Elle 18 Brand Audit: HUL’s Budget Makeup, Priced per Gram

Elle 18 sells ₹119 kajal and ₹100 lipstick to first-time makeup buyers, and some buyers assume a link to the French magazine of the same name. The brand was built inside Hindustan Lever in 1998 as the deliberately cheaper rung under Lakmé, and no licence from Elle magazine appears on any record we read. This audit prices the range by the gram and sets out what each listing claims.

Snapshot

Launched

1998, by Hindustan Lever’s Lakmé operation, as a budget line for first-time buyers

Current owner

Hindustan Unilever Limited, from birth; ultimate parent Unilever PLC

Elle magazine link

No licence or common ownership found on the records read

Core line, selling price

₹55 to ₹150 across kajal, lipstick and nail colour, checked 2 September 2026

Hero product, per gram

Eye Drama Kajal: ₹119 for 0.35 g, which is ₹340 a gram

Brand revenue

Not disclosed by HUL, and no attributable estimate exists in the press

How it started

There is no founding myth to audit. Elle 18 was created in 1998 by Hindustan Lever’s Lakmé operation as a line extension for teenagers — two ranges at launch, lipsticks and nail enamel, priced for a first purchase. The trade press of the time is blunt about the design: a Lakmé lipstick cost ₹165 while Elle 18 was priced at ₹55, “deliberately creating price differentiation” so a new segment of consumers could start cheap and grow into Lakmé.

Unlike Bata, whose Indian shelves belong to a listed Indian company distinct from the global brand, Elle 18 has never had a second identity to untangle. Lakmé was born a Tata company in 1952 and became Unilever’s in 1998; Elle 18 arrived that same year already inside the Hindustan Lever machine, and has no Tata chapter at all. The first three years brought sharp growth, then drift — by 2006 the company itself described the brand as in “maintenance mode” and due a rethink.

The name is the other half of the origin story. The ELLE magazine trademarks belong to Hachette Filipacchi Presse, the French publisher, and nothing we read connects them to this brand. The two names did meet once, in a foreign registry, and the register records how that ended.

After the opposition, Hindustan Lever filed no counter statement and the Canadian application was abandoned; in India, the courts have repeatedly enforced HUL’s rights in the Elle 18 name and artwork, as the reputation section shows.

What they actually make

The range covers kajal, eyeliner, lipstick, nail polish, compact and foundation. The current heroes are the Color Pops lipsticks (4.3 g), the Eye Drama Kajal (0.35 g), Nail Pops polishes (5 ml) and a Matte Liquid Lip Color (5.6 ml); Tira’s brand page carried 49 items on 2 September 2026. Elle 18 runs no web store of its own — elle18.in publishes looks and tips, not prices — so the brand’s claims live on HUL’s page and on retailer listings.

On who makes it, the one full declaration we read, on the Matte Liquid Lip Color, names the manufacturer as Ancorotti Cosmetics India Pvt Ltd of Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, licence HIM/COS/15/211 — with Hindustan Unilever printed only as marketer. Ancorotti Cosmetics India, incorporated 5 June 2013 in Delhi, shares its name and directors with the Italian contract-manufacturing group Ancorotti Cosmetics. So on that listing, HUL markets a ₹128 liquid lipstick made by a contract manufacturer, the marketer-versus-manufacturer split our Campus audit shows answered the opposite way — Campus makes its own shoes and prints it plainly.

The claims on the listings are mild by makeup standards. The Eye Drama Kajal’s Nykaa title says “20Hrs Long Stay, Smudgeproof, Waterproof”, and its Purplle listing adds “dermatologically tested”; neither page cites a test method. Sibling Lakmé’s Eyeconic kajal claims 24 hours on the brand site and 22 on other channels, and describes itself as “ophthalmologically tested”.

Elle 18’s lipstick works out to ₹23–29 a gram; its kajal, in a 0.35-gram pack, to ₹340.

What we did not find matters too: no SPF claims, no percentage-actives claims, no cruelty-free badge, no shade-count bragging on any Elle 18 page we read. HUL’s own brand page says “all the products are made with utmost safety and care” and calls the brand “one of the market leaders in the mass segment”, without a market-share figure.

What Elle 18 costs in India

Everything in the core line sells below ₹150; only kits cross it. The MRP-versus-selling gap our Metro audit documents in footwear barely exists here — Elle 18’s online discounts run about 5 to 10%, because there is little room under a ₹125 ticket. The launch-era ₹55 lipstick is now a ₹100–125 lipstick, still roughly where the 1998 design put it.

Nykaa, Tira, BigBasket and Blinkit listings, 2 September 2026. Kajal and lipstick prices vary by shade and channel, so ranges are printed as ranges.

The per-gram column is where the range differs most. The kajal comes in the same 0.35-gram twist-up format Lakmé uses for its Eyeconic, at a lower sticker price but twelve times the brand’s own lipstick per gram.

Eye Drama Kajal, 0.35 g

₹119, which is ₹340 a gram

Color Pop lipstick, 4.3 g

₹118, which is ₹27 a gram

Gap

The kajal costs 12x the lipstick per gram

Checked on

2 September 2026

Even so, Elle 18’s kajal is the cheaper of the two. At ₹340–357 a gram it runs at roughly half of Lakmé Eyeconic’s ₹546–643 a gram — one owner, two kajals in the same tiny pack, and a twofold per-gram spread between the counters.

Who Elle 18 is actually for

Elle 18 is for the first-time buyer with under ₹150 to spend, and on that brief it delivers: a ₹100 lipstick at ₹23 a gram and a ₹61 nail polish are working budget makeup, sold in every kirana and chemist. HUL’s name appears on the pack as marketer, and trading up to the brand’s siblings keeps the purchase within the same company.

Elle 18 has no cruelty-free listing. PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies directory has no Elle 18 entry, and Unilever’s own animal-testing page names its 16 PETA-approved brands — Lakmé is on that list, Elle 18 is not. No Elle 18 page we read makes a cruelty-free claim.

Reputation and controversies

The Advertising Standards Council of India’s database of complaint outcomes carries no entry for Elle 18 as at 2 September 2026, and its annual complaints report for 2024–25 names neither the brand nor HUL. No regulatory action, product recall or consumer commission order stands against the brand either.

The court record exists, and it runs in the brand’s favour — HUL enforcing against counterfeiters. On 28 February 2026, the Delhi High Court decided a counterfeiting suit over police raids from 2002–03 that had seized fake Lakmé, Elle 18 and Pond’s products alongside counterfeit Fair & Lovely and shampoos: a permanent injunction, damages of ₹2.5 lakh joint and several, with 9% interest if unpaid in four weeks, and actual costs. A 24-year arc from raid to decree. Earlier, on 2 July 2021, the Bombay High Court recorded a consent decree over the “Elle 18 face” artwork on nail polish packaging: a permanent injunction, with the defendant acknowledging HUL’s rights and undertaking not to use or register the artwork.

The reading for a buyer is simple: counterfeit Elle 18 appears in the Indian court record from the 2002–03 seizures onward, alongside counterfeit Lakmé. Even a brand priced this low is worth faking, which is a reason to buy it where the chain is known.

Buying it in India

Elle 18 is everywhere Lakmé is — chemists, kiranas, Nykaa, Purplle, Tira, BigBasket and the quick-commerce apps. The skill is reading what you pick up.

Common questions

How we research and verify brand audits: our methodology.

References

1. exchange4media, 27 September 2006 — the 1998 launch, ₹55 versus ₹165 pricing, the deliberate price differentiation, early growth and 2006 “maintenance mode”
2. HUL, Elle 18 brand page, accessed 2 September 2026 — current ownership, product list, “utmost safety and care” and “market leaders” claims
3. US trademark register via Justia, accessed 2 September 2026 — ELLE magazine marks registered to Hachette Filipacchi Presse
4. Canadian Trademarks Database, registration file 0881287, accessed 2 September 2026 — Hindustan Lever’s 15 June 1998 filing, the 5 November 1999 opposition and the 22 January 2001 abandonment
5. Tira, Elle 18 brand page, 2 September 2026 — 49 items listed; Color Pop, Nail Pops and Gel Finish MRPs and selling prices
6. Blinkit, Matte Liquid Lip Color listing, 2 September 2026 — the manufacturer declaration naming Ancorotti Cosmetics India, Baddi, and HUL as marketer; liquid lip prices
7. ZaubaCorp, Ancorotti Cosmetics India Pvt Ltd, accessed 2 September 2026 — incorporation 5 June 2013 and directors
8. Nykaa, Eye Drama Kajal listing, 2 September 2026 — MRP ₹125, selling ₹119, and the “20Hrs Long Stay, Smudgeproof, Waterproof” title
9. Purplle, Eye Drama Kajal listing, 2 September 2026 — the “dermatologically tested” and “smudge proof, water proof” descriptions
10. BigBasket, Elle 18 brand page, 2 September 2026 — listed prices for Color Pops, Eye Drama shades and Nail Pops
11. BigBasket, 3 ml kajal pencil listing, 2 September 2026 — the ₹85 listed price
12. elle18.in, accessed 2 September 2026 — the brand’s content site, which runs no store and lists no prices
13. PETA, Beauty Without Bunnies directory search, 2 September 2026 — no Elle 18 entry
14. Unilever, alternatives to animal testing, accessed 2 September 2026 — the 16 PETA-approved Unilever brands, with Lakmé listed and Elle 18 absent
15. Advertising Standards Council of India, complaint outcomes database, checked 2 September 2026 — no entry for Elle 18; the 2024–25 annual complaints report names neither the brand nor HUL
16. Delhi High Court, counterfeiting suit brought by Hindustan Lever, decided 28 February 2026 — permanent injunction and ₹2.5 lakh damages over 2002–03 counterfeit seizures including Elle 18 products
17. Bombay High Court, HUL trade dress suit, consent decree 2 July 2021 — permanent injunction over the “Elle 18 face” artwork on nail polish packaging
18. HUL, FY26 results, 30 April 2026 — no Elle 18 revenue disclosed; Beauty and Wellbeing segment figures