Half of Gen Z beauty buyers now live outside metros
Myntra report: half of Gen Z beauty buyers are in Tier 2 and 3 cities, with K-beauty up 200% and minis driving premium trial.
The next wave of India’s beauty growth isn’t coming from Mumbai or Delhi. A new Myntra report, Beauty in the Age of Gen Z, shows that half of Gen Z beauty buyers on the platform live in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. Their per-customer beauty spend has risen 1.2x year-on-year, and beauty takes a 75% bigger share of their wallet than it does for millennials.
What the report found
Smaller cities are not just buying lip balm. Baskets increasingly include serums, toners, sunscreens and hair masks. Myntra names Ludhiana, Patna, Bhopal, Indore, Guwahati, Surat, Varanasi and Imphal among the growth contributors.
- K-Beauty demand up 200% year-on-year; searches up more than 300%.
- SPF purchases up 60%; spray, ingredient-led and tinted sunscreen searches up 80%, 70% and 60% respectively.
- Hair mask purchases up 110%; men’s skincare orders up 78%.
- Repeat Gen Z orders up around 70%; beauty now about one in five units on Myntra.
Minis are the new front door
Minis account for 14% of luxe beauty units sold on Myntra. More than half of new customers for M.A.C, Kayali, Smashbox and Salvatore Ferragamo arrive through these smaller formats, with lipstick, perfume and face primer leading. That’s a textbook trial-to-repeat loop: lower cash outlay, lower perceived risk, same brand experience.
Sharon Pais, head of Myntra, said “For Gen Z, beauty is self-expression.” The report adds a behavioural layer: these shoppers find products through creators, test premium and international brands through minis, and choose on ingredients and efficacy rather than only status.
Myntra has around 82,000 active beauty creators, and user-generated beauty content has grown 40% year-on-year. Nearly two-thirds of new beauty creator registrations in the past four months are Gen Z.
What brands should do
The takeaway isn’t just to advertise in smaller cities. It’s to meet a consumer who is ingredient-literate, creator-influenced and value-conscious about discovery. Searches for Centella asiatica, copper peptides, azelaic acid and panthenol are rising, as is demand for gel-based, fragrance-free and non-sticky textures.
For brand managers, the play is to build a trial ladder before expecting full-size loyalty. Small formats lower the barrier; ingredient content builds trust; creator demos close the gap between curiosity and checkout. Then repeat purchase behaviour, up around 70% among Gen Z, becomes the compounding loop.
Source: Afaqs!
