Tira, Bombay Shaving Co., Inde Wild | WTF is Fueling India's Beauty & Skincare Revolution? | Ep. 25
Executive Summary
Nikhil Kamath sits down with three operators who between them build, retail and scale Indian beauty: Shantanu Deshpande (Bombay Shaving Company), Diipa Khosla (inde wild) and Bhakti Modi (Tira). The market map, as they read it: beauty and personal care in India was about $21 billion in 2024 - haircare $7-8 billion (mostly oil), skincare about $6 billion, makeup $3 billion, fragrance $3 billion - with skincare and fragrance growing fastest at 10-13%, mass below Rs 1,000, premium at Rs 1,000 and prestige from Rs 2,300 (still just a $0.8 billion sliver). The playbook they keep returning to: community is an emotion and a shared value, not a channel ('everything we do starts and ends with community'); nostalgia sells ('old products made cooler' - the champi, the ghee lip balm, Paper Boat flavours); salons remain a trust-and-sampling channel worth cutting deals with; micro-influencers convert while mega-influencers only build awareness; minis are the bridge from masstige to premium; and quick commerce plus Tier 2-3 affluence are quietly redrawing distribution. The trends to catch: skinimalism (one serum doing twelve jobs), skinification of makeup, clean and gourmand fragrance, perfume wardrobing, magnesium and wellness-adjacent beauty, small little luxuries as the lipstick effect, and premiumisation at every price level. The hard truths: consumers now do four hours of research before buying a face wash, so one message for ten years is dead; white-labelling Korean products works ('It's 90% water. Why will you transport it all the way?'); contract manufacturing is an open secret written on the back of every pack; celebrity brands fail without founder involvement ('product is still king'); and building here is a decades-long gig - companies that last twenty years make 93% of their market value in the second decade.
Key Takeaways
The market: $21B, and the fastest lanes are skincare and fragrance
Their 2024 map: haircare $7-8B (mostly oil), skincare about $6B, makeup $3B, fragrance $3B, services on top. Skincare and fragrance grow at 10-13% against the category's 10-11%. Mass sits below Rs 1,000, premium at Rs 1,000, prestige from Rs 2,300 - and prestige is still only about $0.8B, which is exactly why they see headroom.
Community is an emotion with a custodian
Not a channel or a discount club: a group bound by a shared value - pride for inde wild, expertise for salons, identity for Rhode's It Girls. Pick one emotion, stay consistent for ten years, and let the community be educated besties, not an order-finished transaction list.
Nostalgia sells: re-imagined old beats new
The champi made cool, ghee in a lip balm worn at Soho House, Paper Boat flavours, ittar and temple-flower fragrances - young buyers are not buying new products, they are buying re-imagined old ones. The panel calls this the next big wave alongside skinimalism, for a new India and for export.
Salons, sampling and minis: the unglamorous conversion machine
Salon-first brands win on stylist trust, sampling and heavy training. Minis gamified at checkout bridge masstige to premium. Random samples dropped in Blinkit orders fail; Uncle Chipps' garland-wearing distributors remain the sampling gold standard.
Influencer economics: micro converts, mega announces
Micro-influencers deliver reach and conversion and will work with small brands for two expectations - a future ambassador slot or a real relationship. Mega influencers and celebrities are for awareness only; gifting conversion math (how many posted per hundred sent) decides whether the exercise paid.
The research era killed the one-message brand
Consumers now do four hours of research before buying a face wash. Douyin is 40% of retail in China and has broken every marketing rule because of it. The response is not one message for ten years but telling everything - content at volume, with the founder's story, the product's why, and the data to back it.
Decades-long gig: the value arrives late
The closing advice and the episode's spine: companies that last twenty years create 93% of their market value in the second decade; three-decade companies make roughly 80% in the third. Expect a long zone of frustration, avoid becoming a zombie company, and keep going - grit outlasts money, looks and connections.
The Conversation Breakdown
Three founders, one market map
⏱ Untimed topicDiipa (law school to Instagram first-mover to inde wild crossing Rs 100 crore net), Bhakti (McKinsey, retail, AJIO, then building Tira inside Reliance), Shantanu (McKinsey to Bombay Shaving Company in 2016) - and their shared map of India's $21B beauty and personal care market by category, price band and growth.
The beauty pyramid and the salon channel
⏱ Untimed topicMakeup as the historic biggest category, skincare as the dark horse of the last decade, services and salons at the base (70% of salon business is hair), why salon deals, professional-grade positioning and stylist training still convert, and Gen Z's instant-gratification shift away from the parlour appointment.
The Dilip experiment: building a fragrance brand live
⏱ Untimed topicA two-crore thought experiment that becomes a masterclass: find a why ('people smell bad'), Kannauj as India's Grasse, Chanel No. 5's Indian jasmine and rose, gender-neutral and gourmand trends, the Rs 1,000 entry price point, why cheap fragrance can't have good ingredients, and 'What The Fragrance' as the naming gag that sticks.
Community, content and the influencer stack
⏱ Untimed topicCommunity as shared value and emotion, the educated-bestie model, founder-face versus faceless brands (Minimalist as the counterexample), micro versus mega influencer math, gifting conversion rates, standout packaging, and why sampling in quick-commerce orders doesn't work.
Trends to catch and traps to skip
⏱ Untimed topicSkinimalism and twelve-in-one serums, skinification of makeup, magnesium and wellness crossover, clean fragrance and phthalate fears, perfume wardrobing and refillables, small little luxuries, premiumisation at every level, Tier 2-3 prestige demand, Korean white-label reality ('It's 90% water'), and sustainability as honesty rather than packaging theatre.
Scale, celebrity brands and the long game
⏱ Untimed topicContract manufacturing's open secrets (Cosmoprof, Canton Fair, MOQs, the manufacturer printed on every pack), Fogg taking 25% share in four years against Axe, why celebrity brands live or die on founder involvement (HRX versus the rest), SRK-should-launch-fragrance unanimity, quick commerce and five million retailers, and the closing case for decades: grit, complementary co-founders, and value that arrives in decade two.
Core Frameworks & Ideas
One emotion, one community, ten years
The panel's brand-building constant: pick the single emotion your brand custodians (pride, expertise, identity), express it consistently for a decade, and let the community form around the shared value. Marketing can be tongue-in-cheek; the emotion cannot waver.
Re-imagined old as product strategy
Nostalgia sells when it is repackaged for now: take a product the customer grew up with (champi, ghee, ittar, jalebi-chai), fix what made it uncool (heavy, sticky, embarrassing abroad), and sell the memory at modern quality. Lower education cost, instant emotional hook.
The four-hour-research content doctrine
When consumers research for four hours before a face wash, brands must publish everything - ingredients, story, process, founder - across every surface, because the single repeated message no longer survives contact with an over-informed buyer.
Premiumisation ladder, climbed one band at a time
India premiumises at every level simultaneously: mass buyers reach for premium, premium for prestige. The winning move is meeting the customer one rung up (BSC's first razor to trimmer journey), not leapfrogging to luxury - and using minis as the bridge between bands.
Actionable Next Steps
- ✓Founders entering beauty: pick one hero product and one emotion before a second SKU - the panel credits single-product focus (Champi, the head shaver) for every breakout they discuss.
- ✓Building community on a small budget: define the shared value your first hundred customers already hold, talk to them like educated besties, and stay consistent for years, not campaigns.
- ✓Using influencers: brief micro-influencers for conversion with a real relationship or ambassador path; reserve celebrities and mega accounts for awareness bursts, and track gifting like a conversion funnel.
- ✓Considering sampling: skip random quick-commerce inserts; use targeted minis, salon trials or gamified checkout sampling where the customer chooses what they try.
- ✓Planning the long game: model your brand as a decades-long build - expect the frustrating middle years, keep the product king, and don't confuse fast traction with the compounding that arrives in decade two.
Notable Quotes
“this will be a decades-long gig.”
“You have to be consistent for ten years.”
“It's 90% water. Why will you transport it all the way?”
“Stick to fintech.”
The One Thing to Remember
Beauty in India is won on trust compounded over a decade: pick one emotion, build a real community around it, nail one hero product, and stay in the game - the market's growth does the rest.