Can halal beauty products thrive in India?

Two young Indian sisters are seeking to make a mark in the highly competitive global cosmetics market worth billions of dollars annually and dominated by industry giant.

The sisters, from Teli family in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, are looking at a “niche market” — halal make-up.

“Cosmetics is a very competitive business. There are a lot of big, big companies in it and we are just starting,” said Mauli Teli, chief executive and Managing partner at Ecotrail Personal Care Co., which was established in 2012, and started operations last September with the launch Iba cosmetics.

“We really need to differentiate our products, offering lot more value in order to enable the consumer to try our products,” she added in an interview with Gulf News from her office in India.

Specialised field

The project is a brainchild of Mauli, the elder sister, when she returned to India after obtaining her master’s degree in pharmaceutical studies from Michigan University and was working in management consulting in pharma and health care field.

“When I moved to India, I wanted to launch a brand. I wanted to be an entrepreneur and start something of my own,” said Mauli, in her early 30s. “And when you look at India as a country, there are many kinds of people here, people of different and diverse backgrounds, faith and in terms of need perspective. Basically, every state in India is different,” she added.

In the cosmetics space, “India is dominated by multinational and Ayurvedic brands. But at the same time, the whole natural cosmetics space was not been addressed adequately, in the sense that there are brands which are not being able to adhere to a particular requirement of a consumer aspect, for example, animal derived ingredients.”