VMPL
Bengaluru (Karnataka) [India], November 6: FirstClub, India's quality-first consumer app, is expanding into Beauty & Personal Care after almost a year and a half of building a grocery business focused on bridging the trust gap in everyday consumption. Having banned over 200 ingredients across packaged foods, including artificial colours, preservatives and palm oil, the platform is now extending its ingredient-led approach to the beauty and personal care category. Introduced under “Filtered for Good”, the new assortment extends the company’s product-selection philosophy beyond grocery into a category where ingredient lists, product claims and performance can be difficult for shoppers to assess. Having started with quality grocery, the platform has since added quality pet care and home & kitchen, and now brings the same quality philosophy to beauty. The move follows a consumer poll FirstClub ran, asking what the platform should fix next, in which beauty and personal care emerged as the most-voted category.
Over the last year, FirstClub has developed its Beauty & Personal Care ingredient-first framework covering shampoos, face and body cleansers, face moisturisers and sunscreens. The framework for selecting and vetting Beauty & Personal Care products follows a four-step process:
1) Global research and benchmarking: Ingredients are assessed using the Environmental Working Group (EWG) and its Skin Deep database to identify ingredients of concern. They are then evaluated against global regulatory and industry standards, including EU Regulation EC 1223/2009, opinions from the Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety (SCCS), Indian regulations and international retailer standards.
2) Science-backed ingredient evaluation: FirstClub developed a proprietary, research-led framework to determine which ingredients to exclude and establish category-specific standards.
3) Category-specific testing and standards: Going beyond ingredient exclusions, FirstClub applies additional checks based on product type. These include pH testing for every cleanser, including face washes, soaps and body washes; in-vivo testing for sunscreens; and a no-mineral-oil policy for hair oils.
4) Customer rating threshold: Only products rated 4 stars and above by real customers qualify for listing on the FirstClub app. For instance, of the 500 moisturiser brands in India, FirstClub has shortlisted only those loved and rated by real customers.
Through this process, FirstClub has banned 100+ ingredients from its Beauty & Personal Care selection, including known carcinogens, hormone disruptors, skin sensitisers, allergens, toxic metals and environmental pollutants. Examples include DMDM Hydantoin, Resorcinol, PPD, MI/MIT and Butylparaben, among others. While awareness of food ingredients has grown significantly among Indian consumers, the science behind beauty and personal care ingredients remains far less understood. Ingredient labels carry names such as Methylisothiazolinone that most shoppers can barely pronounce, let alone assess, and FirstClub believes deciphering them should not be the consumer’s job. FirstClub aims to change that by simplifying ingredient science for consumers and helping them understand how what they apply affects their skin, hair and overall health.
The filtering process, however, does not mean compromising on choice. FirstClub offers a curated selection spanning K-beauty, emerging brands, hidden gems and established favourites, giving consumers access to a diverse range of products without the overwhelm of deciding what to trust. With the selection work already done, consumers can focus on what matters most: finding products that work for them. Curation also does not come at a premium, with FirstClub offering the range at the best prices for its customers.
Commenting on the expansion, Ayyappan R, Founder and CEO, FirstClub, said, “While the industry focuses on offering more choices, we believe in offering better ones. At FirstClub, curation and quality have always come before catalogue size. As we expand into Beauty & Personal Care, we are bringing the same philosophy to the category, making better lifestyle choices more accessible through products that meet our standards for ingredients, safety, and quality. It’s not your job to figure out what goes into your products; it’s our job at FirstClub. We truly believe you deserve only the best quality in everything.”
At launch, FirstClub’s Beauty & Personal Care range brings together 80+ brands across skincare, haircare, body care and personal care, priced from ₹300 to ₹3,500. The selection includes brands launching exclusively on FirstClub, such as Chosen by Dermatology, Flout and LNGVTY, alongside differentiated labels like The Bare Bar, &Done, Sereko and Manetain.
FirstClub has also redefined how beauty products are presented and discovered. Its Beauty & Personal Care product pages are the first of their kind, with 100% ingredient disclosure that breaks down the chemistry into plain language, explaining what each ingredient does, not just its chemical name. Every product page highlights the product’s hero ingredients, the concerns it addresses, and the skin types it suits, along with a summary of what customers are saying. Shoppers no longer need to look elsewhere to understand whether a product is right for them; everything they need to decide is on the page. For example, a shopper looking for a moisturiser can see at a glance that a product is suited to dry skin, features vitamin B5 as a hero ingredient and has great customer reviews.
The experience extends beyond the product page. FirstClub is the only quick commerce platform that will be offering a Samples Selector, letting customers try products before committing to full sizes. Its “Complete the Regime” feature helps shoppers build a full routine by recommending products that work together.
With this launch, FirstClub continues to expand beyond groceries into more areas of everyday consumption, bringing the same transparency and quality-first philosophy that customers trust in its food aisle to their skincare shelf. With FirstClub Beauty, the company aims to be India’s only quality-first beauty destination.
The launch is supported by a brand film featuring Ayyappan R alongside FirstClub’s Rahul [Head - Categories] and Shriya [Category Marketing]. In it, a shopper winding down for the night, stops short at an ingredient on the back of her moisturiser she cannot pronounce : Methylisothiazolinone. The film then shows how FirstClub benchmarks every ingredient against Indian and global safety standards, verifies test results such as pH testing in cleansers and in-vivo testing in sunscreens, and shortlists only customer-rated products, ending with a welcome to FirstClub Beauty.
Link - https://youtu.be/VIOBGaPb3go
About FirstClub
Founded by Ayyappan R, a seasoned leader with extensive experience as Senior VP at Flipkart, CEO of Cleartrip, and CBO at Myntra, FirstClub Technology Pvt. Ltd. is a quality-first platform committed to redefining everyday consumption by curating products that meet stringent standards of purity, safety, and transparency. With a clear focus on eliminating harmful ingredients and prioritizing consumer well-being, FirstClub is building a trusted ecosystem for better living. FirstClub has previously raised $31M across two rounds led by Accel, with participation from RTP Global, Blume Founders Fund, Quiet Capital, 2am VC and prominent angel investors including Binny Bansal (Flipkart), Kunal Shah (CRED), Mukesh Bansal (Myntra, Cult), Lalit Keshre (Groww), Ankit Nagori (Eatfit), and Shrenik Ghodawat (Sanjay Ghodawat Group).
About Ayyappan
Ayyappan has over 17 years of experience building and scaling consumer businesses across India's retail and e-commerce sectors. After beginning his career at ITC, he joined Flipkart, where he rose to Senior Vice President and helped scale key categories. He subsequently served as Chief Business Officer at Myntra and CEO of Cleartrip, building consumer businesses across e-commerce, fashion and travel.
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