India’s ‘Lush’ green market is the new battleground for global beauty giants

From Fenty Beauty to LUSH, international labels are rewriting their India playbooks, and the consumer driving this shift isn't necessarily who you'd expect. The queue for premium beauty in India is no longer forming at luxury mall counters in Mumbai or Delhi. It is forming on smartphone screens in Jaipur, Lucknow, and Guwahati, and global beauty brands are only now beginning to catch up.

That shift is the story behind a wave of international labels that have either entered India for the first time or significantly deepened their presence here over the past two years.

Global beauty brands from Estée Lauder to Japan's Shiseido are ramping up their India presence as growth slows in developed markets, betting on a luxury beauty market expected to quintuple to $4 billion by 2035 from $800 million in 2023, according to a whitepaper titled "India's massive untapped growth opportunity in luxury beauty," published by global consulting firm Kearney and luxury beauty distributor Luxasia in September 2024, as reported by Reuters.


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Already a billion-dollar market, India's luxury beauty segment is expected to reach $1.6 billion by 2028 and grow at a CAGR of 14%, the report said.

What Changed? The Consumer Did

For years, India's beauty market growth was narrated through volume, mass-market penetration, affordable price points, and a consumer base just beginning to engage with organised retail. That narrative has shifted.

The Indian consumer arriving at premium beauty today is ingredient-conscious, digitally native, and increasingly located outside the four metros that once defined the addressable market for global brands.

This consumer shift has changed how global brands think about entering India. The traditional model flagship store in a premium mall, cautious metro-first rollout is giving way to a digital-first strategy that uses e-commerce platforms as market-entry infrastructure.

Myntra, which hosts over 450 international fashion and beauty brands and serves 75 million-plus monthly active users across 98% of India's serviceable pin codes, has positioned itself as this gateway, according to the company. Its international beauty segment is growing at 2.5 times the pace of the online luxury beauty market, with K-Beauty alone expanding at 200% year-on-year, per Myntra's December 2025 data.

The platform added over 40 international brands in 2025, with notable beauty additions including The Ordinary, H&M Beauty, Beauty of Joseon, YSL, and Sulwhasoo, per the company.

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Venu Nair, Chief of Strategic Partnerships and Omnichannel at Myntra, said, "What is particularly striking is the strong premium demand emerging beyond metros. We are enabling international brands to scale meaningfully and create a strong affinity with Indian customers." Nearly 45% of demand for international brands on Myntra now comes from non-metro markets, with cities such as Jaipur, Lucknow, Guwahati, Surat, and Indore emerging as leading Tier-2 demand centres, according to Myntra's December 2025 data. Sixty percent of Myntra's beauty customers are from Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities, and 60% are Gen Z, per the company.

Global Brands Recalibrate

The pace of international entries has been visible across the board. Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin confirmed their India debut through Reliance Retail in 2025, launching via Sephora India and Tira Beauty. Armani Beauty opened a flagship in Mumbai, Chanel launched its beauty portfolio in Nykaa, and Charlotte Tilbury and The Ordinary chose Nykaa for their exclusive India debuts.

The Ordinary, which entered India in 2022, is now ranked as the top skincare brand in Nykaa's luxury category, with its Niacinamide serum selling every minute on the platform, according to Nykaa CEO Anchit Nayar, as reported by Business of Fashion.

It is in this context that British cosmetics brand LUSH founded in 1995 and known for its handmade, cruelty-free portfolio made its Indian e-commerce debut on Myntra in March 2026, nearly two decades after its first short-lived India presence.

The re-entry is structured through a licensing partnership with Bengaluru-based Bilberry Brands India Pvt Ltd, founded by Vishal Anand, a retail veteran with stints at Myntra, Tommy Hilfiger, and Calvin Klein.

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LUSH launches with 150 SKUs across skincare, haircare, bath, body, and fragrance, scaling to approximately 220 by April, with physical stores to follow, the first at Select CityWalk in Delhi-NCR and 10 outlets targeted by 2027, according to the company. LUSH sold over 21.2 million bath bombs globally last year and operates across more than 50 countries, per its own figures.

Vishal Anand, Founder and CEO of Bilberry Brands, said the timing reflects a structurally different consumer. "Consumers are increasingly looking for brands that stand for authenticity, sustainability and transparency in ingredients. Our vision is to build LUSH in India as a truly omnichannel brand that combines immersive retail experiences with strong digital access," he said.

LUSH's India range leans into values-led positioning; approximately 85% of its products contain no preservatives, 95% are vegan, and around 35% of the range is sold with no packaging, according to Bilberry Brands.

The Road Ahead

For global brands navigating India, the conditions have rarely been more favourable. The India-UK Free Trade Agreement, signed in May 2025, reduced tariffs on UK cosmetics and personal care products from 30% to 10%, with further reductions phased over the next decade, according to the UK Department for Business and Trade. This has triggered a pipeline of British brands evaluating India entry, with LUSH among the first to move.

More broadly, with online channels projected to account for over a third of all beauty spending by 2030, the infrastructure for scale is now in place in a way it simply wasn't a decade ago.

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The consumer driving all of this is younger, more digitally native, more ingredient-conscious, and increasingly based outside the cities that once defined premium India. She is already on the platform, already informed, already spending.

The brands that get here early, price right, and tell the right story stand to define what India's beauty market looks like for the next decade. The ones that wait may find the shelf already full.