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From Lakmé, Naturals and Green Trends to Looks, Toni & Guy, YLG, Affinity, Cut & Style, Geetanjali and Enrich, these are the Top 10 Beauty Salon Franchises to Watch.
Beauty and wellness has become one of the key areas of consumer spending, with a growing share of wallets going towards grooming, skincare, haircare and personal care. Salon visits, in particular are no longer limited to occasional haircuts or special occasions. For many consumers, regular grooming has become part of their routine, giving the salon industry a steady base of repeat customers.
India's beauty and personal care market is worth roughly USD 28 billion and is growing at around 10–11% a year. The organised salon segment is growing even faster, while branded chains still account for only about 10–15% of the overall market. The gap leaves considerable room for organised salon brands to expand across cities.
Several factors are driving the shift. Rising disposable incomes, greater awareness of beauty and grooming, social media and changing lifestyle habits are encouraging consumers to spend more frequently on professional services. Hair colour, skincare, nails, spa treatments, bridal beauty and men's grooming are also adding new spending categories beyond the traditional haircut. The biggest reason salon brands are able to grow and scale so quickly in India is franchising. The model allows brands such as Naturals and Lakmé to expand their footprint without taking on the full cost of setting up and running every outlet themselves. This makes it easier for salon chains to enter Tier-II and Tier-III cities and build a presence much faster than a company-owned expansion model would allow. It also brings more entrepreneurs into the business, turning what has traditionally been a largely unorganised salon market into a more structured industry with standardised training, processes and employment.
With organised chains still accounting for only a relatively small share of India's salon market, the opportunity for expansion remains significant. As these businesses grow in scale, they are also beginning to attract greater interest from institutional investors and larger corporate players.
The market itself is becoming more diverse. Premium chains are expanding into new locations, value-focused brands are reaching a wider consumer base and newer formats are being created for younger customers. At the same time, loyalty programmes, online bookings and customer data are becoming increasingly important as brands look to bring customers back more often and increase spending per visit.
With the organised segment still relatively small, India's salon industry has plenty of room to grow. Here are 10 of the country's best-known salon brands to consider for a franchise, based on their scale, positioning, franchise model and growth plans.
Lakmé Salon
No list of Indian beauty franchises is complete without Lakmé. Backed by Hindustan Unilever, the brand opened its first salon in 1980 and began franchising in 1998. Today it runs on a Franchise Owned, Franchise Operated (FOFO) model with 500+ outlets spread across 160+ cities, supported by over 2,200 trained beauty professionals serving more than a million customers a year. The service menu spans hair styling and colour, skincare, makeup, bridal packages and body spa treatments, positioning each outlet as a one-stop beauty destination rather than a single-service salon. CEO Vipul Chaturvedi frames the brand's next phase of growth around technology paired with local relevance: consumers now expect global-quality experiences tailored to their neighbourhoods, and the brands winning at franchising are equipping partners with genuine “digital sophistication with hyper-localisation,” strong data, consistent tech and the flexibility to connect authentically with each local market.
Naturals Salon
Founded in 2000 by K. Veena and her husband C.K. Kumaravel, Naturals pioneered the unisex salon format in India and built its identity around affordability and women's entrepreneurship. As per the recent media reports, the brand operates close to 900 salons nationally, reportedly ahead of peers like Lakmé and Geetanjali, making it one of the largest organised salon chains in the country.
Services span hair, skin, nails, bridal makeup and spa, delivered through a training-heavy model designed for owners with no prior salon experience. The brand has partnered with banks such as Bharatiya Mahila Bank and Indian Overseas Bank specifically to help first-time women entrepreneurs access financing, a differentiator few competitors match. Co-founder C.K. Kumaravel, widely known as CKK recently announced at a summit that the next phase is a target of 10,000 salons, 3,000 women entrepreneurs, and a lakh of jobs. He sums up the philosophy in three words: “Dream. Believe. Achieve.”
Green Trends Unisex Salon
Green Trends is the salon arm of FMCG major CavinKare, launched in 2002 to make professional grooming accessible beyond the premium segment. The chain has grown to more than 400 outlets across 55+ cities, serving upward of 25 lakh customers annually, the clearest example of the value-focused, high-volume end of the salon business.
Its menu covers trendy haircuts, colour solutions, skin care and bridal packages, priced to compete with the unorganised salon market rather than the luxury end. Notably, the brand doesn't push its own retail products by default, a deliberate positioning choice. As chairman C.K. Ranganathan puts it, “This is a service business and we can't thrust our products on customers.” That service-first stance has helped Green Trends build unusually high repeat visitation in the mid-market segment.
Looks Salon
Started in 1989 by Sanjay Dutta as a tiny three-chair barber shop, Looks Salon has grown into one of India's largest single-chain salon networks, with over 250 outlets including a new flagship location at the Grand Hyatt Mumbai opened in mid-2026, reinforcing its premium, hospitality-adjacent positioning. Its service range covers hair, beauty, nail and makeup, with premium product partnerships including L'Oréal Professionnel, Kérastase and Matrix.
In January 2026, Looks moved into a new segment with the launch of Looks Neo, a youth-focused, design-led format aimed at Gen Z, with its first outlet in Greater Noida. Director, Samay Dutta described it as “built for young India, where quality meets accessibility and individuality is celebrated,” positioning Neo as an accessibly priced bridge between full-service luxury salons and quick-service grooming. Additional Neo locations have followed, including one at Wave One in Noida, a clear example of a legacy premium brand building a parallel format to capture a new generation of customers.
Toni & Guy
For a franchise with genuine international pedigree, Toni & Guy is hard to beat. Founded in Clapham, London, in 1963 by brothers Toni and Guy Mascolo, later joined by younger brothers Bruno and Anthony, the brand built its reputation on an education-first philosophy, opening its first Toni & Guy Hairdressing Academy in 1990. That academy model has since expanded to India, with training centres including Toni & Guy Academy Mumbai, ensuring Indian stylists are certified against the same international standards as the brand's 400+ salons worldwide.
In India, Toni & Guy operates as a unisex, luxury-positioned chain, has 110+ salons pan India reflecting a deliberately tiered pricing structure that lets clients choose between a junior stylist and a senior “Style Director.” Internationally trained stylists deliver cutting-edge cutting, colouring and styling techniques at the luxury end of the market. For franchisees, the appeal isn't volume, it's the ability to command premium price points and attract a discerning, fashion-conscious clientele purely on the strength of a globally recognised name and a training pedigree few homegrown brands can match.
YLG Salon
YLG was founded in 2008 by IIT-graduate couple Rahul and Vaijayanti Bhalchandra, who set out to build a professional, systems-driven salon chain rather than relying on a single celebrity-stylist name. The brand grew its reputation first in Chennai, where it still operates a cluster of flagship outlets, before expanding its franchise footprint nationally.
It positions itself as a full-service, tech-forward salon brand: hair, skin, spa and beauty services layered with in-house salon-tech systems for scheduling, CRM and inventory that many older-generation chains are only now catching up on.
Franchisees get in-house training, marketing support, and dedicated hiring assistance — support the brand frames as essential for owners who are passionate about the beauty business but new to running one. Co-founder Vaijayanti Bhalchandra has been vocal about the brand's growth ambitions: “By 2030, YLG Salon aspires to have 500+ outlets across India.” That target reflects a broader trend among mid-sized chains, using technology, consistent training and operator support as the differentiator, rather than competing purely on brand heritage the way older names like Lakmé or Toni & Guy can.
Affinity Salon
Affinity Salon has spent over three decades building a network of 95+ unisex outlets known for a fashion-forward, internationally styled service menu spanning haircuts, colour, skin treatments, and grooming — designed to adhere to international styling standards rather than purely local trends. The brand's longevity is itself a differentiator in a category where many chains are less than a decade old.
Affinity occupies a deliberate middle ground, more premium than value chains like Green Trends or Cut & Style, but more accessible than full luxury names like Geetanjali or Toni & Guy, making it a popular pick for upper-middle-class urban neighbourhoods where customers want sophistication and consistency without paying full luxury pricing. That positioning has helped it sustain steady, if less explosive, growth compared to some of the faster-scaling unisex chains on this list.
Cut & Style
Cut & Style was founded in Gurugram in 2000 by Dinesh Sharma and Rajesh Yadav, and has grown to more than 135+ outlets across roughly 20 cities as a value-focused, accessible salon chain. Its service offering covers hair, skin, nails and bridal makeup, built around keeping prices low without compromising a polished salon experience.
The brand has leaned into location-first franchising, helping partners validate a site before any agreement is signed, alongside structured operational, marketing and accounting support.
Geetanjali Salon
Set up in 1989 by Prem and Neetu Israni, Geetanjali Salon has grown into one of India's most established luxury chains. The brand has built a loyal high-end clientele and more than 200+ outlets nationally, chiefly across premium malls, high streets and affluent residential clusters.
Its differentiator is one-to-one consultation paired with a wide menu of luxury beauty and grooming treatments, from precision cuts and creative colouring to bridal packages and spa rituals, delivered with the kind of individualised, high-touch service premium clientele expect. Franchisees receive extensive pre-launch, launch, and post-launch support spanning talent recruitment, training, operational strategy and marketing. That focus on personalised consultation over a standardised service menu is what separates Geetanjali's positioning from mass-market unisex chains and helps explain its comparatively fast reported break-even relative to other luxury-tier brands.
Enrich Salon
Enrich began in Mumbai in 1997, founded by Vikram Bhatt, and has grown into a technology-forward chain with more than 85+ outlets, largely concentrated in premium malls and high-street locations serving young, urban clientele. Staff train through its own Enrich Academy, and the brand partners with global names like L'Oréal for products and technique, a combination the brand uses to promise consistent service quality across every outlet, regardless of location or franchisee.
What sets Enrich apart is its data-led approach to service: client analytics tailor beauty regimens by hair and skin type, and an integrated digital ecosystem lets customers book sessions and buy professional products online, an early bet on personalisation many chains are only now beginning to build. Franchisees get support across site selection, technical training, centralised marketing, inventory management and CRM software, positioning Enrich as one of the more digitally mature operators on this list despite being younger than legacy names like Lakmé or Looks.
The Bigger Picture
Across these ten brands, a few patterns stand out: legacy players are splitting into segmented formats (Looks Neo for Gen Z); digital personalisation has become table stakes, unisex and men's grooming keep expanding the addressable market and India's largest chains are approaching institutional-capital scale, signalling just how far the category has matured beyond word-of-mouth barbershops.
