MegaBrands · Skin care, premium

Forest Essentials: How Luxurious Ayurveda Set India’s Benchmark in Premium Skin Care

Forest Essentials, selected as the Mega Brand for Skin care, premium by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC, began in New Delhi in 2000 with one founder and a few handmade products. Today it runs nearly 200 freestanding stores and reported revenue of Rs 578 crore in FY2024-25.

By WCRC Leaders Editorial · Published October 2026 · 8 min read

At a glance

Forest Essentials is a luxury Ayurvedic skin care brand founded in New Delhi in 2000 by Mira Kulkarni, who leads it as Founder and Managing Director with her son, Executive Director Samrath Bedi. The brand makes its products in its own facility in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand and sells them through nearly 200 freestanding stores. It reported revenue of Rs 578 crore in FY2024-25. It is the Mega Brand for Skin care, premium in WCRC MegaBrands.

Forest Essentials took an old Indian science and gave it the finish of a luxury house. The brand calls this idea “Luxurious Ayurveda”, and its rule for every product is short: “If you cannot eat it, do not use it on your skin.” That pairing of strict purity with careful beauty runs through the brand’s story.

The story starts with one person. Mira Kulkarni began making candles in 1999, moved to handmade soaps and then to massage oils, ubtans and milk baths, consulting Ayurvedic vaids in Rishikesh along the way. She was 45. “Having never worked a day in my life, I decided to start my company at 45, after my daughter got married,” she said in 2022. Forest Essentials was founded in 2000, and its first store opened in Delhi’s Khan Market.

In FY2024-25, the company reported revenue of Rs 578 crore and a profit of Rs 123 crore.

WCRC MegaBrands covers 501 categories in India and selects one benchmark brand in each. It looks at brands through five pillars: Brand Positioning & Recall; Consumer Trust & Sentiment; Product, Innovation & Delivery; Sustainability, Governance & ESG; and Digital & Financial Soundness. Forest Essentials has been selected as the Mega Brand for Skin care, premium by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC (World Centre for Research and Consulting). Here is how Forest Essentials’ record lines up with each pillar.

Pillar 1: How Forest Essentials Owns Share of Mind

Brand Positioning & Recall · weighted 28% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Forest Essentials stands for one clear thing. The brand describes itself as a pioneer of Luxurious Ayurveda, a place where Ayurvedic rituals meet modern design. Mira Kulkarni saw an opening at the start. In her own account, high-quality premium Ayurvedic skin care products did not exist in 2000. Forest Essentials set out to fill that space with products made to be enjoyed as well as trusted.

More than 25 years on, the founder still frames the brand around that idea. “Our shared mission has always been to establish Luxury Ayurveda as a globally respected pillar of modern beauty,” Mira Kulkarni said in March 2026.

A signature range helps people remember the brand. Soundarya, the brand’s age-defying collection, is infused with 24-karat gold, and the company describes its Soundarya facial serum as “cured for months in copper vats”.

The store is the other source of recall. Forest Essentials chose company-owned standalone stores and built its own distribution, which the company has said keeps the brand experience consistent. Samrath Bedi, the Executive Director, has framed the larger goal in plain terms. “Our personal vision is to see Ayurveda move from an alternative science to a mainstream science,” he said in 2021.

Pillar 2: Why Shoppers Trust Forest Essentials

Consumer Trust & Sentiment · weighted 26% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Trust in Forest Essentials rests on what goes into the jar. The edible standard, “if you cannot eat it, do not use it on your skin”, sets a high bar, and the brand repeats it on its own site and in its interviews. The brand has worked with traditional Ayurvedic practitioners and modern biochemists, and the company says its products are handcrafted from natural ingredients.

The way products are made adds to that confidence. Mira Kulkarni has described the use of raw cane sugar and steam-distilled oils, and says the brand works “in the traditionally old-fashioned way, according to ancient tenets.” The brand lists Good Manufacturing Practice, PETA Cruelty Free, Ayush and ISO 9001:2015 among the certificates on its website.

The founder sums up the brand’s promise in two words. “The USP of Forest Essentials really is its purity and authenticity,” she said in 2024.

Beyond its own stores, Forest Essentials has also supplied bath and spa products to luxury hotels and spas, according to reports from 2019 and 2022.

Samrath Bedi has put the brand’s standard simply: “Our belief has always been that every product must be as enjoyable as it is effective.”

Pillar 3: The Engine Behind Every Forest Essentials Jar

Product, Innovation & Delivery · weighted 20% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Forest Essentials keeps the whole chain in its own hands. The company says it controls the conception, formulation, manufacturing and sale of its products. Its research and development is based on Ayurveda, its botanicals are sourced in India and its products are made in-house.

The heart of that chain sits in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand. At Lodsi, the brand runs a workshop where soaps, ubtans and cold-pressed oils are made. Herbs, flowers and essential oils come from its own farms, including an organic farm at the Lodsi site, and from small-scale farmers.

The range keeps moving. Alongside long-standing face, body and hair products, the brand has introduced Varuna and Samsara, a pair of night and day serums, and it offers gift collections.

Delivery has grown steadily, one store at a time. Forest Essentials had 62 stores across India in 2019 and about 100 boutiques by 2021. By March 2026 it ran nearly 200 freestanding stores. Each one gives shoppers a place to try products before they buy.

Pillar 4: Forest Essentials, Beauty That Gives Back

Sustainability, Governance & ESG · weighted 16% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

The brand’s factory doubles as its clearest statement on sustainability. The company says its Lodsi workshop is off-grid, runs on solar panels fitted to its roofs and collects rainwater, and it describes the site as having a zero carbon footprint. The workshop employs local women, who make soaps, ubtans and oils. The brand says it is the only factory in the area.

Sourcing follows the same thinking. Forest Essentials says it buys from small-scale farmers, traditional artisans and rural cooperatives that use environmentally sound farming, and that it offers “independence-building prices”. It says it has also worked on sourcing clean drinking water for nearby villages. Since July 2016, the company says, its Paathshala project, run with a New Delhi education charity, has supported a government high school in Tehri Garhwal, Uttarakhand.

Packaging has been reworked too. In 2020 the brand began moving select products into recyclable PET bottles and glass jars. It says it uses FSC-certified paper for outer cartons and paper cushioning instead of plastic bubble wrap for online orders. It also set up collection points in its stores, with a recycling partner turning the returned plastic into new materials. Under the reward programme on its website, customers who bring five empty PET jars or bottles to a store can choose a free 50 ml product from its travel collection.

Governance combines founder leadership with a long partnership. Mira Kulkarni and her son lead the company from New Delhi. The Estée Lauder Companies first invested in 2008 and has held 49% since 2020. In March 2026 it agreed to acquire the remaining interest, subject to regulatory approvals. Under the announced plan, Forest Essentials will remain headquartered in New Delhi and keep its research, sourcing and manufacturing in India. “This next phase is about continuity and growth,” Mira Kulkarni said.

Pillar 5: Forest Essentials’ Growth With Financial Strength

Digital & Financial Soundness · weighted 10% in the MegaBrands framework · How MegaBrands measures this

Forest Essentials’ numbers show a brand that is both growing and profitable. Its revenue rose from Rs 490 crore in FY2023-24 to Rs 578 crore in FY2024-25, an increase of 18%. Profit for FY2024-25 was Rs 123 crore, up 71% on the year before. When the March 2026 agreement was announced, The Estée Lauder Companies said the brand was forecast to grow net sales by low double digits, and that together with its existing brands the deal would make India its largest emerging market.

The brand’s reach now extends beyond India. By 2023, its own website shipped to more than 100 countries. In October 2021 it launched online in the United Kingdom, and in November 2022 it opened its first international store, on James Street in London’s Covent Garden. “It has been a dream of mine to see Forest Essentials open a store in the UK, one of the most dynamic beauty markets in the West,” Mira Kulkarni said ahead of the opening. In 2023 it opened its first standalone store in the Gulf, in Dubai.

At home, the brand pairs its stores with its own e-commerce site and major online beauty platforms. Shoppers can try products in a store, then reorder online.

The Forest Essentials Benchmark

Every category has leaders. A MegaBrand is the brand its category is measured against. Forest Essentials holds that place in its category in India because its record is strong on every pillar at once. It is known for one clear idea, trusted for the purity of what it makes, in control of its own chain from sourcing to store, careful with its land, people and packaging, and growing profitably.

Above all, it shows that an Indian tradition can carry a luxury brand on its own terms. As Mira Kulkarni put it in March 2026: “Ayurveda is not folklore; it is a sophisticated system of science, ritual, and holistic wellbeing.”

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About Forest Essentials

Forest Essentials is a luxury Ayurvedic skin care brand founded in New Delhi in 2000 by Mira Kulkarni. It makes its products in-house in the Himalayan foothills of Uttarakhand and sells them through nearly 200 freestanding stores, its website and major online platforms. The company reported revenue of Rs 578 crore in FY2024-25. Forest Essentials has been selected as the Mega Brand for Skin care, premium by the Business Intelligence Unit of WCRC (World Centre for Research and Consulting).