Korean beauty products first came to the Indian market way back in 2013. However, it was not till 2017 that Korean skin care really took off in India. Today, close to 60 Korean beauty brands are officially imported into India capturing a $1.5 billion segment (around Rs14,000 crore at current exchange rate) of the Rs16,000 crore beauty and personal care market. Now, close to a decade later, Mumbai based Nitika Garg, a veteran of the Indian pharmaceutical industry, has launched a Korean skin care range formulated specially for the Indian skin.
What is so different about Indian skin? “One thing that is very peculiar about Indian skin is that our skin has a lot of pigmentation issues because of our melanin production. Our skin is oily. Our skin is also regional. If you go to Punjab and other areas in the north they will have thicker skin. They have thinner skin in the south,” explains Nitika Garg, founder and CEO, Sonrisa.
According to Garg, developing a good formulation is an art. “I have learnt consumer centricity all across my career. For me it was very clear that any kind of marketing you do, if a product is not good and not extraordinary, believe you me the second purchase is going to be difficult. I’m so glad I worked with that philosophy,” she says.
The Sonrisa range comprises four products – the petal pout lip mask, a Korean enzyme-based Ginseng face wash powder, and a calming Radiance serum and a cream. Each product is thoughtfully developed to suit sensitive, stressed, and Indian skin types. These products are gender non-specific, can be used by any age group, in any weather and either in the day or at night. In fact, the ginseng powder face wash launched by the company is a first in India.
Priced between Rs990 to Rs1700, these products fall within the masstige segment. This makes them more expensive than budget-friendly K-beauty brands such as Face Shop or Innisfree, but significantly more accessible than luxury lines such as Sulwhasoo. Sonrisa products are available online on Amazon. The company is exploring other platforms as well. “I always believed that skincare should be done liberally. If you make it expensive people will use it sparingly. So what’s the point? And who said that if it is imported it has to be expensive,” says Garg.
Garg’s journey with Korean beauty (K-beauty) products started when she went to Seoul, South Korea for the Intercharm Beauty conference in 2025. The conference exposed her to K-beauty products and manufacturers. Having spent over two decades in the pharmaceutical industry she knew how to get the most out of industry conferences. After meeting close to 70 manufacturers in the three days she was there, Garg returned to Mumbai with many samples.
On her return it was important to get the view point of the front end customer. So she set up a booth at an exhibition. “For me the biggest confirmation, the unmet need that I felt was the education to people. So when I put up the booth people loved those products. They told me that their interaction with me was like a dermatologist talking to them,” she says. “That’s how the journey began,” she adds. Garg has put all the knowledge she has acquired from 25 years in the Indian pharmaceutical and healthcare industry into the Korean skin care product she has formulated for the Indian skin care market.
What made Garg decide to not only tweak, but also secure the formulations for her product range is a dipstick survey she conducted in November 2025. Here her science and consumer market research background kicked in. She picked up three best products for each category and conducted a double blinded test with black markings. A target group of around 40 to 50 people comprising Influencers, makeup artists and other consumers were divided into four groups. Each group was given four lip masks, or four moisturisers, etc. with black markings and asked to say which they found to be the best and why. “We came out with flying colours,” says Garg. “I had to do this assignment before I went ahead with the final go ahead for the DCGI (Drugs Controller General of India) filing,” she adds.
Garg’s early career saw her working in close collaboration with Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw at Bengaluru based Biocon, where she gathered invaluable experience in global marketing, international business development, product innovation, and high-level negotiations. Garg subsequently led business development at Mumbai based Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, where her strategic vision was instrumental in expanding the company’s dermatology portfolio and launching ground breaking solutions in the Indian market. Later at Bristol Myers Squibb, she further honed her expertise in commercial analytics, market research, and strategic planning.
Her seven-year tenure at the Organisation for the Pharmaceutical Producers of India (OPPI) was marked by leadership in market research and policy advocacy, driving national healthcare dialogues. Garg was key in driving the Over the Counter (OTC) policy, where she brought the industry together over the need to have Over the Counter policy guidelines. Today, Sonrisa embodies the culmination of Garg’s journey, a brand where authentic Korean skincare, scientific rigor, and purposeful innovation converge to elevate the standards of modern beauty.
However, the K-beauty segment in India is a crowded one. Yet Garg is confident of her products. “As a new product development person, I have always mapped the unmet need areas in the market – what is the unmet need in the market and what the product is actually bridging. I have done that and the market is giving me the same feedback, so I am super confident,” she says.