Earlier this year, intimate care startup Ugees partnered with premium innerwear brand Krvvy. Around the same time, menstrual hygiene startup HealthFab raised ₹20 Cr from Atomic Capital. Last year, the founders of Sirona, a feminine hygiene brand, bought back the startup from Good Glamm Group.

Individually, these developments may seem unrelated, but together, they indicate that intimate care is having a renaissance moment in India.

Thus far, intimate care was viewed largely through the lens of feminine hygiene products sold through pharmacies and supermarkets. Today, the category is significantly broader.

Beyond sanitary pads and tampons, it includes period underwear, intimate washes, postpartum recovery products, baby rash-care solutions, anti-chafing products, men’s hygiene products, sexual wellness products and adult incontinence care.

According to the cofounder of Pee Safe, Rithish Kumar, sanitary pads remain the largest segment within menstrual care, while menstrual care itself continues to dominate women’s hygiene. However, as awareness grows and consumers become more comfortable discussing intimate health, adjacent categories are beginning to expand.

“Over time, these products can move beyond being purely functional purchases and become part of consumers’ lifestyle and wellness routines,” Kumar said.

The biggest enabler of this shift has been the evolution of organised distribution. Ecommerce marketplaces and quick commerce platforms have dramatically improved access, allowing consumers to discover and purchase products privately while giving brands nationwide reach without relying solely on traditional retail.

The infographic below gives a glimpse of the growth observed in the sector in the last few years. Importantly, the timeline illustrates the broad evolution of consumer demand and category expansion in India. These stages are indicative rather than mutually exclusive, with many categories overlapping and scaling simultaneously over the past decade.

Also, the total intimate care market size in India is difficult to size holistically due to fragmented categories. While the largest category is menstrual hygiene, other adjacent categories are growing faster than traditional FMCG categories.

The rise of intimate care has largely been led by digital-first brands rather than traditional FMCG giants. Part of the reason is localisation. Many multinational companies bring products designed for global markets into India without fully adapting them to local consumer behaviour, body types, lifestyles and use cases. Indian founders often have a better understanding of these nuances and can build products accordingly.

But the bigger advantage has been their willingness to educate consumers and earn their trust long before focusing on conversion.

“Traditional FMCG knew these categories existed. They chose not to build them because educating a taboo market didn’t fit their quarterly model. D2C brands had no such luxury — we had to educate or perish. This forced discipline became our moat,” said Sirona founder Deep Bajaj.

Brands such as Nua, Mother Sparsh, Pee Safe, Sirona, and SuperBottoms, among others, invested heavily in conversations around periods, parenting, postpartum recovery and hygiene concerns that consumers were already searching for but rarely discussing openly.

Sirona’s launch of PeeBuddy illustrates this approach. Rather than relying solely on ecommerce listings, the startup introduced the product through marathons, doctors, influencers and women’s sporting events.

“We put it physically in the hands of women who’d never considered that such a product could exist. That kind of ground-level conversation on a taboo topic is something a traditional FMCG shelf placement simply cannot replicate,” Bajaj said.

In many ways, intimate care is naturally suited to ecommerce. The purchase journey is private, information-heavy and trust-driven. Consumers want to compare ingredients, understand usage and read reviews before making a decision. Online channels make that significantly easier than traditional retail.

Today, multinational and legacy brands still control a significant share of the market. However, Pee Safe’s Kumar, believes Indian brands are likely to capture an increasing share over time.

“Ultimately, success will come down to three things: product quality, brand trust and distribution. This is a highly repeat-driven category. If the product does not perform well, consumers simply will not come back,” he said.

As the category matures, product quality alone will not be enough. The strongest brands combine superior products with a deep understanding of consumer behaviour. The real challenge is not simply selling a product but becoming part of a consumer’s routine.

Habit formation matters because it drives repeat purchases, improves retention and increases customer lifetime value. Sustainable businesses emerge when consumers consistently integrate products into their daily lives.

“The strongest brands are those that combine superior products with a deep understanding of their customers. That combination is what creates lasting loyalty and long-term value,” said Sandeep Murthy, partner and managing director, Lightbox.

This is also why intimate care is increasingly evolving from a collection of products into a broader ecosystem.

The Ugees-Krvvy partnership reflects a wider trend of brands attempting to serve adjacent consumer needs rather than selling isolated products. Consumers do not experience menstrual care, innerwear, postpartum recovery and hygiene as separate categories. They experience them as parts of the same lifestyle journey.

At the same time, distribution is becoming more competitive. The challenge is no longer simply getting listed but winning search rankings, shelf space, share of voice and consumer attention.

Offline retail remains equally important. Larger brands continue to enjoy advantages in shelf placement and retail relationships, making omnichannel execution increasingly critical.

Meanwhile, as AI tools and digital marketing become widely accessible, execution capabilities across brands are beginning to converge. That makes differentiation harder and places greater emphasis on product innovation, consumer insight and brand building.

As Kumar highlights, profitability presents another challenge. Input costs have risen, yet brands in intimate care generally possess limited pricing power. “Most cannot easily pass cost increases on to consumers, forcing them to improve operational efficiency, supply-chain management and product economics instead,” he added.

Ultimately, the next phase of category leadership is unlikely to be determined by who generates the most attention online. It will be determined by who builds the deepest consumer relationships, the strongest clinical credibility and the most effective distribution network. The brands that confuse taboo-breaking content with a business model will struggle going ahead.

• Sereko is a Noida-based mental wellness startup offering science-backed skincare and self-care products designed to address the effects of stress on overall wellbeing. Its portfolio includes cleansers, serums, moisturisers, sunscreens and other wellness-focused offerings.
• The company differentiates itself through a psychodermatology-led approach that explores the connection between mental wellbeing and skin health. It also provides educational content and resources focused on stress management and self-care.
• Apart from selling through its own website, Sereko has expanded its reach through multiple online marketplaces and quick-commerce platforms, enabling wider consumer access across India.

• BlueStone Backers Cash Out: Investors IvyCap Ventures, Accel and 360 ONE sold a combined 46.4 Lakh BlueStone shares worth ₹242.8 Cr via block deals, capitalising on the jewellery brand’s recent stock surge driven by strong earnings and ambitious FY30 growth targets.
• Meesho’s Kirana Power Play: Riding on strong revenue growth and narrowing losses, the ecommerce major is acquiring Kirana Club to deepen its ecommerce ecosystem play and tap into a retailer network of over 4.1 Mn kirana stores across India.
• Zepto’s D-Street Dreams: The quick commerce behemoth has filed its updated draft IPO papers with SEBI, outlining plans to use its ₹8,010 Cr fresh issue proceeds for dark store expansion, technology investments and marketing. Investors will offload up to 11.35 Cr shares.
• Honasa’s FY31 Blueprint: Banking on Mamaearth, The Derma Co, portfolio diversification, offline expansion and a sharper channel mix to drive growth, the BPC giant has set a target of ₹5,500 Cr revenue and over 15% EBITDA margin by FY31. It plans to expand its direct retail reach to over 3 Lakh outlets and enter new categories.
• Manam Chocolate Sweetens Funding Pot: The premium craft chocolate brand has raised $9 Mn in a Series A round led by Omnivore to fuel expansion, including new retail stores in Delhi NCR. The startup works with 150+ cacao farmers and operates across the entire chocolate value chain.

The Operator Question

Intimate care brands must educate consumers, build trust, drive habit formation and navigate healthcare-like credibility requirements. Which of these challenges is the hardest to solve, and how should D2C brands approach it? 

According to Sirona’s founder and CEO Deep Bajaj, the most difficult challenge is building credibility. One cannot manufacture it with a campaign but accumulate it slowly and lose it fast. Some of the key things which founders in the intimate care D2C category can be mindful of are:

• Lead with the problem, not the product: With PeeBuddy, Sirona started by talking about what every Indian woman faces at a highway dhaba or a marathon finish line or during pregnancy or arthritis. When a woman feels seen, trust follows.
• Earn clinical credibility before you claim it: When the team launched Sirona menstrual cups, it invested in real gynecologist-led content — doctors explaining insertion, sizing, and hygiene on camera. Not endorsements but actual education. That content still drives conversions years later because it answers the real questions women are too embarrassed to ask in a chemist shop.
• Build private discovery pathways: Intimate care decisions are made privately. A woman researching vaginal pH or period pain relief isn’t doing it publicly. Design search, WhatsApp, DMs for private discovery, not just social virality.
• Make habit formation a product problem: With BleU, Sirona’s vegan condom brand, the team didn’t just make a “cleaner” condom. They started from the problems women actually report – latex sensitivity, dryness, discomfort and built backwards for women. When the product itself solves a real recurring pain point, repurchase is automatic. One doesn’t need a retention campaign.
• Protect your credibility asymmetrically: Say less, deliver more. One overclaimed efficacy stat can undo years of trust-building in this category. The long-term winners are the ones who were honest even when honesty was the less exciting story.

The post Intimate Care Economy’s Renaissance appeared first on Inc42 Media.