For ages, hair care meant oiling your scalp with discipline, particularly in India and south Asia, and shampooing it properly. Not anymore. The hair care market has now moved beyond all that—capturing within it serums, gels, conditioners, masks, a host of electronic devices, beauty treatments and much more.
As per Mordor Intelligence, a market research and analysis firm, the size of the hair care market in India was estimated at $5.85 billion in 2024. In the next five years, it’s expected to grow at a rate of 8.80% and reach $8.93 billion by 2029.
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McKinsey & Company, in a recent report, noted that the “global beauty market is expected to grow 6% annually through 2028,” and that the hair care segment will see a global increase of 8% annual growth till 2028.
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But what has been the reason for this? And why did it not happen earlier? Nikita Khanna, the founder of Moxie, which specialises in products for wavy and frizzy Indian hair, told FE, “The reason we’re seeing this growth in the hair care space is because, over the past few years, we’ve seen skin care and hair care move from grocery to beauty.”
Shankar Prasad, the founder and CEO of Plum, laughed that the ‘skinification of hair’ is happening, a term used in the McKinsey report as well. He smiled as he told FE, “SCMS—Shampoo Conditioner Mask Serum; we should not be surprised if we start seeing this abbreviation everywhere soon.”
Even brands like Dyson, that entered the beauty industry with its SuperSonic Hair Dryer in 2016, launched a line of hair care products in August this year when they entered the formulations market with a pre-style cream and a post-style serum.
What has also seen a boom are hair care and hair tech products.
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