In November last, Honasa Consumer picked up a 25 per cent stake in Couch Commerce Pvt Ltd, the company that owns Fang Oral Care. This was an unlikely acquisition by a company more focused on beauty and skincare, but in line with the shifts taking place in the country’s highly penetrated oral care segment.

Beyond just hygiene, Indian consumers are increasingly seeking solutions for teeth sensitivity, whitening and gum care, among other needs. New-age as well as established brands are sinking their teeth into this new opportunity, launching products swiftly to ride this premiumisation wave. From teeth whitening serums to strips, affluent Indian consumers are lapping it all up for a radiant smile.

Smile wider

Announcing the investment in Fang on an investor call, Varun Alagh, Co-Founder and CEO, Honasa Consumer, pointed out that Indian consumers are increasingly associating oral care with overall wellness and confidence, which is driving the demand for whitening and cosmetic oral-care products. He pointed out that oral care, which has been perceived as “functional hygiene” for the past 50 years, is now seen as “targeted wellness”. Consumers are looking for natural formulations that address sensitivity and bleeding gums.

Honasa’s big bet is that, over the next decade, oral care will transition to the aesthetic expression stage, where the focus on teeth-whitening and ‘smile enhancement’ will overlap with beauty and self-expression.

“We believe that over the next couple of years, one of the strong partitions which will get created in the oral care category is aesthetics and aesthetic expression, where your smile will be a core part of your beauty and how you take care of your smile through oral care. And it will be a play that can happen in beauty and personal care,” he added.

Last year, Salt Oral Care, a rising D2C brand, secured $1 million investment from Lotus Holdings (Lotus Herbals family office) in a pre-Series A round. The brand, co-founded by Karan Raj Kohli and Viraj Kapur in 2023, said it would use the funding for new product innovation, research and development, branding and marketing initiatives, team expansion, and achieving economies of scale.

While D2C brands are building their portfolio around the shifting oral-care needs, established players are armed to the teeth too. Market leader Colgate-Palmolive (India) is brushing up its beauty proposition. Colgate Visible White Purple Serum was launched “to make oral care meet beauty”. Other premium propositions include Colgate Visible White Purple Toothpaste and the MaxFresh Sensorial range.

In India, oral care, which includes toothpaste and tooth powder, is a universally penetrated product. “Toothpaste is the clear winner, bought by all households, while the alternative formats are losing steadily. Toothpaste volume has a CAGR of 2.4 per cent in the last four years,” explained K Ramakrishnan, MD-South Asia, Worldpanel by Numerator (formerly known as Kantar).

Going premium

“The premium segment is the fastest growing in the category, with a CAGR of 14.4 per cent over the last four years. In addition to that, premium brands have grown over 10 per cent in each of the past four years... (yet) they are only 6 per cent of the toothpaste category; so premiumisation is a limited trend in the category,” Ramakrishnan added.

Alagh, too, pointed out that skincare, hair care or even fragrances have had a significant amount of premiumisation in the last few years, but not so much oral care.

This means that the potential for premiumsation is massive. Various challenger brands are wooing urban and niche consumers with higher priced, differentiated propositions, especially in online channels. For companies like Honasa, the premium oral care segment will be a $700-million opportunity by 2030. Currently, the share of the premium segment to overall oral-care is about 21 per cent but is expected to reach 30 per cent by 2030, as per some estimates.

Anurita Chopra, Chief Marketing Officer, Haleon India, which owns brands like Sensodyne, said that India is undergoing a “powerful shift” in everyday health behaviour, driven by rising awareness, evolving lifestyles and a growing focus on preventive care.

“Sensodyne (an oral care brand for sensitivity relief) was launched in 2011 in India, which has grown to become our second-largest market globally. We’re driving growth through condition awareness, shopper engagement, science-led innovation and expert advocacy,” she explains.

Since more than 40 per cent of the toothpaste volumes sold in India is priced ₹20 or below, the company launched Sensodyne in a ₹20 pack to widen its market reach. In November, it launched Pronamel, an enamel care and protection brand, to expand its premium oral-care portfolio.

“Premium propositions account for a growing share of our oral care sales in India, driven by sensitivity relief, enamel protection and early gum health management,” Chopra said.

The government’s move to cut GST on toothpaste from 18 per cent to 5 per cent is expected to fuel the growth of premiumisation in the country. “GST reduction would help improve affordability for consumers, support premiumisation and drive broader oral health penetration. At the same time, rationalisation of inverted duty structures will be important to ensure long-term category viability,” Chopra said.

Meanwhile, Dabur India is leveraging the growing demand for herbal oral-care solutions. The FMCG major recently said brands such as Dabur Red Toothpaste and Meswak witnessed healthy volume-led growth in the December quarter. In an investor call last October, Mohit Malhotra, CEO, Dabur India, pointed out that the herbal segment had been outpacing the non-herbal segment in growth, underscoring the sustained shift towards natural oral care.

“Herbal category has grown at around 5x of the non-herbal category. So, there is a definite tailwind towards herbal and natural, and this is happening because of the swadeshi movement of homegrown and indigenous brands,” he said.

The company, which is banking on premiumisation to take it to the next phase of growth, said it is looking at introducing more value-added products in the oral care segment.

Toothpaste manufacturers clearly have cause to smile more!

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Published on January 12, 2026