22 March,2026 09:19 AM IST | Mumbai | Tanisha Banerjee
Representational Image
In recent years, India's booming intimate-care industry has built a lucrative market around women's hygiene and grooming. Much of this growth, critics argue, is driven by male-led brands, where products and marketing are shaped less by lived experience and more by what sells. With such brands promises cleanliness and empowerment, the messaging often reflects a male gaze framing natural bodily features as flaws, and "hygiene" as something to be aesthetically corrected.
Misbah Quadri said that she was wounded by the packaging of an eyebrow razor
In Misbah Quadri's case, the promise of a simple grooming solution turned into a year-long ordeal. Quadri, founder of MQM News Network in Goa, says she bought an eyebrow razor from a well-known femtech brand, founded by a male entrepreneur, that markets a range of hygiene products targeted at women. "I was trying to open the razor using a towel because it was that tight. When the cap finally came off, the blade just popped out with a lot of force. It pierced through the towel and lodged deep into my forefinger," she recalls. The injury, which occurred in February last year, affected her ability to work.
"My entire livelihood is on my fingers. It is still very painful for me," she says. "No one pays attention to femtech brands." Doctors warned that deeper damage could have required surgery. What troubled her further were the claims printed on the product packaging. The razor advertised "anti-slip grips, no nicks or cuts, rust-free blades." "Two days later, the razor had already started to rust," Quadri alleges. "Their rust-free claims are absolutely false."
Tania Boler. PIC/ELVIE.COM
In 1999, Elvie founder Tania Boler helped pioneer connected pelvic-floor trainers, later turning them into one of the first mainstream smart Kegel devices
Quadri says she has since filed a complaint with the Advertising Standards Council of India and commissioned independent testing, which she claims suggested the product did not meet norms set by the Bureau of Indian Standards. The case is now part of a larger fight she says she is unwilling to drop. "I am waging a war against injustice by big brands who want to profit at our expense," she says. "Even for damage control, no one came and said they were sorry. In fact the founder blocked me when I addressed the issue to him directly on Instagram."
Among the creators who have been questioning such messaging is Aditi Raghuram, a medical student who runs a social media page focused on skincare and mental health. "The page started on a whim," she says. "I realised that because I come from a medical background, I could explain why products work the way they do. So I decided I would share my honest thoughts about products and brands."
Aditi Raghuram
That shift led her to publicly criticise a popular intimate-care brand whose marketing around body hair and pigmentation has recently drawn scrutiny online. "Initially, the brand seemed very progressive. It was created by men who pretended to give a sh't for women," she says bluntly. Her curiosity deepened after seeing products such as nipple depigmentation serums and intimate-area lightening creams.
Further digging, she claims, raised additional concerns. "Other creators reached out to me and told me that the brand in question had photoshopped their own products into the creator's already-existing campaigns. One of the founders of the brand had said that their product was FDA approved. When they were called out on it, they said it was a miscommunication and that it was approved by the Ayush Ministry, which also could be false."
Misbah Quadri
The larger issue is the narrative these products promote. "They create problems and insecurities that never existed before, and then launch products to fix them," Raghuram says. "Women are already judged for everything. This just adds another unrealistic standard of what the âperfect' or âhygienic' woman should look like."
Content creator Nainika, who speaks frequently about ethical beauty marketing online, says she has devel-oped strict rules about which brands she agrees to work with, particularly in the fast-growing intimate-care category. "I have a hard no rule for any products meant to lighten the skin anywhere, but especially the intimate area," she says. "Besides the obviously misogynistic undertones of these products, the skin there is particularly sensitive and should be left alone."
Nainika has a no rule for products that lighten the intimate area. PIC/ATUL KAMBLE
She is equally sceptical about products such as intimate washes that are often marketed as essential hygiene tools. "The external genital area can be cleaned with gentle soap and water, and the vagina itself is a self-cleaning organ that doesn't require external cleansers," she explains.
For Nainika, the easiest way to judge whether a product is genuinely useful is to ask a simple question: does it solve a real problem? "An antiperspirant addresses body odour, which is a common concern. But an intimate lightening serum tries to manufacture insecurity around something that is completely normal." She believes the structure of the beauty industry also shapes how such products are marketed.
Brands led by women, she says, often reflect lived experience and tend to address practical needs. In contrast, companies built around market data and venture capital can lean heavily into insecurities. "Profit-driven systems amplify whatever sells," she says. "And historically, insecurity about women's bodies sells extremely well."
Not all brands in the intimate-care space agree with the criticism. Some founders argue that the goal has been to address long-ignored hygiene challenges rather than create new insecurities. Deep Bajaj, founder of Sirona Hygiene, says the company deliberately chose to confront taboos around women's health directly through its products and messaging.
Deep Bajaj
"We started by calling out the problem loudly and unapologetically," Bajaj says. One of the brand's earliest products, a female urination device, carried the line "Ladies, Freedom to Stand & Pee." "Not because we wanted to shame anyone, but because naming the problem clearly was the first step to solving it," he explains.
Sirona's approach, he says, was also shaped by the limitations women had long worked around. "Women were using men's razors or even detergent to remove period stains. We didn't just create products; we replaced substitutes with solutions actually designed for women's bodies." Being male founders in a women-focused category meant the team had to listen closely, Bajaj adds. "The margin for error was low, so we had to try harder. We spoke to women constantly and tested products extensively before launching them."
Ida Tin. PIC/HELLOCLUE.COM
The term Femtech was only coined in 2016 by entrepreneur Ida Tin while describing the mission of her period-tracking app Clue
For him, the real responsibility of brands in the fast-growing femtech sector lies in drawing a line between innovation and exploitation. "Brands need to decide whether they build on women's confidence or profit from their insecurities," he says. "If we have to first convince a woman that something is wrong with her body, we simply won't build that product."
Navneet Kaur, founder of FemTech India, says, "Women founders may bring lived experience around menstruation, fertility or intimate health, but many male founders also enter the space after witnessing gaps in care for someone close to them."
What matters most, she argues, is whether brands design with women rather than simply for them. "The strongest companies combine lived experience, clinical expertise and responsible storytelling around women's health." Kaur also warns that some products risk exploiting insecurities. "The line between solving a real problem and manufacturing one is thinner than many brands admit," she says, pointing to intimate lightening products as a clear example.
An ad for a bottom-whitening cream, which after backlash, was recently taken down by the brand in question, without them addressing the issue
She also says it is non-negotiable for such brands to follow FDA and BSI regulations. "Historically, women's bodies have been under-studied, under-regulated, and under-protected in healthcare." Women drive nearly 80 per cent of consumer spending globally, yet receive just 2 per cent of venture capital funding. "It highlights one of the biggest mismatches in the innovation economy," Kaur says.
$731 million
Was raised by 57 male-led startups in total, while 105 female-led startups raised only $408 million in femtech
At a time when many intimate-care brands are being criticised for manufacturing insecurities, some women-led startups are trying to be the right change through design and intent. Shagun Maheshwari, founder of Papaya India, comes at the problem as both engineer and user. "I wanted a better product for myself," she says. "Pads are not going anywhere. They're still the most commonly used product. The rash and skin irritation issues with pads remain unsolved. So I wanted to make them better."
Instead of competing with plastic on absorption alone, she worked on using "blood's natural tendency to clot" to create a pad that is both effective and made from natural materials. "Even if it's sustainable, it should perform as well as any plastic pad does," she says, denouncing the idea that eco-friendly products must compromise on quality.
Early venture investors once dismissed period apps as "niche," yet today platforms like Flo serve over 200 million users globally
Her perspective as a woman designing for women, she believes, is critical. "A lot of lived experience gets lost when women aren't part of the design process." That thinking also shapes what the brand refuses to build. "I would absolutely never have whitening products for intimate areas," she says. "It's a harmful narrative that gets told to women." Even in testing, "Products need to be tested with real blood," she adds. "Water and blood behave very differently." Papaya India started selling their pads in January this year.
