How Beauty Is India’s Next Cultural Export After Yoga

Will India’s beauty rituals find permanence in the global market — and the voice to lead the discourse?

Photo Courtesy: Kama Ayurveda

At the turn of the millennium, a curious cultural change swept across the Global North. Suddenly, yoga studios sprang up on every corner, from New York to California. The ancient Indian practice of spiritual healing had been exported worldwide — marketed, monetised, and marvelled at. It was India’s soft power in motion, without India necessarily at the table.

Two decades later, the West is once again looking East. This time, it is Indian beauty — with its rituals, philosophies, botanicals, and skin science — that is poised to become the next global export.

But will India lead the discourse this time?

The global beauty industry, valued at over $677 billion, is in the middle of a recalibration. With clean beauty no longer a niche, holistic wellness has gone mainstream. Global consumers are finally waking up to centuries of Eurocentric, pharmaceutical-heavy beauty standards and are now seeking answers in ancient cultures.

What Ayurveda Brings to the Table

The origins of Indian beauty go back to around 100 BCE — to the Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita, texts detailing herbal remedies, detox rituals, and skin health. For generations, these practices stayed in kitchens, passed down in pestle-and-mortar whispers: turmeric masks, neem water rinses, hibiscus hair packs.

Much like yoga, Indian beauty and skincare are now reaching international markets. But this time, Indian brands, founders, and stories are finding their voice.

Bottling the Ritual

Take Forest Essentials, which has progressively expanded into the UK, opening a flagship store in London's Covent Garden, and into the GCC countries, with stores in Dubai and Kuwait, establishing itself as a luxury Ayurvedic skincare house — without diluting its roots. Or Kama Ayurveda, now partnered with Puig, the Spanish beauty giant behind Carolina Herrera and Jean Paul Gaultier.

Then there’s Fable & Mane, a brand founded in the UK by Indian siblings Akash and Nikita Mehta. It built an entire haircare empire on the Indian ritual of champi, the therapeutic head oil massage. The brand’s story? Inspired by their grandmother’s teachings.

In 2025, India’s contribution to the global beauty conversation is no longer folklore — it is business.

Indian skincare is not just about nostalgia anymore — it is backed by science. A 2024 research paper, Ayurvedic Ingredients in Dermatology: A Call for Research, discusses ashwagandha, turmeric, and neem — noting their ancient use and encouraging more clinical research into their cosmetic and therapeutic benefits.

Brands like Skinveda and Suganda are combining such ingredient research with formulation expertise to engage with a new kind of global consumer — one who wants results and roots. Even India’s beauty tech is closing the gap, with AI-powered skin diagnostics and dermocosmetic hybrids entering the domestic market.

The Wellness Counterculture

The biggest change, however, is philosophical — Indian beauty does not glorify flawlessness but rather celebrates wellness. The focus is not on “fixing” the skin but on nourishing it — treating beauty as a ritualistic, multisensory experience rather than a rushed, mechanical routine.

This cultural ethos — of applying oil before a bath, of letting the skin breathe, of honouring one’s age, not hiding it — is finding favour with a fatigued global consumer. In today’s beauty climate of 10-step routines and botox fatigue, India’s less-is-more approach is refreshing.

The Indian Face of Global Beauty

One reason this export is succeeding where others failed: Indians are setting the narrative themselves.

Diaspora founders like Deepica Mutyala (Live Tinted), Diipa Khosla (Indē Wild), and Simi & Haze Khadra (though not Indian, their South Asian-Aesthetic framing influences branding standards) are spanning continents of taste.

A Soft Power Playbook

Here’s the bigger picture: Cultural exports operate not just in markets, but also in the field of diplomacy.

K-beauty helped South Korea become a cultural powerhouse. French perfume is central to France’s luxury dominance. If India plays its cards right — by protecting its IP, investing in research, and backing homegrown creativity — Indian beauty could be more than just the “next big thing.”

It could be the country’s next major cultural export. Not as an exotic other, but as a global standard.