Year-end means everyone is planning trips if they can afford it, some to Goa, migrants to their native towns. A group chat with my friends was buzzing with discussions about where to visit and what to pack. My eyebrows shot up, however, when a male friend shared the contents of his toiletries bag: shampoo, conditioner, body wash, sunscreen, toothpaste, brush, and moisturiser. It was a small, personal detail that mirrored an ongoing market shift I had completely overlooked. 

And now, I started noticing this shift everywhere. Just last week, Honasa Consumer, which owns Mamaearth, announced a Rs 195 crore deal to buy Reginald Men, a direct-to-consumer (D2C) skincare brand for men. Before them, in November, Godrej Consumer also announced a Rs 450-crore acquisition of the men’s grooming brand, Mucchstac. When two FMCG giants spend crores to buy men’s skincare brands, you realise my friend’s toiletries bag isn’t an outlier; it’s the target demographic. 

But is this really a new trend? 

It’s not. In fact, the chase to encourage Indian men to adopt quality skincare on a mass scale began back in 2017. That’s when Marico, another FMCG major, acquired a strategic stake in Beardo—now one of India’s largest men’s grooming brands. The same year, Emami also took a stake in The Man Company.

This is not a new spree. It’s part of FMCG’s plan to diversify their portfolios and to essentially establish men’s grooming as a category within their beauty & personal care (BPC) play, explains Ankur Bisen, senior partner at The Knowledge Company, a consultancy firm. 

Take Mamaearth, for example. Its parent company houses seven skincare and cosmetics brands, such as Dr. Sheth’s, The Derma Co., that are all primarily focused on women. Similarly, Godrej Consumer has a strong presence in hair colour and hair oils but lacked a dedicated play in men’s grooming.

So what has prompted giants like Honasa and Godrej to acquire these new-age men’s brands at 11X (for Reginald) and 15X (for Mucchstac) EV/Ebitda multiples, respectively? EV is enterprise value, which is a company’s equity value plus debt minus cash. Ebitda—earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation—measures operating performance. 

The market has completely changed post-Covid, says Arush Chopra, founder of the D2C brand Just Herbs (which was also acquired by Marico).