On 5 November 2026 we opened Meta’s public Ad Library and pulled 100 ads that were live in India from nine skincare and haircare brands: Minimalist, Plum, The Derma Co, Dot & Key, Foxtale, Deconstruct, Pilgrim, Mamaearth and Bare Anatomy. Then we read every one.
Indian skincare sells by the number
“10% Niacinamide.” “2% Sali-Cinamide.” “86% pure Vitamin C.” More than one in five ads leads with a percentage. Shoppers have been trained to buy the active, not the brand. That’s great for transparency. It’s less great when a bigger number gets read as a better product. (It often isn’t. See: niacinamide.)
Creators carry the video
28 of the 100 ads ran from a creator’s handle (“X with Brand”), and every one of them was a video. Foxtale leaned hardest: 9 of its 12 ads were creator-led. Dot & Key ran none in our sample. The format is native to the feed: a face, a problem, a product, and very often “comment LINK for the product”.
Freebies everywhere
28% of ads mention a deal, usually in the body text, not the hook. Buy two, get a bottle. Buy one, get one. Free combo with a code. It works. But a discount doesn’t tell anyone why your sunscreen is different, and the next brand can always discount harder.
What lasts
An ad that keeps running is usually an ad that keeps paying. The longest-running ad in our set, a Dot & Key CICA cleanser and moisturiser video, had been live for 644 days. Minimalist was running one creative (“Your skin doesn’t just need actives — it needs H₂O too.”) across nine separate ads, a classic sign of a winner being scaled.
The hooks that stop the scroll
- “Dry, Dehydrated skin? We don’t know her.” (Dot & Key)
- “If your phone screen looks like a grease test after every call, your moisturizer just failed.” (Deconstruct, via a creator)
- “Hair fall se pareshan?” (The Derma Co, via a creator)
Problem first. Conversational. Often Hinglish, and increasingly regional: we found Tamil and Odia creator ads too.