Move over K-Beauty. Ayurveda beauty is here

There’s something to be said about the timing of the rising interest in A-beauty as well. In the past five years, wellness has entered the skincare vernacular in a big way—moving from concealing so-called imperfections to nourishing and healing. Glowing skin is beginning to receive the social acceptance otherwise earmarked for fairness.

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Perhaps the biggest draw of A-beauty in a world of new-age molecules like spicules and peptides and treatments that peel layers of the skin, is the comfort of familiarity. “We are no longer buying beauty; we are buying self-care," says Dr Geetika Srivastava, a dermatologist with over a decade of experience and founder of Delhi-based Influennz Clinic that offers laser and other beauty non-Ayurveda treatments for face, skin and hair. Many of her clients use A-beauty products. “There’s a sense of trust when you know the product you’re applying on your body has an ingredient that’s also in your kitchen, or it’s something your grandparents or parents used. There’s nostalgia attached to it."

What A-beauty doesn’t offer is the awareness of whether a certain ingredient will suit all types of skin, Dr Srivastava says. “Plus, there’s lack of regulation, an issue that extends to the beauty industry in general."

To produce an authentic Ayurveda product that employs the science, one has to have a certificate from the Central government’s department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, or AYUSH.

But in the world of beauty products, regulations are not hard and fast. You can add some turmeric in a brightening cream, labelling it “Ayurvedic", “clean" or “organic". “Regulations will be imposed once consumers become aware," explains Dr Srivastava. It’s only now that Indians have become interested in skincare. Once more people start reading the ingredient list and questioning, we will, hopefully, see a change. It will take at least five years before strict regulations are introduced."

Old potions, new hopes

The herb-based healing tradition of Ayurveda (Sanskrit for “knowledge of life") is said to have divine origins with Lord Brahma offering the knowledge to Dhanvantari, the physician of the gods. “Ayurveda’s simple principle is that your inner beauty (essentially, a well-nourished body and a balanced and peaceful mind) reflects your outer beauty," says Vivek Sahni, co-founder of skincare brand Kama Ayurveda. “That idea holds a lot of power."

When Kama Ayurveda and Forest Essentials were born over two decades ago, they were among a handful of brands that distilled the science of Ayurveda into a bottle. Till then, the Indian beauty market hadn’t seen a major domestic player who made a big international mark, besides Shahnaz Husain who opened her herbal clinic in the 1970s in Delhi.

“When I was growing up in Delhi, there wasn’t much conversation around Ayurveda, at least not in north India. The south definitely had, and still has, a stronger culture of it, but here it was associated with some brown smelly stuff, an oil or a cream. It was all herbal beauty or kitchen remedies for the skin; there was no Ayurveda skincare," says Sahni.

Growth was slow and steady but Ayurveda beauty was seen largely as a luxury indulgence—until the pandemic. Once people started thinking about immunity and putting inner beauty first, Ayurveda made a grand entry in self-care talk. Plus, the desire to spend more grew. India’s household spending will spill over $3 trillion by 2027, with over a quarter of households touching $10,000 in disposable income annually, says a 2023 report by BMI, a Fitch Solutions company.

Realising there’s a strong consumer demand and a stronger willingness to shop online with disposable income to spare, A-beauty brands started to experiment. Now you can shell out ₹2,000 and get an easy-to-carry 15ml acne spot corrector in a gel form that has coolness of vetiver water and purifying properties of coriander and thyme. For those fine lines, there’s an anti-ageing cream, priced at close to ₹3,000 for 50ml that uses gotu kola and hyaluronic acid (plant-based, of course) to give firmer-looking skin. A clean make-up enthusiast can pick up concealers packed with sandalwood, skin tints with natural rose extracts and lash and brow serums sealed with castor oil and actives like glycerin, each for around ₹1,000.

“Ayurvedic beauty’s emphasis on personalised care—tailored to an individual’s dosha (or body type)—distinguishes it from conventional beauty," says a spokesperson from marketplace Tira Beauty, adding that Indē Wild along with renowned brands Forest Essentials and Kama Ayurveda hold the lion’s share of A-beauty business on the platform. “Consumers are moving away from generic solutions and opting for products that cater to their unique needs, with a particular focus on mental wellness."

While traditional sub-categories like face moisturisers and hair oils continue to drive revenue growth on Tira, smaller sub-categories like hair serums, masks and peels, eye creams, body scrubs and mists are widening the consumer’s basket, says the spokesperson, highlighting the growing interest among A-beauty consumers.

“The universe of A-beauty has just started building," says Sahni, who opened the first overseas Kama Ayurveda store in UK’s posh Notting Hill neighbourhood a year ago. “A good thing with all this competition with new brands is that there will be more awareness where Ayurveda stands when it comes to beauty. Most customers come to us (A-beauty) after they have tried everything in the market."

Jose Paul, 35, is that customer. A Mumbai-based advertising professional with a hectic job, he had tried every product, chemical, organic as well as medicated, in the market to control his dandruff, but nothing gave him the confidence to wear a black shirt to work. “The most I spent was ₹5,000 on a shampoo that had some chemicals and made my hair very dry. By the end of it, I switched to an Ayurvedic neem oil," says Paul. After a month of use, his dandruff has reduced but not disappeared.

What Ayurveda can’t give is instant results. A-beauty is slow beauty, says Jessica Jayne, founder of wellness-meets-skincare brand Pahadi Local. “It’s for the audience that’s looking for long-term results." Mumbai-born audio engineer Jayne too had tried expensive serums and medicinal creams 15 years ago to help her skin that wasn’t adjusting well to her new home in Shimla. Then someone suggested time-tested gutti ka tel (apricot oil), which eventually became the first and only hero product when she launched Pahadi Local seven years ago, centered around the idea of bringing ingredients from the mountains to the beauty conscious.

Since then, the brand has expanded its range, offering anti-acne salt from Ladakh (salt extracted from the region during extreme winter weeks, which has 27 active ingredients, including magnesium and zinc), a cleansing clay that has volcanic ash, and moisturising milk that has goji berry oil, blueberry oil, Leh berry oil and shea butter.

“We are basically picking up ingredients from the backyard and connecting ourselves to our older, perhaps wiser, selves," says Jayne. “It also helps when you see the government’s pushing for Made in India products, yoga and Ayurveda."

What’s surprising is that despite sitting on this treasure of knowledge for centuries, the experimentation within skincare has been slow—reminiscent of how yoga revived here after the West turned it into a big business. Suramya Jain offers a different perspective: the idea of skincare has changed over the past few decades. “Make-up was fun, and skincare was really just one cream; it wasn’t something we cared about a lot," says Jain, co-founder and chief marketing officer of luxury skincare brand Ras. Earlier this month, the seven-year-old luxury skincare brand raised $5 million in a Series A funding round led by Unilever Ventures. “Actives, molecules, serums—these are terms that have entered our lingo only recently. And innovation takes time."

One of the ideas behind Ras, she says, was “Why are people still relying on Korean brands or French brands for their skincare needs? Why can’t the consumer trust an Indian brand?"

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While trying to do a balancing act between Ayurveda, innovation and trends, Ras has found a sweet spot, offering products like face oils that have oil-based lipid actives and moisturising serums with licorice root extract. The aim is clear: to draw the crowd that’s paying more attention to the back of the label.

Kritika belongs to that crowd. When we met at a beauty and skincare store in Delhi’s Khan Market early February, she showed me the list of ingredients on the back of a brightening cream bottle. “You see saffron here," Kritika pointed out. “It’s among the top 5 ingredients; that kind of shows it genuinely has some amount of saffron, at least that’s what I have learnt."

The growing mindfulness might have helped A-beauty gain prominence but can it thrive in a space where Korean and Japanese products are being launched every week and viral innovations like EMS patches, or electrical muscle stimulation in a patch form that uses micro-currents to expand and contract muscles in a targeted area, are making headlines?

Dr Srivastava recommends people stick with A-beauty. “J, K is not for our skin," she says. “Compared to the Japanese and Korean, we have more melanin and thick skin, and we more prone to pigmentation. These viral products might work temporarily but in the long run they aren’t meant for us."

Making it compatible

A-beauty has the years of wisdom and the pull of nostalgia but it hasn’t caught the attention of everyone. One of the reasons is the smell and packaging associated with it—but this is something brands are actively trying to change.

So conscious was content creator Büller-Khosla about the stereotypical idea of smell and packaging that when she launched Indē Wild in 2022, she ensured the bottles were cheerfully bright and marketing was Gen Z-friendly. In fact, her latest brand ambassador is actor Ishaan Khatter, promoting the idea that skincare needs to be holistic and gender-neutral. “Ayurveda doesn’t have to be boring," says Büller-Khosla. “It needs an image makeover."

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It’s evident from the brand’s biggest hit, Champi Oil, which contains Brahmi, amla, neem, castor oil, coconut, almond, argan and vitamin E. “Growing up in the UK, doing champi was our regular little family tradition," she recalls. “While I was researching A-beauty in India, I realised there weren’t many efforts being made to create a cool identity for Ayurveda."

A-beauty remains largely inaccessible when it comes to the price point—a large number of products are priced upwards of ₹1,000. But most of the founders aren’t really interested in making their product mass-y.

“How much do you think a kilo of rose oil is?" Jain asks. It costs over ₹10 lakh. “There’s a 10ml rose oil online for ₹40, ₹300, ₹1,000 and ₹4,000, the market is full of options. A genuine product will command a certain price."

Jayne agrees, adding that there is a need for more development and expansion of the A-beauty space. “There’s certainly a lot of noise, but when it comes to innovation, we are moving slowly. Perhaps this is the year conversations on A-beauty will reach a new level."

Kritika, meanwhile, has found her groove in following her slow beauty regime. She carries a small bottle of organic honey sourced from Uttarakhand in her bag. While she puts a spoon of it in her green tea, she smiles as she says: “This is for the glow."

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