• Dr. Sheth's is a luxury vegan skincare brand founded in 2015 by dermatologists Dr. Aneesh Sheth and Dr. Rekha Sheth
• Built on the belief that Indian skin needs skincare made specifically for it
• The brand grew into a ₹150 crore business before being acquired by Honasa Consumer, parent company of Mamaearth
For decades, India's pharmacy shelves were filled with products formulated in the US, tested on European skin, and designed for climates nothing like India's. If you wanted something science-backed and premium, you looked abroad. And what you found was made for skin unlike yours. Aneesh Sheth watched this gap closely as he grew up around his mother's dermatology clinic in Mumbai. Patient after patient came in with hyperpigmentation, sun damage, and pollution-related dullness that imported products had failed to fix. The concerns were distinctly Indian. The solutions were not. That contradiction eventually became the foundation of a brand.
No other skincare brand in India carries a legacy quite like Dr. Sheth's. The first generation was Dr. Sharat C. Desai, arguably India's first dermatologist, who founded the dermatology department at KEM Hospital and organised India's first international dermatology conference.
His daughter, Dr. Rekha Sheth, became India's first cosmetic dermatologist after studying in Germany. She launched the country's first dedicated beauty clinic in 1993, treated over one lakh patients, consulted for Hindustan Unilever and L'Oreal, and founded The Cosmetology Society of India in 1997.
The third generation, Dr. Aneesh Sheth, studied pharmacology at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York. He returned with one urgent question: after everything his family had contributed to understanding Indian skin, why did no brand in the market truly build for it?
Indian skin has more melanin than Caucasian skin, making it far more prone to hyperpigmentation. It faces daily exposure to UV radiation, pollution, humidity, and blue light from screens. These are not the conditions that labs in the US, Korea, or Europe are designing for.
The Sheth family had over six decades of clinical experience at the individual level. Thousands of consultations. Research shared at international forums. An intimate understanding of which ingredients work, at what concentrations, for Indian skin specifically. All of that knowledge existed in the clinic. Aneesh simply asked how to put it into a product.
Science Meets the Shelf The family had credibility and decades of trust built through the clinic. What they did not have was experience building a consumer brand from scratch. Aneesh was candid: "Doing business in India is not easy. Right from sourcing ingredients to finding transparent manufacturers, definitions are loose and standardised extracts are always a challenge."
Every ingredient decision was made with clinical rigour. The brand launched fully vegan, cruelty-free, sulphate-free, and paraben-free. Niacinamide became a signature ingredient, chosen for its proven brightening and barrier-repair results on melanin-rich skin. Vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, and kojic acid followed, all selected for efficacy over trend. The initial range was small and focused, launching through clinics and boutiques before expanding to Nykaa and e-commerce.
A homegrown brand charging premium prices for ingredient-led formulations occupied an uncomfortable space in the Indian market. Consumers had been let down too many times by products promising clinical results. The phrase "dermatologist-recommended" had been so widely misused that it had lost meaning entirely.
Dr. Sheth’s responded not with advertising but with transparency. The team shared the science behind every product, explained formulation choices openly, and listened to consumer feedback in ways most FMCG brands never bother to. This approach led to something historic: Dr. Sheth's became what is believed to be the first brand globally to co-create a product directly with its consumer base. The outcome was a customer NPS of 60% and a repeat purchase rate of 35%.
The sunscreen became the brand's breakout product, ranking among the top 20 beauty products on Amazon India. Designed specifically for India's UV and pollution exposure, it was positioned not as a luxury extra but as a daily essential. That clarity of purpose made it the kind of product people recommended without being asked.
A Partnership Built on Legacy and Scale. By 2022, scaling further required infrastructure that the brand had not yet built. In May 2022, Honasa Consumer acquired a majority stake in Dr. Sheth's at a valuation of ₹28 crore. Honasa brought digital expertise and operational scale. Dr. Sheth's brought something no other brand in the portfolio had: three generations of genuine dermatological authority. Aneesh continued leading product innovation after the acquisition. By FY25, the brand crossed ₹150 crore in revenue, growing at over 30% annually.
Dr. Sheth's is not a brand that grew from a trend or a market gap spotted on a spreadsheet. It grew from six decades of looking at real skin, understanding real problems, and knowing exactly what those problems needed.
A grandfather who built Indian dermatology. A mother who proved Indian expertise belonged in global conversations. A son who turned three generations of knowledge into products, Indian skin had always deserved.
The most powerful brands are not always the ones built fastest. They are the ones built on foundations no competitor can simply replicate.
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