HOMEGROWN BEAUTY

Meet four savvy beauty entrepreneurs who have managed to create a loyal customer base.

- Karen Alfonso

India ranked fourth in the world in generating the highest revenue from the beauty and personal care market in 2022, according to data-gathering platform Statista. There's been a rise in international brands entering the Indian market, along with a few homegrown ones.

Here are four founders whose brands have managed to woo the Indian consumer.

Aanam Chasmawala

Wearified

Having started out as a content ☐ creator in 2011, Aanam decided to launch her own beauty brand Wearified in 2021. The brand is known to be inclusive in every way from the imagery to the functionality of the products.

On what inspired her to launch her business...

The vision to see women in India and brown women across the world getting makeup products that truly work for them no matter their shades or undertones or personal preferences. As a medium-toned girl in Mumbai, I was shocked to learn that even Indian brands were launching foundation shades where mine was the deepest shade as recently as 2019/2020. It seemed like a lack of effort or incorrect use of resources. I knew that I wanted to build something through the power of the community I had grown online and, somewhere through this period, learning more about these women's beauty vows, I realised that this was my mission. I wanted to put out high-performance products that are made and formulated for and in India.

On the challenges she faced...

Being taken seriously as a 25-year-old influencer was definitely one of the struggles that I faced repeatedly. It was one of those banes that really needed time and patience to get around.