What the Beauty&You 2025 winners tell us about the future of beauty in India

In Mumbai, Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) announced the winners of its Beauty&You India 2025 awards, an annual program designed to support early-stage beauty founders. Now in its fourth year, the initiative is run in partnership with Startup India and Nykaa, positioning it at the intersection of global industry expertise, local retail infrastructure, and India’s national startup development framework. Since launching in 2022, Beauty&You has attracted nearly 2,500 applications from over 150 cities, with a notable majority led by women founders. The program offers access to funding, mentorship from global experts, market visibility, and distribution support. The initiative is becoming a key entry point for founders developing products tailored to India’s climate, cultural identity, and increasingly science-aware consumers. “When we launched Beauty&You, our vision was simple yet powerful — to discover and support visionary entrepreneurs transforming India’s beauty landscape,” says Stéphane de La Faverie, president & CEO of The Estée Lauder Companies. “This year’s winners reflect the creativity and innovation shaping one of the world’s most dynamic markets.” Building India’s next generation beauty infrastructure India’s beauty sector is experiencing a shift away from traditional category definitions toward climate-specific formulations, inclusive product design, and community-rooted sourcing models. Consumers, particularly millennial and Gen Z women, value efficiency, authenticity, and science-backed efficacy over brand legacy or aspirational messaging. ELC and Nykaa’s collaboration responds directly to this evolution. ELC gains insight and proximity to emerging founders, while Nykaa strengthens its position as a platform that nurtures local labels. The involvement of Startup India adds legitimacy and scale, emphasizing the government’s growing interest in beauty as a strategic consumer and SME sector. The addition of the Visionary Women’s Award this year also reflects a broader prioritization of women-led entrepreneurship within India’s consumer innovation sectors. Antinorm wins grow award for climate-responsive, multitasking skincare The Grow Award, which recognizes in-market brands with demonstrated traction, was awarded to Antinorm, founded by Aparna Saxena. The brand focuses on multitasking, high-performance skincare designed for India’s humid climate and fast-paced lifestyles. “I built Antinorm for women who are ambitious, always on the move, and tired of routines that assume we have unlimited time,” Saxena says. “Global beauty often sells aspiration and indulgence, while India’s new beauty consumer needs utility and instant results. Antinorm celebrates the luxury of less.” Saxena plans to leverage Beauty&You’s global mentorship to extend Antinorm’s positioning beyond India: “We will export a mindset shift: performance-first, multitasking beauty that reflects real-world speed. The problems we solve are universal.” The brand’s early growth has been driven by repeat customers who credit simplified routines with improving daily life: A signal, Saxena says, of a broader shift in consumer expectations. Mimiq Wins Imagine Award for inclusive solutions for visible skin differences The Imagine Award, focused on pre-launch concepts, went to Mimiq, founded by Harsha Soundararajan, who built the brand for people with visible skin differences, especially those with vitiligo. “As someone with vitiligo myself, I understand the pain our community goes through,” Soundararajan says. “Typical beauty brands are designed to enhance appearances. We exist to help people feel normal and take the glare off.” The approach positions makeup as a tool for social comfort, not concealment or performance. “Vitiligo affects nearly 150 million people worldwide. What we’re solving isn’t just an Indian issue — it’s a human one,” she says. Mimiq’s development has been guided by direct community feedback, which Soundararajan says provided the key validation: “When people told us, ‘I finally feel confident again,’ I knew this work mattered.” Hitech Formulations receives breakthrough award for encapsulation technology The Breakthrough Award, which honors category-defining innovation, was awarded to Hitech Formulations, founded by Jaspreet Singh Gulati. The company specializes in encapsulation systems designed to stabilize active ingredients and improve delivery in skincare. “India’s new beauty consumer is curious and science-aware,” Gulati says. “Our goal is to build formulations that perform, not just promise.” The company gained credibility when international formulators approached it for collaboration based on its technical data. “That was the turning point — when credibility replaced surprise,” he says. Gulati describes the company’s vision as “science with soul,” combining clinical precision with cultural understanding of Indian skin needs and environments. Sohrai wins visionary women’s award for indigenous ingredient innovation The inaugural Visionary Women’s Award, developed with Startup India, went to Sohrai, co-founded by Khanak Gupta. The brand develops skincare based on Mahua, an indigenous plant ingredient sourced through tribal women’s cooperatives, linking beauty production to local livelihood creation. “I wanted to create something that felt ours, not borrowed,” Gupta says. “Indian beauty has often been exoticized or oversimplified. We are proving that indigenous ingredients can be high-performing and luxurious.” Gupta says scale will be pursued alongside cultural accountability: “If Mahua is going to travel globally, it must stay rooted in the communities it comes from.” Looking ahead: India’s beauty market at an inflection point The 2025 Beauty&You winners show several broader shifts underway in India’s beauty market. There is a growing emphasis on problem-solving formulations, products that respond to local climate conditions and lifestyle patterns, and a clearer focus on inclusive and scientifically validated solutions. At the same time, brands such as Sohrai signal a renewed interest in regionally rooted ingredients and community-based sourcing models, positioned with contemporary performance standards rather than heritage storytelling alone. The 2025 cohort suggests that India’s beauty sector is moving toward a phase where local innovation, rather than imported beauty ideals, is shaping both product development and brand identity. The coming years will indicate how many of these emerging concepts can translate early momentum into sustained market presence.

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What the Beauty&You 2025 winners tell us about the future of beauty in India