Daybreak - What does it take to sell makeup to men?

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

It’s 2025 and the idea of “masculinity” has undergone a complete overhaul. You see, after several product life cycles, the men’s grooming business has reached a stage where brands aren’t just formulating shampoos and body washes exclusively for men. They are also coming up with compacts and concealers, and a bunch of other makeup products targeted at men. In fact, in the last decade or so, India has actually become the biggest market in the Asia Pacific region for beauty products for men. And yet, nothing much has changed about how these brands pitch their products to men. Tune in. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.We are now on WhatsApp at [phone]. Text us and tell us what you thought of the episode!

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too. It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganeshan, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast. It's called Intermission.

We want to tell the secret sauce stories of India's greatest companies. Stories of how they were born, how they fought to survive, how they build their organizations and culture, how they manage to innovate and thrive over decades, and most importantly, how they're poised today. To do that, Sita and I have been reading books, poring over reports, going through financial statements, digging up archives, and talking to dozens of people. And if that wasn't enough, we also decided to throw in video into the mix. Yes, you heard that right. Intermission has also had to find its footing in the world of multi-camera shoots in professional studios, laborious editing, and extensive post-production.

Sita and I are still reeling from the intensity of our first studio recording. Intermission launches on March 23rd. To get alert, as soon as we release our first video. episode, please follow intermission on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or subscribe to the Ken's YouTube channel. You can find all of the links at the ken.com slash I am. With that, back to your episode. There was once a time when leading personal care brands sold the idea that men should be mortified of using women's skincare products. In fact, I distinctly remember a pretty popular shampoo advertisement from back in the day that explicitly declared.

A woman's shampoo is not made for you. Well, it's 2025 and I'm happy to report that the idea of masculinity has undergone a complete overhaul. You see, after several product life cycles, the men's grooming business has reached a stage where brands aren't just formulating shampoos and body washes exclusively for men. They're also coming up with things like compacts and concealers and a bunch of other makeup products targeted at men.

In the last decade or so, India has actually become the biggest market in the Asia-Pacific region for beauty products for men. Sure, legacy companies, the likes of Hindustan Uni-Leaver, Imami and Nivya, have been making products for men for quite a while now. But like Shukharan Thakur, the founder of marketing consultancy, ICE Studios pointed out, they were all aligned to what was then considered the code of masculinity. For instance, HUL-owned pawns has a facewash for men that says energy bright on its packaging. Whereas the same product for women prominently features its ingredients, things like neasynamide, which is a form of vitamin B3 known to make the skin supple. So pretty much the same product, but sold in drastically different ways to men and women. It was actually a relatively new D2C brand that bucked this trend and forced the rest of the market to treat men's

personal care as its own category. I'm talking about the grooming brand Beardoe, which launched a popular line of beard oils and washes back in 2015. A bunch of other D2C brands followed suit. Brands like the Man Company, Man Matters, Ustra, Battlecry and Yarn Man. They are all moving deeper into the space by launching serums and conventional makeup items exclusively for men.

So the range of products on offer has widened drastically. In fact, the Indian men's grooming market generated $12 billion in 2022 and is projected to reach $25 billion by 2030. And yet, nothing much has changed about how they pitch to men. Even today, brands like Battlecry, which make makeup products like concealer sticks and foundation creams, have to ensure that their packaging is quote unquote masculine and rugged. So, while there is a newfound openness to trying these products, there's still hesitation to be seen wearing makeup.

Over a dozen industry experts told the ken that most men are reluctant to buy products marketed to women or featuring female models on the packaging. Add to this the claim that men's skin is tougher and needs more potent ingredients and it's an easy sell. But here's the thing. When you look at the actual formulations for men's and women's skin care, the story doesn't quite add up.

Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host Rahil Philippos and I don't chase the news cycle. Instead, every day of the week, my colleagues, Nidda Sharma and I will come to you with one business story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Wednesday, the 12th of February.

Here's a fun story. Back in the day, having a beard was considered messy, unprofessional even. If you worked in IT, the assumption was that you have to be clean-shaven. But 10 years later, attitudes towards facial hair have changed drastically.

Growing and grooming a beard has become desirable today, thanks to brands like beardo. But in the process, they've managed to disrupt what brands like Gillette built over years. And that brings me to my funny story. Now, part of this particular shift was the fan following that an Indian cricketer at the time and his beard had. Pius Jen, the founder of a skincare startup called Skin Inspired, recounted how a consumer goes major realized that their razor brand was not growing because of this particular cricket. and the craze for a beard like his. So they approached him with an offer.

Take $8,000, but shave it off. The cricketer ultimately turned down the offer and the rest is history. But beard or no beard, Jain has a pretty simple philosophy. Skin care products should be selected according to skin type and not gender. Put simply, products for both men and women

may, after all, carry the same ingredients. The Ken reporter Nuhabobo Bodei spoke to the founder of minimalist, Mohit Yadav. We've spoken about this particular brand on the podcast before. It was acquired by HUL for nearly 3,000 crore rupees recently owing to its growing popularity and transparent take on skincare. Now, Yadav told Nuhar that the ingredients like salicylic acid or neosinamide or retinol for anti-aging, all of these work for both men and women. And yet, brands are still having to package them differently. If it's for men, then the packaging has to look more masculine, with

bold colours like black and grey. Just take the brand Man Matters. It has a sister company that you may have heard of called Be Bodywise and both come under the same parent company, Mosaic Wellness. The funny part is that they sell the same products with identical ingredients but are just packaged completely differently. Another lip care brand called Alana faced a similar situation. It launched products for both men and women back in 2015

using blue packaging for men and pink for women. Ankesh Mehara, the brand's co-founder, confidently said that a man won't buy a pink-colored box, so they had to make theirs blue. Even so, getting men to talk about skincare is still like Mission Impossible. More on that in the next segment. The Ken spoke to a skincare category manager

at the German personal care brand Nivia to understand why legacy brands are still packaging products differently for men and women. They said, somewhere down the line they realized if there's no clear label indicating that a product is meant for men, they assume it's for women and not unisex. Rahul Shah, the founder of Yarn Man, joked that it's the same sort of awkwardness one would experience while purchasing condoms at a pharmacy.

People in the space also seem to have realized that men and women are looking for different things when they're purchasing skincare and beauty products. When these products are sold to men, it's more about the benefits than the ingredients. like with the pawns face wash we spoke about just a little while ago. For a woman's product, brands usually focus on addressing specific concerns like pimples or pigmentation, whereas for men, the focus is on the outcome. Use this and your skin tone will improve, for example. When it comes to men, especially with makeup products,

it also becomes very important for it to be natural, almost like a second skin. Shah from Yarn Man said, men don't want their makeup to be obvious. If someone notices that they're wearing foundation, they will automatically become quite self-conscious. So, where do legacy brands fit in and all of this? Well, FMCG giants have realised they don't actually have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to this category. So instead of reimagining existing products drastically, they are acquiring a bunch of male-focused brands. Case in point, Mariko's acquisition of Bureau back in 2020. Typically, established brands won't invest in strategy if it hurts their P&L,

unlike startups that are still building their brand and prioritizing top-line growth over profitability. Post-acquisition, Bureau's revenue has more than doubled in the four years to FY24. On the other hand, it took Battlecry founded by Ankid Gandhi, nearly two years to get male consumers to warm up to the idea of makeup. But the real way forward for brands could be to educate consumers on sales. science-backed, ingredient-driven products without that pink-blue dichotomy. And now, more than ever, there are brands that are actively breaking that mould. Just take minimalist, for instance.

You can't look at any of its products and say it's specifically for women. It's quite well minimalistic in its packaging. Plus, it names all the products after the chemical ingredients they contain. We've spoken about this on day break before. Then there's another brand called Fay Beauty, which prides itself for being gender agnostic. So all of its campaigns feature both male and female models. Faye in fact stands for free and equal. That said, there is a growing appetite for skincare among Indian men.

In the five years to 2024, the Google search volume for men's skincare routine has increased by over 850%. People in the space are very excited. Because while it's easier to sell to a man today than it was a decade ago, there's going to be an even more drastic change in the male beauty space in the next five to seven years. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription unlocks daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and podcast extras.

Head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the website. Today's episode was hosted by Rahil Filippo's and edited by Rajiv Sien.