Sunscreen war: Ghazal Alagh takes a dig at Hindustan Unilever’s Lakmé over alleged copying, sparks debate on innovation

Ghazal Alagh, co-founder of Honasa Consumer Ltd., recently made headlines by criticising Hindustan Unilever’s (HUL) legacy brand Lakmé for alleged plagiarism. In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Alagh remarked, “Oops, someone was caught copying”, alongside comparative photos of Honasa’s and HUL’s products, including Lakmé and Sunsilk. She further commented, “And when that didn’t work, we caught them backbiting.” This public exchange follows a history of competitive interactions between the two beauty industry giants. 

The conflict took a more specific form when Honasa Consumer strategically placed a hoarding next to a Lakmé advertisement, pointing out the recent in-vivo testing of Lakmé’s SPF 50 sunscreen. The billboard read, “Hey Lakmé, congratulations on finally getting SPF 50 in-vivo tested. Welcome to The Derma Co. standard.” This was in direct response to Lakmé’s ad campaign that allegedly undermined the efficacy claims of digital-first sunscreen brands, a category where Honasa’s The Derma Co. brand is prominent. 

The Lakmé ad campaign stated: “Hey Lakmé, congratulations on finally getting SPF 50 in-vivo tested. Welcome to The Derma Co. standard.”

In her X post, Alagh said: “Good competition is always great for any market. It keeps brands from becoming sleepy & brings more innovation for the consumers. Indian FMCG has lacked good competition for a long time, leading to large traditional brands becoming complacent. We take pride in the fact that we have been challenging these norms and waking up these brands time and again. We did it with  @mamaearthindia in making brands move towards clean label ingredients and now again with The Derma Co., which is showing the way around honest active disclosures & claims based on science. This has led to immense love from consumers, which is an envy of many competitors. Happy to see traditional brands following again and even blatantly copying products from name to packaging. We will keep innovating and showing the way.”

In her statement, she said: “We Honasa Consumer Ltd. put a lot of love, effort and hard work in bringing true innovation to our consumers… Humble request to respect innovation and not plagiarise it.”