Sunscreen Face-Off: Honasa's Mamaearth Versus HUL's Lakme

Every summer ignites wars in the fast-moving consumer goods space. While Pepsi and Coca Cola slug it out in the beverage world and electronic giants jostle for selling more air-conditioners, the beauty industry is the latest to find itself embroiled in a sunscreen skirmish, pitting Hindustan Unilever Ltd.-owned legacy brand Lakmé against new-age company Honasa Consumer Ltd.—the owner of Mamaearth and The Derma Co.

In a LinkedIn post, Honasa co-founder Ghazal Alagh has alleged that the fast-moving consumer goods industry has "lacked good competition" for a long time, leading to large traditional brands becoming complacent, taking a jab at HUL, which recently launched an ad campaign challenging the efficacy claims of digital-first sunscreen brands. At the heart of this campaign is "in-vivo testing" for SPF 50 sunscreens, a method that is already adopted by Honasa's brand Derma Co., according to Alagh.

"We have been challenging these norms and waking up these brands time and again," she wrote, welcoming Lakmé into what she called the “SPF 50 club”. "We did it with Mamaearth in making brands move towards clean label ingredients. And now again with The Derma Co. which is showing the way around honest active disclosures and claims based on science."

In a separate social media post, Alagh further accused HUL of "copying" its products. According to her, Lakmé 9to5 Sun Expert is a copied version of Derma Co.'s sunscreen. However, this post was deleted within two hours.

Lakme's ad, meanwhile, asserts that “When Lakmé Sun Expert claims SPF 50, it delivers SPF 50.” It claims that the absence of strict sunscreen testing regulations allows various brands to falsely claim SPF 50, often providing only SPF 20. Through this campaign, Lakmé aims to tackle this discrepancy.

"Consumer safety is paramount for us," an HUL spokesperson told NDTV Profit in an emailed statement. "The gold standard and globally recognised method to test the efficacy of sunscreen is SPF in-vivo testing, something that Lakme has been doing since 2015 across its sun portfolio. Unfortunately, there are several brands in the market, some of them online best sellers, who have been falsely claiming SPF 50."

Earlier, while speaking about the campaign, Harman Dhillon, executive director and general manager, beauty and wellbeing, HUL, had said: "We're committed to transforming the sunscreen industry through unwavering transparency, scientific validation, and consumer awareness."

With Lakmé Sun Expert, Dhillon said that the company is shedding light on the disparity between the "exaggerated SPF claims" and actual sun protection delivered across multiple such products. "Our research-driven products deliver on their promise, giving consumers the confidence to trust what they buy and the protection they need."

HUL controls nearly 25% of the country's Rs 2,000 crore sunscreen market. The segment is crucial for HUL, which aims to grow its premium beauty and wellbeing portfolio by 900 basis points over the next few years.

At present, HUL's beauty and wellbeing segment contributes 21% of its overall sales and about a third of its profits. In the December quarter, the category saw a low single-digit decline in volume growth and muted sales growth. The market leader faces stiff competition from direct-to-consumer players.

At present, focused beauty brands, including L'Oreal, Mamaearth, Nivea and Nykaa, have 33% share and are expected to expand to 42% in the next five years, while established firms such as HUL and Procter & Gamble, which account for two-thirds of the market, will see their share fall 9 percentage points to 58% by 2027, according to a joint report by Redseer Strategy Consultants and Peak XV.

The unfolding drama underlines the escalating rivalry within the FMCG industry as brands tackle both competition and consumer trust in claims.