I-Beauty: India at the Forefront of Beauty's Future

I speak often in this column of liminal spaces – those fertile in-between zones where transformation becomes possible. I have written about the luxury of time, the threshold between experience and metamorphosis, the ongoing transformation underpinning consumer consciousness.

But rarely have I witnessed a market so deliberately occupying the threshold itself as a strategic position. India’s beauty sector has crossed a remarkable boundary.

Where once the aspiration flowed predictably westwards – Indian consumers reaching for Parisian formulations, for the borrowed authority of European laboratories – the current now runs in multiple directions simultaneously. Some 36% of Indian consumers now prefer domestic brands over imported alternatives, according to Mintel – not from nationalism but from recognition; these brands understand monsoon skin, pollution defence, the particular demands of tropical humidity and urban particulate matter. 

This is beauty reformulated as climate adaptation, as cultural resilience, as transformation rather than mere appearance. Consider Forest Essentials, operating zero-carbon farms while scaling Ayurvedic formulations that would have seemed impossibly niche a decade ago. Or RAS, bringing farm-to-face transparency to an industry built on mystification. Or Aminu and Plum, democratising science-backed skincare with accessibility that refuses to compromise efficacy.

These are not brands mimicking Western luxury codes with Indian packaging. They are proposing an entirely different grammar – one where neem and centella and sea buckthorn carry the authority that retinol commands elsewhere, where heritage ingredients meet climate-resilient science in formulations that speak to conditions no Parisian laboratory has ever encountered.