The story of a brand often begins with its product, but for Beautiful India, a conscious luxury perfume brand, it began with an idea. The question was simple: how could a brand rooted in India carry the weight of its culture, heritage, and spirit while speaking to the world with equal, if not more, relevance?
“We went through a catharsis,” recalls Praveen Kenneth, founder of Beautiful India and an Indian advertising and media veteran, during an exclusive conversation with Robb Report India. “We wanted to find the five ingredients that were genuinely truthful to the big story—the India story. We wanted more, but finally narrowed it down to those five, which could hold the rest of the world together.” And thus was the inception of an Indian luxury house that took its patrons on a sensorial journey through perfumes, candles, body care, and a gifting range.
Beyond The Brand
For Kenneth, though, choosing the right ingredients for the Beautiful India range wasn’t merely a creative exercise. “I can’t just say sandalwood and leave it at that,” he explains. “It has to be Indian sandalwood. The product story had to go back to what India is all about.”
That process led them to a deeper philosophical anchor: Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (Sanskrit for “the world is one family”), a phrase that has long embodied India’s universal outlook. “If the world is one family, then India itself is not just a nation or a continent; it’s a universal idea,” says Kenneth, adding, “We used that idea to bring the best ingredients from around the world into the idea of India. The idea of India is the universe—it touches everybody.”
This intersection of staying rooted and universality shaped the product. Beautiful India launched with perfumes and candles. “I keep telling people, I’m not in the business of perfumes or candles,” says Kenneth. “The products are a medium, but the idea is much larger,” he explains.
The candles carry sacred woods and resins that echo Indian temples, while the perfumes celebrate local botanicals for olfactory experiences. The candles are hand-poured using sustainable soy wax, and the fragrances—Mysuru sandalwood, Himalayan cedar, Nagpur orange blossom, among others are layered with resins and spices.
The perfumes draw from India’s vast olfactory library: smoky vetiver from Bengal, jasmine sambac from Madurai, Kashmiri saffron, and cardamom pods sourced from Kerala. Blended with accords from France and Italy, these scents transcend geography to create a universal experience.
Crafting the India Story
But if the vision was clear, the path was less so. Early on, the team faced one big challenge: perception. “One of the biggest hurdles was that when you say ‘India,’ people immediately think ‘cheap,’” Kenneth admits.
This irony isn’t lost on Beautiful India. He knows that luxury built in India often finds validation abroad before it is embraced at home. That lingering hang-up, he believes, is one of the greatest cultural hurdles for Indian luxury. “Beautiful India is sometimes easier for me to sell in Europe than in my own country,” he says with quiet candour. Maybe that's why, then, the brand boasts of presence in Milan and Paris, apart from Mumbai, too. “In India, they’ll come into the store and ask for a discount. The day they visit international brands, they never ask.”
How does one deal with that? He smiles, adding, “We smile back very kindly and say, This is what it is.”
By rooting itself in India’s deepest ideas while unapologetically aspiring to global standards, Beautiful India re-frames what “Made in India” can mean in the world of luxury. Eventually, it is less about a product and more about a philosophy. And for Kenneth, telling the India story is key.
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