One Brand Can’t Carry a Culture

“Aren’t there other Ayurvedic beauty brands? What makes yours different?” This is for every founder who’s had to explain their right to belong

When I tell someone new that I’m building an Ayurvedic beauty brand, I almost always get the same questions: “Aren’t there other brands doing that? What makes yours different?”

The chip on my shoulder no longer aches in these moments, but the questions still sting. Not because I don’t have an answer, but because they carry an assumption that if something already exists, there’s no room for another voice. These questions reveal the reality around how most people think. In learning to protect my peace over the years, I’ve gotten into the habit of politely steering the conversation in a new direction.

But that’s not the kind of leader I’m here to become, and brushing off these questions doesn’t serve me or my broader mission. So, this is what I actually believe, and I want to share it now – not just for myself, but for every founder who’s had to explain their right to belong:

Yes, there are other Ayurvedic beauty brands, and that’s how you know we’re onto something real. Multiple brands don’t dilute the space, they validate it.

If we want Ayurveda to take its rightful place in the global beauty conversation – as not just a trend, but as a legitimate and enduring category – we need more brands. Just like Korean beauty didn’t become a widespread movement because of one brand, but because hundreds emerged, each offering a slightly different expression of a shared cultural wisdom. The same will be true for Ayurvedic beauty.

This is not a space that one person or one company could own. If I were the only one doing what I’m doing, that would be a problem:

1. It would flatten a deeply diverse tradition. Ayurveda isn’t a monolith. It’s a 5,000-year-old body of knowledge with regional, spiritual, and generational nuance. If one person or one brand were to own this space, it would reduce an entire living system to one interpretation. That’s not representation, it’s reduction.

2. It would imply there’s only room for one of us to succeed. This scarcity mindset keeps underrepresented founders small. Cultural identity shouldn’t be a one-slot race, but a field for expression, creativity, and innovation.

3. It would make Ayurvedic beauty less culturally rich. Monocultures are fragile. Diversity is strength. A thriving Ayurvedic beauty category needs multiple interpretations: urban, rural, regional, traditional, modern, luxurious, accessible. If only one voice speaks, we lose the texture, contradiction, and evolution that make Ayurveda a living practice versus a museum artifact.

4. It would replicate the same colonial dynamics we’re trying to undo. Historically, cultural knowledge has often been extracted, repackaged, and commercialized through a single Western-facing lens. If we try to centralize Ayurveda in one brand, even an Indian-led one, we repeat the dynamic of filtering a complex cultural system into something easily digestible for mainstream consumption. That’s not elevation, it’s assimilation.

5. It wouldn’t be scalable or sustainable. One brand can’t carry an entire category forward. It’s not logistically possible to meet all needs, all textures, all identities. Movements require ecosystems. If any brand were alone in this, the category would be dismissed as a niche or novelty.

No one asks if there are too many minimalist makeup brands, or if the market really needs another clean skincare line. No one questions whether those categories deserve choice, nuance, or multiple voices.

So why is that question still being asked of Ayurvedic brands? Why is our cultural wisdom expected to be flattened into a single narrative?

Ayurveda commands the same creative freedom and diversity of interpretation that other beauty categories enjoy. We deserve options, range, and multiplicity.

So, what makes AAVRANI different? It’s the same thing that makes every Ayurvedic brand different: the human behind it. My version is rooted in how I grew up, what I abandoned, and what I’ve come home to. The more of us who rise up and bring our version to life, the more complete and culturally rich this category becomes.

I know I’m not the only one who feels called to do this work. Here are brands that are also building in this space with integrity: Fable & Mane, Forest Essentials, Inde Wild, Kama Ayurveda, Mango People, Prakti, Ranavat, Sahajan, Shaz & Kiks, Soma Ayurvedic, Squigs, Uma Oils. There are more, please share any that I missed.

Competition this early in the life of an emerging category can’t be about zero-sum thinking. It has to be about raising the floor for all of us and building something that lasts. Together, we are creating a global movement that’s worthy of the cultural legacy we’ve inherited.