partner at Redseer, told the BBC.
“But now, along with more spending power, there is improved access, distribution and product education. The internet broke these barriers, with brands leveraging the power of social media platforms and influencers to reach consumers directly.”
In fact, e-commerce is expected to drive around 35% of overall beauty spending by 2030, compared with just 8% five years ago, according to Reedseer’s estimates.
