Hemang Jain
Began with a body wash he couldn't buy. Six years later, a million ritualists agree with him.
I didn't set out to build a body-care house. I set out to fix one product — and never stopped. Six years and a hundred and twenty formulations later, the question we ask first is still the one we asked then.
Six years. Fully audited.
A scent, and a frustration.
Indian luxury fragrance had been treated as an import problem for thirty years. Either you paid ₹14,000 for a Tom Ford and resented the spend, or you bought a domestic body mist that smelled the same after twenty minutes whatever the bottle said. The middle didn't exist. I wasn't selling a perfume. I was closing a gap that should never have been there.
I went to Grasse with one question — can three perfumers compose, for the price of a domestic mist, a fragrance that lasts twelve hours on Indian skin in Mumbai humidity. The answer took six months and twenty-three formulations. The first scent — Japanese Cherry Blossom — went live on 14 February 2019 inside a body wash, because that was the only format we'd finished. By month three it had crossed 800 orders.
Six years on, that one scent is still our bestseller. Everything since — the lotions, the mists, the Oudh, the Reserve — came from one rule: the scent decides everything. If the fragrance doesn't last till evening, the formula doesn't ship.
Seven years, in chapters.
The decisions, the launches, the years that built The Love Co.
Before TLC
Eight years across consumer goods and consulting — including time at one of India's largest FMCG houses and a stint advising D2C founders in Mumbai.
Founded in Mumbai
14 February 2019: Japanese Cherry Blossom Body Wash ships from a one-room Andheri lab. Month-3 milestone: 800 orders.
The lockdown pivot
Shipped 40,000 ritual sets into home bathrooms when salons closed. Discovered the at-home ritualist who became TLC's core customer.
The scent worlds
Reframed the catalogue around three scent worlds — floral, woody, fresh — each with a full ritual (wash, lotion, mist).
Oudh Black Rose launches
Second top-10 launch. Proved India was ready for serious luxury body fragrance at a domestic price point.
The Ambala factory
Moved manufacturing in-house. 40,000 sq-ft GMP-certified facility, dermatologist-tested every batch, full supply-chain control.
1 million ritualists
Crossed 1,000,000 customers. 60+ SKUs live. First international shipment to Singapore.
Travel Edition
12 city-named body washes. Took the brand into duty-free conversations for the first time.
Bombay Wedding N° 01
The Inaugural Reserve. Edition of 1,000. Designed to be carried for ten years, remembered for one evening.
Six things I've come to know.
The non-negotiables that decide every formulation, every launch, every shipment.
Scent is the first decision
Most brands pick fragrance last, almost as a top-coat. We start there. The scent dictates the texture, which dictates the actives. A wash that doesn't smell beautiful is a wash we won't make.
Built for Indian skin
Humidity, hard water, sweat, sun. Indian skin lives in conditions most global brands never test for. Every formula is weighted for the Indian climate and the Indian body.
Patience over velocity
We launch four new products a year, not forty. Each takes eight to fourteen months from brief to shelf. I'd rather miss a season than ship something that wasn't ready.
A ritual over a routine
Routines are mechanical. Rituals are felt. Every product is designed to layer, so the trail builds across the day and stays into the night.
The customer knows
Every quarter, I personally spend two days on customer care. The market is talking — you only have to listen at the right pace.
Build to be inherited
We are not a brand built to be sold. We're a house built to be inherited. That changes every decision: the team's equity, the pace of growth, the kind of partners we take.
What I actually do.
Most of the work is small, slow, and not glamorous. Below is roughly how a Tuesday goes.
- 6:30 amWalk. Coffee. Read the customer-care queue from the night before — every single message.
- 9:00 amLab review with the chemistry team in Ambala over video — open trials, fragrance tweaks, packaging samples.
- 12:30 pmThree 30-minute 1:1s with team leads. No agenda — just space to surface what's hard.
- 3:00 pmWriting — either an essay for the Journal or a long memo to the team. Two hours, no meetings.
- 7:00 pmLast hour: read one chapter of something old. Currently re-reading Yves Saint Laurent's letters.
Films, essays, letters.
Most of what I think publicly, I write. Here are some of the longer pieces.
FilmWhy I started The Love Co.
A 2-minute film shot in Paris. The honest version of the origin story.
EssayWhat we owe Indian skin
On why India's body care has been treated as an afterthought — and what changes when you treat it as the main event.
EssayThe scent goes first
A long letter on why fragrance is the first decision, not the last — and how that changes every other decision downstream.
TalkPatience as a moat
Keynote at ISB on why slow-and-considered beats fast-and-funded in beauty and luxury — eventually.
"We are not built to be sold."
The cover-feature interview. On the next decade of Indian luxury.
LetterTo the 1 millionth ritualist
The annual founder letter, written the day we crossed the million-customer mark.
In the press
On the work, on the work-style.
"Hemang is unusually slow. In the best way. He'll spend an hour debating a colour swatch and walk away with the right answer."
"The work is the most considered I've seen in Indian beauty. He's not chasing a trend; he's writing the new one."
"He runs the customer-care queue himself. After two years of working with him I still don't know any other CEO who does that."
Explore what we've built.
The whole catalogue, the journal, the team — every chapter is open.