Lakmé Cosmetics

Lakmé

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Industry	Personal care
Founded	1952
Founder	J. R. D. Tata
Headquarters	India
Key people	Sanjiv Mehta (CEO Unilever) Pushkaraj Shenai(CEO Lakmé) Purnima Lamba (Head Innovations) Shraddha Kapoor (ambassador)
Products	Cosmetics, beauty products, and Salon services
Website	lakmeindia.com

Lakmé is an Indian cosmetics brand which is owned by Hindustan Unilever and run by CEO Puskharaj Shenai. Having Shraddha Kapoor as the ambassador, it ranked at number 1 among the cosmetics brands in India. Lakme started as a 100% subsidiary of Tata Oil Mills (Tomco). It was named after the French opera Lakmé, which itself is the French form of Lakshmi (the goddess of wealth) who is renowned for her beauty. It was started in 1952 famously, because the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was concerned that Indian women were spending precious foreign exchange on beauty products and personally requested JRD Tata to manufacture them in India. Simone Tata joined the company as director and went on to become the chairperson. In 1996, Tata sold off their stakes in Lakmé Lever to HLL, for Rs 200 Crore(45 million US$).

In the Brand Trust Report 2012, Lakme was ranked 104th among India's most trusted brands and following the next year it was ranked 71st among India's most trusted brands. In 2014, Lakme was ranked 36th among India's most trusted brands according to the Brand Trust Report 2014. The company is the title sponsor for Lakme Fashion Week (LFW) a bi-annual fashion event which takes place in Mumbai.