Guwahati: In a room filled with India's top beauty brands, influencers, and celebrity founders, one name stood out not for its marketing muscle or celebrity endorsements but for its rootedness in the quiet hills of Mizoram. Lawm from the Hills, a homegrown beauty startup founded in 2022 in Mizoram, marked its debut at the prestigious Vogue Beauty & Wellness Awards 2025 in Mumbai, powered by Tira Beauty, as the only brand from the Northeast to receive an exclusive invite.
"Attending one of the most prestigious beauty awards in India has been a validation we didn’t know we needed. Being in the same room with founders who have scaled big has given us even more motivation to build and stay focused," Puipuii Hmar, Founder of Lawm from the Hills tells Business North East (BNE).
In a cluttered beauty market flooded with over-promising labels and underwhelming results, Lawm from the Hills positions itself as effective everyday, minimilatic beauty basics using sustainably sourced raw materials from Mizoram. The name "Lawm" means "joy" in Mizo, and the brand aims to bring just that through products that deliver on their claims.
"From day one, we were clear, no noise, no trends, just beauty basics that do what they say," Hmar explains. "Our customers now regularly replace international and homegrown brand staples with ours."
The philosophy is rooted in minimalism, an intentional move to reduce beauty fatigue and consumer overwhelm, a trend Hmar sees accelerating over the next three years.
The real differentiator, however, lies in Lawm’s supply chain. The brand currently sources four core ingredients including bamboo water, perilla seeds, and walnuts directly from about 30 farmers across various districts in Mizoram. Some operate under Farmer Producer Companies (FPCs), while others work independently.
"It’s mostly manual," Hmar admits. "Farmers send raw ingredients via maxicabs. For processing, we collaborate with women Self Help Groups and youth communities. After that, we send them to partner labs for safety testing."
This model not only ensures traceability and authenticity but is designed to generate livelihood for farmers, women and youth in a state where stable private employment remains scarce, Hmar added.
Building a brand from Northeast India still comes with systemic challenges foremost being logistics and infrastructure. For Lawm, fulfillment from Mizoram often delays timelines and increases costs.
"We’re now working to set up warehousing and order fulfillment hubs in Tier-1 cities to improve delivery and efficiency for both B2B and B2C orders," Hmar says.
The brand, currently bootstrapped, boasts a D2C customer base of 2,000+ with a 30% repeat rate every two months. The next milestone? Expanding that to 10,000 customers with onboarding onto platforms like Tira Beauty, Nykaa, Zepto, and Amazon.
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Lawm’s hero product, the Sun Shield, encapsulates its brand philosophy. Formulated with 20% bamboo water sourced from Mizoram, it has become a go-to product for many customers who have replaced long-standing sun protection products.
"It’s simple, it works, and it tells the story of where we come from," says Hmar.
The goal isn’t to flood the market with dozens of SKUs, but to scale thoughtfully. "A trend comes and goes," she says. "We want Lawm to be trend-resistant."
While Lawm is not actively raising funds yet, the founder is clear on the kind of investor the brand is looking for.
"Someone who understands the vision and can propel us toward it—not just capital, but strategic alignment," Hmar asserts.
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The long-term ambition? To scale globally while creating a stable ecosystem of employment through ingredient sourcing, local processing, and scientific formulation.
"We want to put Mizoram on the global beauty map and offer sustainable jobs in the hills especially for educated youth who otherwise depend on government jobs."
Lawm from the Hills isn’t chasing trends; it’s building a beauty ecosystem rooted in regional identity, sustainability, and trust. As it stands poised for national and global expansion, it offers a playbook for what a new-age Indian beauty brand can look like ethical, effective, and entirely homegrown.
Investor pitch in one line, as Hmar presented to BNE during the interview, "A beauty brand creating effective inspired basics using pure natural ingredients sourced from the hills of pristine Mizoram that will replace generic beauty basics in the market."
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