MAM
Women’s Day 2026: The women rewriting India’s beauty economy through science, trust and innovation
Science, trust and innovation drive transformation led by female entrepreneurs.
MUMBAI: The Indian beauty and wellness industry is undergoing one of its most significant transformations in decades. Once dominated by aspirational advertising and celebrity endorsements, the sector is now evolving into a far more complex ecosystem driven by science, credibility, ethics, and consumer awareness.
Today’s beauty consumer is no longer passive. They read ingredient labels, question exaggerated marketing claims, and seek expert backed guidance before investing in products or treatments. As a result, brands are being pushed to move beyond aesthetic storytelling toward deeper credibility.
Interestingly, many of the leaders driving this transformation are women.
Across skincare science, luxury product manufacturing, brand experience design, and aesthetic medicine, women entrepreneurs and experts are redefining how beauty businesses are built in India. Their approach reflects a broader shift within the industry where authority is increasingly earned through expertise, transparency, and responsible communication rather than traditional advertising narratives.
In many ways, the beauty industry is moving from a marketing economy to a trust economy.
One example of this shift can be seen in the rise of Indian luxury personal care brands that are competing globally through product quality, sustainability, and storytelling rooted in authenticity.
At Kimirica, a luxury bath and body care brand present across thousands of international hotels, Co-founder and Head of Brand Experience Kimi Jain has played a key role in shaping how the brand communicates with modern consumers.
For her, brand building is no longer about simply selling products but about creating emotional and sensory experiences that reflect deeper values.
“Women are rebuilding today’s workplace in ways that make us rethink power, authority, and leadership,” she says.
Within Kimirica, women represent a significant portion of the workforce across formulation, manufacturing, brand, and retail teams. This diversity of perspectives influences not just product development but also how the brand interacts with consumers.
As she explains, the presence of different voices within leadership structures naturally leads to decision making that is more thoughtful, balanced, and inclusive.
In an industry where brand narratives are often shaped by perception, the credibility of those narratives increasingly depends on what happens behind the scenes.
That is where operational leadership becomes equally important.
Rica Jain, Co-founder and Head of Quality Assurance, Systems and Process Optimization at Kimirica, approaches the beauty industry through the lens of scientific rigor and manufacturing precision. With a background in medicinal chemistry, she oversees formulation testing, quality control, and product integrity across the company’s growing portfolio.
“When you master your craft, confidence follows naturally,” she says.
For Rica, leadership in manufacturing is about consistency and expertise. Every ingredient, formulation, and production process must meet high standards before it reaches consumers.
This emphasis on technical depth reflects a broader evolution within the beauty industry. Consumers today expect brands to demonstrate scientific credibility rather than rely solely on marketing language.
In many ways, product integrity has become the most powerful form of storytelling.
This increasing demand for science backed skincare is also shaping a new generation of Indian beauty entrepreneurs who are challenging conventional industry narratives.
Rachna Bahadur, Founder of precision skincare brand Flout, entered the beauty sector after a successful career as a Partner at Bain & Company. Her transition into entrepreneurship was driven by a realization that the global skincare industry had overlooked the unique biological realities of Indian skin.
Indian skin, she explains, is often melanin rich, more prone to hyperpigmentation, and exposed to high environmental stress. Yet many international skincare brands design products primarily for Western skin profiles.
At the same time, several domestic beauty brands rely heavily on traditional or “natural” positioning without rigorous clinical validation.
Flout was created to bridge that gap.
Under Bahadur’s leadership, every product undergoes in vivo clinical trials conducted specifically on Indian women aged between 35 and 60. The brand combines dermatologist grading, instrumentation testing, and high-resolution imaging to evaluate results.
This scientific approach also brings attention to an often-overlooked conversation within the beauty industry: the impact of hormonal transitions such as perimenopause and menopause on long term skin health.
By addressing these biological realities openly, Bahadur is contributing to a shift away from outdated “anti-ageing” narratives toward a more empowering and evidence-based understanding of skin longevity.
The intersection of science, wellness, and beauty is also reshaping the field of aesthetic medicine.
In recent years, the popularity of cosmetic treatments has grown rapidly in India, driven in part by social media trends and the increasing visibility of aesthetic procedures. However, this rise has also created new conversations around ethics, patient education, and responsible treatment practices.
Dr. Aisshwarya Panddit, Celebrity Cosmetic Doctor and Founder of AuraEdge Aesthetic and Wellness, represents a new generation of aesthetic physicians advocating a more medically grounded approach to beauty.
Widely recognised as “Doctor Beautiful,” she has built her practice around consultation led care, preventive aesthetics, and subtle enhancements that prioritise long term skin health.
“Aesthetic medicine should enhance confidence, not replace identity,” she says. “Responsible storytelling in beauty begins with honesty about what treatments can and cannot do.”
Her philosophy stands in contrast to the exaggerated cosmetic trends often amplified through social media filters and viral beauty culture.
Instead, she champions facial harmonisation, micro dosing techniques, regenerative treatments, and collagen preservation strategies that focus on maintaining skin quality rather than dramatically altering appearance.
Increasingly, this approach resonates with younger audiences who are moving away from unrealistic beauty ideals and toward authenticity.
Together, these diverse leadership perspectives reveal a deeper shift within India’s beauty ecosystem.
The industry is no longer defined solely by advertising campaigns or celebrity endorsements. It is being shaped by entrepreneurs, scientists, and medical professionals who are building brands rooted in expertise, research, and responsibility.
On this International Women’s Day, the stories of leaders like Kimi Jain, Rica Jain, Rachna Bahadur, and Dr. Aisshwarya Panddit highlight how women are not only participating in India’s beauty industry but actively redefining its future.
They are building companies where creativity is balanced with credibility, where storytelling is backed by science, and where leadership reflects a deeper understanding of consumer trust.
In doing so, they are helping shape a new beauty economy for India.
One where confidence is not manufactured through advertising.
It is built through knowledge, integrity, and authenticity.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
