Skincare brand Minimalist is educating Indian consumers about ingredients that really work

While the market for skincare products is a saturated one, the founders of Minimalist are confident of winning consumers over with the right kind of knowledge about ingredients that go into their products

They say that you’re nobody until you’re talked about. When Rahul and Mohit Yadav launched skincare brand Minimalist in 2020, it garnered a lot of buzz. At the time, journalists, media organisations and content creators were drawing comparisons to international brands that looked and felt way too similar. But as consumers began to use the products, they gradually started welcoming an Indian-made brand that promised to solve their acne, pigmentation and dark circles, while keeping the prices affordable and availability easy. It’s clearly working, because Minimalist raised ₹110 crore in a Series A round funding in 2021, and have claimed to serve more than a million customers already. Here’s everything Rahul Yadav has to say about creating a brand, educating consumers and rewriting narratives.

There’s a new beauty brand that launches almost everyday. Why did you decide to launch Minimalist in an already saturated market?

We bring a lot of experience to the table in terms of scaling up start-ups and creating digital products and experiences, but the beauty segment was new to us. We found that there was a lot of opacity in the space. We know it’s not always easy to share, but we found that brands were not talking about what was in their products, what they were using, what ingredients they had chosen and why they decided to package the products the way they did. From the point of view of the brand, the narrative was that it was too complicated. The messaging read: “this is too difficult for you to understand, you won’t get it, so just leave the science to us.” That way, there was no clarity for the end consumer; the products were all wrapped in fancy packaging and had fun names. We think if you’re in the product creation business, the product really should solve a clear and real problem—everything else is marketing, and just the enabler.

Yes, it’s a saturated market. But start-ups thrive when there is competition. When you identify users, you’re golden. Honestly, you’re going to see a lot of brands that have a similar philosophy now. The brands didn’t decide this themselves—they’re answering to what the consumer has been looking for. The shift from natural to chemical, and the shift from hope in a bottle to promise in a bottle is being seen across the board. Consumers want efficiency and efficacy, and brands are responding.

There is a segment of the audience that is more knowledgeable about skincare ingredients than ever before. How do you educate them without alienating a beauty neophyte?

They say that people don't want to buy a quarter-inch drill, they want a quarter-inch hole. If they have acne, they’re looking for an anti-acne solution. Their interest is in the outcome, and they don’t care as much about the ingredients as they do about their end goal. The way we’re educating our consumers is by telling them how we’re solving their issues, and how specific ingredients are formulated in a way to fix them.

When there is a lack of knowledge, distribution wins. Essentially, what is better priced and more easily available will win. But when people get educated, products will win. Honestly, the audience was more than just ready. When we started, we were surprised by the level of knowledge that consumers already had. My co-founder and I were handling customer service in the very beginning, and the questions that people were asking were tougher than we had imagined. They wanted to know what the pH level of a certain product was, and if a molecule was most stable at 4.5, why did our packaging say 4 to 5?

In India, there’s still a misconception that natural is better, and the tomato and turmeric face mask you make at home is safer than what you get in a bottle. How do you shift that narrative?

We have been told that natural is good and that chemicals are bad. This narrative originated to benefit certain categories and brands, and it made people take ‘natural’ as a proxy for ‘safety. But that’s the thing—we have to educate the consumers to fight fear mongering. You’re afraid of what you don’t know.

People just need some direction. Sometimes they tell us that they don’t know where to start, but once they know how to start, there is enough [information] on social media and on the Internet for people to look to. There’s no shortcut to trust; you just need to prove to a consumer that your product is safe, it’s effective and it won’t hurt them. You also have to prove that it’ll actually help them. Studies, working with dermatologists, patch tests, cytotoxicity testing—you have to do all of these things.

When Minimalist launched, people drew a lot of similarities to brands such as The Ordinary and Inkey List. The packaging, the ingredients and the messaging all felt similar. What is different about Minimalist?

We’re not focusing on single ingredients, we’re focused on problem solving. We’re looking for molecules and combinations that work best, and we formulate, stabilise and test till we get the right one. In our anti-pigmentation product, alpha arbutin gets highlighted but there are a lot of other ingredients in the blend that all work together to give you the best result. In the case of hyaluronic acid and polyglutamic acid serum, we’re the only ones that have created it at the concentration and blend we currently have. There’s a new star ingredient everyday, so you have to stay agile. On any given day, there’s ten different solutions to one problem. You have to decide which three you want to go ahead with.

We’re also specifically formulating for the Indian customer. Every part of India has a different favourite SKU, but across the board, acne and pigmentation are the biggest concerns, which is why we have so many products to fix them. Ingredients like alpha arbutin, salicylic acid and benzoyl peroxides are the ones that really do well.

What do you tell a consumer who believes that skincare products tend to be ‘better’ the more expensive they are?

‘Expensive’ is a relative term. In India, 1,500 rupees is expensive. In the United States, it’s a budget product. There’s no universal language for affordability, so we’re using science as the great equaliser. We look at it as a fair value for the product. We have products that start at ₹299, but we’re also working on some that’ll go up to ₹2,000, because it all depends on the ingredients, the molecules and the technology used.

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