Over a half century ago, an Austrian American named Horst Rechelbacher visited India and was so bowled over by Ayurveda that he founded a hair care company based on the ancient practice — using minerals and herbs such as kukui (candlenut) and ajwain (caraway) to mango, mogra (Indian jasmine) and sea buckthorn, in formulations so potent ‘as to be called prescriptions’. That company, Aveda, founded in 1978, generated sales of $1.1 billion last year.
Yet, despite examples like Aveda and India’s OG Forest Essentials, which launched in 2000, Ayurveda beauty never quite caught on globally. Unlike Korean beauty, aka K-beauty, which took the world by storm in the past decade and is today valued at $100 billion worldwide, A-beauty is valued between $8 and $9 billion, according to research firm Verified Market Research (VMR).
