Pakistan’s cosmetics and personal care market has grown into a large, fast-moving consumer sector with meaningful room for new local brands, formal retail expansion, and foreign investment.
A Dawn analysis citing Euromonitor reported that Pakistan’s beauty and personal care market value more than doubled over six years, rising from Rs. 173.8 billion in 2017 to Rs. 341.4 billion in 2022, a 102.3% increase. The same piece reported an anticipated sector value of $4.62 billion and noted that personal care is the largest segment, accounting for 49% of the sector at $2.28 billion. It also cited Euromonitor’s estimate that five multinationals together hold over 53% of the overall market, led by Unilever at 24.9% and Procter and Gamble at 13.5%.
That growth should translate into higher documented imports where needed, stronger local manufacturing of compliant products, better packaging and distribution jobs, and a larger modern retail footprint.
Instead, the sector’s upside is partially constrained by a parallel channel of smuggled and counterfeit cosmetics that competes primarily through tax evasion and weak enforcement, rather than on product performance. When non-duty-paid goods can be priced far below compliant products, it puts pressure on margins across the chain, from wholesalers and pharmacies to formal retailers and legitimate online sellers. Over time, that pressure discourages investment in quality, testing, and branding, and it reduces incentives for local firms to scale into documented, export-capable operations.
The enforcement record shows that cosmetics are regularly part of broader anti-smuggling actions. In December 2025, Customs Enforcement Peshawar reported operations worth Rs. 74.4 million across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, including a seizure of non-duty-paid cosmetics such as creams, lotions, shampoos, and petroleum jellies valued at Rs. 2.4 million recovered from passenger conveyances.
In Karachi, a joint Rangers and Customs operation in the Bolton Market area recovered non-customs-paid goods worth Rs. 100 million, including perfumes and cosmetics, among other categories, an indicator of how smuggled goods concentrate in large urban wholesale markets before dispersing nationwide. These figures are seizure values, not the full market size, but they are still a consistent signal that the illegal channel is persistent and geographically widespread.
Counterfeit cosmetics add a second layer of damage because the harm is not only fiscal, but also health-related and reputational. In April 2024, the Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) reported shutting down a facility manufacturing fake and substandard beauty creams and shampoos without a PSQCA license. It warned that counterfeit and substandard products can cause serious health issues, including skin cancer.
In October 2025, the Competition Commission of Pakistan announced a nationwide probe into mercury-laden skin whitening creams, stating that its market intelligence found several popular products containing dangerously high levels of mercury and warning that mercury can cause kidney damage, neurological disorders, and skin diseases. The Commission also cited penalties under the Competition Act, up to Rs. 75 million or 10% of annual turnover, for deceptive marketing practices. This matters to the sector’s long-term potential because repeated consumer harm and distrust reduce willingness to pay for quality, pushing the market toward low-cost, informal products, which further weaken the incentive to build compliant local brands.
A brief macro point is unavoidable, as cosmetics do not operate in isolation. In a 2023 assessment, the Pakistan Business Council estimated that the combined value of smuggling, under-invoicing, misdeclaration of imports, counterfeiting, and adulteration is about $68 billion annually, around 20% of the formal economy, with an estimated annual tax loss of about Rs. 8 trillion. In the same broad discussion of the shadow economy, the most frequently cited large-loss areas include petroleum products, cigarettes, real estate, pharmaceuticals, and tea, which is why sustained enforcement in one consumer category, such as cosmetics, must be treated as part of a whole-of-economy response.
For the cosmetics sector specifically, the policy goal should be measurable and straightforward: shift demand from non-duty-paid and counterfeit products toward documented imports and compliant local manufacturing. That requires routine market surveillance in major city wholesale hubs, stronger border enforcement on high-turnover consumer goods, and visible action against counterfeit production sites. It also requires consumer-facing deterrence, including product authentication, complaint channels, and penalties that reach distributors and retailers, not only small operators.
If the state reduces the pricing advantage created by smuggling and counterfeiting, Pakistan’s cosmetics market can convert its current growth into genuine investment, better jobs, safer products, and a more credible consumer economy.