India’s beauty industry is driven by a new generation of consumers seeking authenticity, inclusivity, and relevance. With the market valued at $28 billion in 2024 and projected to reach nearly $48.5 billion by 2033, the opportunity for brands lies not just in scale but in addressing long-overlooked gaps.
Un:fltrd was born from this very whitespace: the lack of accurate representation for Indian skin in global and domestic beauty systems. By challenging dated shade charts, deconstructing undertone complexities, and rejecting colonial-era beauty biases, the brand is pioneering a consumer-first approach rooted in real data and cultural context.
In a high-growth industry, un:fltrd exemplifies how next-gen beauty brands can combine inclusivity with commercial scalability.
Building Proof Before Product
Ghazal Gupta, Founder & CEO, Un:fltrd, says “The core vision is to build a beauty system that sees, studies, and celebrates Indian skin in all its realness. And so, before I ever took a product on the market, I built proof.”
The brand’s foundation was laid long before the initial product was produced. In June, 2025, Un:fltrd organised a shade-matching workshop in Mumbai, with more than 150 women coming through word of mouth alone.
“No product was being sold, no influencers were there, just actual people testing out over 50 lab shades,” Ghazal explains. What came out of it was an undeniable fact: Indian women predominantly have olive undertones, something the market had been ignoring for years.
Beginning with a Hero Product
With this vision, the brand decided to start off with a hero product, the ‘Almost Ready Cushion Foundation’. Made in twelve expertly crafted colors, the cushion was created with Indian climate, skin types, and undertone variations in mind.
Its label summed up the daily essence, made for that instant when one is in a hurry, not in place, but still wishes to appear confidently. To make shade matching even easier, the company launched Trial Kits with carefully selected trios of mini cushions, enabling consumers to try at home before investing in a full product.
“We do want to integrate AI into this in several different ways the country hasn’t seen before, but for now as a bootstrapped company, this is where we chose to begin,” says Ghazal. “We wanted our first product to carry weight and build a product that can act as an anchor for the brand,” she adds.
In close collaboration with R&D partners, the brand co-developed and tested over 50 shade samples and 36 formula variations on oily, acne-prone, dry, and textured Indian skin.
This in-house approach guarantees that the product is not merely adapted to Indian requirements but designed for them from scratch. “Our long-term ambition is to set up a dedicated lab centered on undertone-specific pigments and humidity-sensitive textures,” she states.
Insights from the Community
“From prescriptive swatching exercises to personality-based forms and Polaroid records the workshop gave us a rich source of consumer research,” Gupta points out.
Over 74 percent of attendees confessed dissatisfaction with their existing foundations, a third had given up searching for their correct shade, and no woman felt at ease purchasing foundation online.
These statistics supported un:fltrd’s cause and influenced the final dozen shades selected to launch.
Understanding the Consumer Landscape
Although un:fltrd’s primary audience is women between 16 and 30, the brand has surprisingly caught the imagination of older generations as well, such as women in their 40s and 50s who compared it to the compact powders they used to have.
“Our target users are digital-first, emotionally connected, and increasingly disinterested in aspirational ideals of fairness,” explains Ghazal.
Geographically, the brand anticipates early adoption in metropolitan cities but is already seeing traction in tier II and III centres.
Positioned Between Prestige and Practicality
The brand is positioned in between international and mass-market Indian players accessibility. Un:fltrd holds an exclusive position with formulations that have the quality of premium but remain practical and accessible.
Pricing has been strategically designed to be within reach but not ‘massy,’ with refillable options in the pipeline to balance cost with sustainability.
“Most international brands entering India today carry a certain polish, in packaging, in formulation, in branding. But they rarely get the Indian skintones. And even if they do, it is a hefty price for the average Indian to pay,” Gupta says.
Expansion Through Digital and Retail
For the time being, the brand relies on direct-to-consumer business through its own website to ensure trust and owned data gathering, though retail collaborations are in the works already to cater to the prevalent desire for in-store testing.
“Our primary research showed 58 percent of users prefer in-store trials for base makeup. So yes, we’re also entering retail soon,” says Ghazal.
Regional workshops are also scheduled in urban cities such as Delhi, Bangalore, and Kolkata, and tier II locations like Surat, Pune, and Kochi in order to gain insights representative of Indian skin diversity across climate and culture.
From National Trust to Worldwide Ambitions
The near-term objective is to establish shade trust, generate organic word-of-mouth, and position the shade-matching workshop as a repeat intellectual property.
In the long term, Un:fltrd hopes to take its offering city by city, led by ground truth, and eventually bring its Indian skin-first solutions to the world.
“The goal is to build regionally rooted insights that evolve our offering beyond a one-size-fits-all approach, and eventually take the brand to a global level with the same goal,” Ghazal concludes.
