Insight Cosmetics Brand Audit: Reliance-Owned, Made in Vasai

At the kirana counter, Insight Cosmetics is the ₹130 lipstick sitting between the sachets and the soap — a Mumbai budget brand built by a family business. Since 30 August 2022, Reliance Retail Ventures has held 51% of the company behind it.

The company behind the brand is Mayuri Kumkum Limited, named after the sindoor the Jain family launched in 1994. Its audited accounts appear every year on ril.com, and most of the numbers in this audit come from them.

Snapshot

Brand founded

2012 by the company’s own telling; 2001 in press accounts; the family’s first unit dates to the late 1970s

Legal entity

Mayuri Kumkum Limited, unlisted public company, incorporated 14 October 2021, CIN U24290MH2021PLC369428

Ownership

Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd 51% since 30 August 2022; founder Dinesh Jain 48.66%

Revenue

₹252.0 crore in FY26, profit ₹34.1 crore — audited statements published on ril.com

Price band

₹130 to ₹475 across everything we read, checked 2 September 2026

Made in

The company’s own plant at Waliv, Vasai (East), Maharashtra — on all seven declarations we read

Cruelty-free

Listed in PETA’s own directory, with the vegan flag

How it started

The company’s history goes back further than its About page describes. Bastimal Jain, a doctor by training, set up a small cosmetics unit in Borivali, Mumbai in the late 1970s with a chemist friend. His son Dinesh joined in the late 1980s, while still in college. In 1994 the family launched Mayuri Kumkum, a sindoor in eleven shades that reached production of 10,000 units a day.

Products were later sold under the VOV International label, and Insight Cosmetics arrived as a separate brand in 2012 — the year the company’s own About page gives. Press accounts of the Reliance deal say 2001 instead. We print both, because neither side has published anything that settles it. VOV was retired in April 2021.

The company’s name keeps the 1994 sindoor, and the register records Reliance Retail Ventures as majority owner since 30 August 2022.

The ownership is not deduced from press clippings. Reliance Industries publishes Mayuri Kumkum Limited’s full audited financial statements on ril.com, and those statements state that Reliance Retail Ventures holds 51.00% and that the company became its subsidiary with effect from 30 August 2022. The related-party note styles Reliance Industries the “Ultimate Holding Company”. Mint’s deal reporting, citing unnamed sources, put the price at $10–15 million; the register carries the stake, not the price. There is a lesson here familiar from footwear, where the shop-front name and the company in the register tell different stories — Bata the global brand and Bata India the listed company are likewise two different things.

What they actually make

Nearly everything, themselves — which makes Insight an exception in Indian colour cosmetics, where most brands are marketers buying from shared factories. Every product declaration we read on the brand’s site, seven of seven, names Mayuri Kumkum Ltd’s own plant at Waliv, Vasai (East) as the manufacturer, with country of origin India on each. The Gloss Up Vinyl Lip Color declaration goes further and prints the Maharashtra manufacturing licence itself: M.L.No. MH/103671. Even the beauty-blender sponge, a category almost always imported, declares the Vasai plant and India. Owning the factory is rare enough that in footwear it is the headline fact of the Campus audit; in budget makeup it is rarer still.

The range covers lips, eyes, face and tools: a 2021 profile counted around 350 SKUs across three Maharashtra plants — Boisar, Waliv and Vasai — with an in-house packaging unit the founder credited for holding prices down. The About page now claims more than 1,000 SKUs. The scale shows up in the audited accounts.

Audited financial statements published by Reliance Industries on ril.com, read 2 September 2026.

One detail worth noting from the same accounts: sales to Reliance Retail were just ₹3.74 crore in FY26 — about 1.5% of revenue. The business still overwhelmingly runs through the general trade, not through the parent’s own shelves.

What Insight Cosmetics costs in India

The brand’s own site sells at MRP, and every price below was checked on 2 September 2026. Purplle lists 165 Insight products and discounts them a shallow 5–15% — there is little margin to give away. That is unusual at the budget end; in footwear, our Sparx audit tracks a much wider gap between MRP and street price. Here the printed MRP sits close to the selling price.

The kajal is the number to sit with. Insight’s Super Kajal lands at ₹97 a gram, for two reasons at once: the price is low, and the pencil holds 1.7 grams. In kajal, the net quantity printed on the pencil moves the per-gram price as much as the MRP does.

Insight’s 1.7-gram Super Kajal works out to ₹97 a gram at its ₹165 MRP.

Insight Gloss Up Vinyl Lip Color, 4 g

₹49.75 per gram

Insight 24 Hrs Non Transfer Matte Lipstick, 3 g

₹103.33 per gram

Gap

About twice the per-gram price within the brand’s own lip range

Checked on

2 September 2026

Within one brand the per-gram spread is wide too. Buying by the gram rather than by the stick or pencil is what shows the difference.

Who Insight Cosmetics is actually for

The general-trade buyer, first and last. The company’s own store count has climbed from 7,500-plus in June 2021 to “more than 12,000” at the time of the Reliance deal to “35,000 retail and novelty stores” on its About page today — all company-stated figures, with no independent count, but the direction matches what any kirana shelf in Maharashtra shows. A 2021 interview put the founder’s ceiling plainly: very few products beyond ₹295. The dearest item we found on the site was a ₹475 foundation brush, checked 2 September 2026.

This is makeup for someone who wants working colour under ₹350. Buyers who choose on a published wear study or a tested SPF value will not find one on the pages we read; the next section sets out the claims and what is published beside them.

Reputation and controversies

On the product claims: the 24 Hrs Non Transfer Matte Lipstick carries its wear claim in its name; the ₹165 Super Kajal promises a waterproof formula that “stays put for 24 hours”. Neither page we read publishes a wear study, a panel size, a method or a lab. The Skin Tint foundation states SPF 20; its page does not publish a test report or method. “Dermatologically tested” appears across the range; the pages we read do not name the tester.

The homepage says “FDA APPROVED”, and the About page says “dermatologically tested and FDA approved”; the pages we read do not say which authority the words refer to. Under the Cosmetics Rules, 2020, cosmetics manufacturing licences in India are issued by state licensing authorities, and the Gloss Up declaration prints the company’s Maharashtra manufacturing licence, M.L.No. MH/103671. A “Certified Safe-Cert” badge also appears on the homepage; no page we read explains who certifies it.

One badge does check out. PETA’s own Beauty Without Bunnies directory lists Insight Cosmetics as a company that does not test ingredients or finished products on animals, and carries the vegan flag against its name. The site’s “PETA CERTIFIED CRUELTY FREE” and “Vegan” badges are therefore directory-backed on both counts.

The advertising record is short and recent. ASCI upheld a complaint on 25 May 2026 over an Instagram influencer post for Insight’s Gloss Up Vinyl Lip Color; a similar complaint over another influencer’s post for the same product was not upheld on 27 April 2026. Both were opened by ASCI on its own initiative, and both record Mayuri Kumkum Limited as the advertiser — which is also part of how we know the register entity and the shelf brand are the same business. That upheld outcome is the only one we found for the company as at 2 September 2026.

Keep it to its size. ASCI is the advertising industry’s own self-regulatory body rather than a statutory regulator, and the 25 May 2026 decision went to one post in the form it then carried. It is not a standing bar on any wording, and no council or court has examined what Insight or its influencers publish today.

Buying it in India

Insight sells through its own site at MRP, through Purplle at 5–15% off, and above all through tens of thousands of general-trade counters where no listing page exists at all. The checks below work in all three places.

Common questions

How we research and verify brand audits: our methodology.

References

1. Mayuri Kumkum Limited audited financial statements FY26, ril.com, read 2 September 2026 — Reliance Retail Ventures 51% shareholding, “Ultimate Holding Company” styling, FY25 and FY26 revenue and profit, related-party sales, no dividend
2. Mayuri Kumkum Limited audited financial statements FY23, ril.com, read 2 September 2026 — subsidiary with effect from 30 August 2022, FY23 figures, business description
3. ZaubaCorp company record, read 2 September 2026 — incorporation 14 October 2021, CIN, directors and appointment dates
4. YourStory SMBStory, 2 June 2021 — Bastimal and Dinesh Jain history, 1994 Mayuri Kumkum sindoor, VOV label, three plants, in-house packaging, ₹295 ceiling, 7,500-plus stores
5. Indian Retailer, 6 September 2022 — controlling-stake deal, 12,000-plus stores, the “founded 2001” press framing
6. Global Cosmetics News, 12 September 2022 — Mint’s $10–15 million deal report via unnamed sources, Reliance beauty strategy
7. Insight Cosmetics About page, read 2 September 2026 — founded 2012, 1,000-plus SKUs, 35,000 stores, “dermatologically tested and FDA approved” line
8. Insight Cosmetics homepage, read 2 September 2026 — “FDA APPROVED”, “100% CLEAN INGREDIENTS”, PETA and “Certified Safe-Cert” badges
9. Non Transfer Lipcolor product page, read 2 September 2026 — ₹130 for 4 ml, 29 shades, transfer-proof claims, manufacturer declaration
10. 24 Hrs Non Transfer Matte Lipstick product page, read 2 September 2026 — ₹310 for 3 g, 24-hour wear claim, declaration
11. Gloss Up Vinyl Lip Color product page, read 2 September 2026 — ₹199 for 4 g, declaration with licence M.L.No. MH/103671
12. Super Kajal product page, read 2 September 2026 — MRP ₹165 for 1.7 g, 24-hour waterproof claim, declaration
13. Skin Tint 5-in-1 Serum Foundation product page, read 2 September 2026 — ₹319 for 30 g, SPF 20 claim, declaration
14. Purplle Insight brand page, read 2 September 2026 — 165 products listed, selling prices 5–15% under MRP
15. PETA Beauty Without Bunnies directory, read 2 September 2026 — Insight Cosmetics listed as animal-test-free, with the vegan flag
16. ASCI complaint outcomes database, searched 2 September 2026 — Gloss Up Vinyl Lip Color influencer posts: not upheld 27 April 2026, upheld 25 May 2026, advertiser Mayuri Kumkum Limited