India’s Competition Commission has approved L’Oréal India’s acquisition of Innovist, the digital-first personal care company behind the Bare Anatomy and Chemist at Play brands, clearing the way for a deal the French beauty and cosmetics group first announced earlier this year.
The commission’s order approves L’Oréal India’s purchase of 100% of Innovist’s parent company, Onesto Labs, according to Mint. L’Oréal India is a wholly owned unit of Paris-headquartered L’Oréal SA and has operated in India since 1994, with two manufacturing plants, in Chakan, in western India’s Maharashtra state, and Baddi, in Himachal Pradesh in northern India, plus research facilities in Mumbai, in western India, and Bengaluru, in southern India. It sells twenty-six brands in India, including L’Oréal Paris, Garnier, Maybelline New York and NYX Professional Makeup. Financial terms of the Innovist deal were not disclosed.
Innovist was founded in 2019 by Rohit Chawla, Sifat Khurana and Vimal Bhola. Onesto Labs, the original company name, was rebranded Innovist in 2022. The company builds its skincare and haircare brands, including Bare Anatomy and Chemist at Play, around ingredient-focused, science-led formulas, and sells them directly to consumers as well as through e-commerce, quick-commerce and offline retail. Under the deal, the founders will stay on as minority shareholders and continue running the business, which moves under L’Oréal’s Consumer Products Division, and
The acquisition is part of a broader push by global beauty companies to secure fast-growing, digital-first India brands as younger shoppers move to e-commerce and quick-commerce platforms. It also comes as L’Oréal works to reverse a slowdown in its own India business. According to The Economic Times, L’Oréal India’s sales growth slowed to 5% in fiscal 2025, down from 14% in fiscal 2024 and close to 30% in each of the two years before that.
The Economic Times reported that Jacques Lebel, who recently became Country Manager of L’Oréal India, has been tasked with reviving the unit’s growth. “Innovist has built something truly special here in India, and by joining forces we look forward to bringing L’Oréal even closer to the new generation of digitally-savvy Indian beauty consumers,” Lebel said. Nicolas Hieronimus, Chief Executive Officer of L’Oréal, called the deal “a clear testament to our unwavering commitment to expanding L’Oréal’s footprint in India,” adding that combining L’Oréal’s global expertise with Innovist’s products and knowledge of India’s consumers positions the companies “to shape the future of beauty in this dynamic market.”
According to The Economic Times, Innovist’s own numbers show why L’Oréal wanted in: revenue rose 182% in fiscal 2025 to Rs 301 crore, or $31.5 million at current exchange rates, and the company swung to a net profit of Rs 12.5 crore ($1.3 million), from revenue of Rs 106 crore ($11.1 million) and a net loss of Rs 11.9 crore ($1.2 million) the year before. On a recent investor call, Hieronimus acknowledged that India was “not meeting expectations,” pointing to an organizational reset, a new leadership team and continued investment in brands such as CeraVe and La Roche-Posay, local manufacturing, and a planned technology center in Hyderabad, in southern India.
For American and European consumer companies watching India’s beauty and personal care market, the deal is a reminder that scale alone no longer guarantees growth: even a 25-year incumbent is buying its way back into relevance by acquiring the kind of digital-first, India-born brand that is taking share from it.
