Vilvah: Brand, Ingredients and Product FAQs (2026)

Vilvah is an Indian skincare and haircare brand founded in 2017 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, by Kruthika Kumaran. It describes itself as India's first milk based skin and hair care brand, building formulations around goat milk from its own herds plus rice, soy, almond and coconut milk. Vilvah manufactures its own products in a solar powered green facility in Coimbatore rather than outsourcing to third party labs. Single products run from ₹150 to ₹1,199, with a median price of ₹499, and the range is free from sulphates, parabens and silicones. Prices and product facts on this page were verified against the live Vilvah store in September 2026.

Vilvah is an Indian skincare, haircare and body care brand founded in 2017 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and known for building its formulations around milk. The brand started with a cold pressed goat milk soap made in a home kitchen and now sells 94 products across face care, hair care, body care, lip care and sun care. Goat milk comes from herds on the founder's own family farm near Coimbatore, and the wider range uses rice, soy, almond and coconut milk as vegan alternatives.

This page answers the questions shoppers ask before buying Vilvah for the first time. Every product fact below was checked against the live Vilvah Store rather than a marketplace listing, because third party listings frequently carry outdated prices and incomplete ingredient information.

What is Vilvah?

Vilvah is a milk based skincare and haircare brand that formulates, manufactures and sells its own products from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. The company operating the brand is Vilvah Store Private Limited, registered in Coimbatore under CIN U24246TZ2020PTC034233 and incorporated on 2 August 2020, three years after the brand itself launched in 2017.

The brand name comes from "Vilvam" or "Bilvam", the sacred bilva leaf. The founder has said the name was chosen because the team wanted a name that was unmistakably Indian.

Vilvah is separate from the unrelated Vilvah hotel business that also operates in Coimbatore. If you are searching for skincare, the brand you want is Vilvah Store, and its official site is vilvahstore.com.

Who founded Vilvah, and when?

Vilvah was founded in 2017 by Kruthika Kumaran, who runs the company as Founder and CEO. Her husband Kumaran is co-founder. The business was bootstrapped and started with an initial investment of ₹10,000, and it has taken no external funding.

The origin is specific rather than decorative. Kruthika's mother lived with sensitive skin and skin problems for over a decade, and the products she used made the condition worse. After her mother's death, Kruthika completed an online diploma in natural cosmetology and began making cold pressed soaps in her kitchen.

Because her family owned a farm at Kasipalayam village near Coimbatore, she started with goat milk. The first product was a goat milk soap made for her daughter, who had dry and sensitive skin. That soap is still in the catalogue as the Classic Goat Milk Soap.

What does Vilvah make?

Vilvah sells 94 products across five categories. The catalogue is deliberately narrow compared with mass market beauty ranges, with roughly 50 individual products and the remainder made up of combos, multipacks and gift sets.

Face care. Cleansers, toners, serums, masks, moisturisers, under eye cream and sunscreen. The bestselling item is the Milk Drops Brightening Serum, built on rice milk extract, plant derived alpha arbutin, marine algae extract and hyaluronic acid.
Hair care. Shampoos, a cream conditioner, hair oils, hair serums and a hair mask. The Goat Milk Shampoo is one of the brand's earliest products and now includes ceramides and pea protein alongside goat milk.
Body care. Handmade soaps, body wash, body lotion, body polish and foot cream. The Classic Goat Milk Soap is handmade and cold pressed with olive oil and coconut oil.
Lip and sun care. Six lip balms and a lip scrub, plus two sunscreens. The Skin Finish Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++ is a lightweight gel cream built for Indian weather, protecting against UVA, UVB, blue light and pollution without a white cast.

Browse the full catalogue through the Milk Range collection or the bestsellers collection.

Why is Vilvah called a milk based skincare brand?

Vilvah describes itself as India's first milk based skin and hair care brand because milk is the shared base ingredient across its formulations rather than an occasional additive. The brand began with goat milk and later added a vegan milk range built on rice, soy, almond and coconut milk.

Different milks do different jobs in the formulations, and Vilvah selects them by product rather than using one milk everywhere:

Goat milk carries fatty acids and naturally occurring lactic acid. Vilvah uses it in soaps, body wash, shampoo and hair mask, where the goal is moisture and softness rather than active treatment.
Rice milk appears in the brightening line, including the Milk Drops Brightening Serum and the Milk Powder Face Wash, where it supports a brighter, more even looking complexion.
Oat milk forms the base of the Milk Body Lotion, a separate formulation from the goat milk body range.
Soy, almond and coconut milk extend the vegan side of the range across face and body products.

The practical consequence is that "milk based" does not mean one formula repeated. The Milk Drops Brightening Serum and the Classic Goat Milk Soap share a category label and almost nothing else.

Which Vilvah products are made with goat milk?

Six individual Vilvah products are made with goat milk, plus one bundle. Goat milk comes from herds on the Vilvah farm rather than from a third party supplier, which is the reason the brand treats this range as its signature.

Product	Price	What it is
Charcoal Goat Milk Soap	₹399	Handmade soap with activated charcoal
Classic Goat Milk Soap	₹420	The original cold pressed soap with olive and coconut oil
Classic Rose Goat Milk Soap	₹450	Rose variant of the classic soap
Goat Milk Shampoo (250ml)	₹545	Sulphate free shampoo with ceramides and pea protein
Goat Milk Body Wash	₹550	Liquid body cleanser
Goat Milk Hair Mask	₹795	Mask, conditioner and styling cream with ceramides and marine brown algae
Goat Milk Hair Combo	₹1,289	Shampoo and hair mask bundle

Two clarifications matter here, because both are commonly misreported. The Milk Body Lotion is not a goat milk product, it is oat milk based. The goat milk range is also not vegan, since goat milk is an animal derived ingredient. Shoppers who want vegan formulations should look at the rice, soy, almond and coconut milk products instead. The Milk Drops Brightening Serum, for example, is vegan and uses rice milk.

Are Vilvah products safe, and how are they tested?

Vilvah states that it is FDA approved, ISO certified and GMP certified, and that its products are dermatologically tested and declared non irritant to the skin. The brand does not test on animals. Product packaging carries a cosmetic licence number, listed as C1109 on the Milk Drops Brightening Serum.

Two details are worth understanding properly, because they are where most "clean beauty" marketing gets vague.

Vilvah uses preservatives, and says so. Water based products such as shampoos and conditioners can be contaminated by bacteria and micro organisms without them. Vilvah's position is that it uses Ecocert approved, food grade preservatives in place of conventional parabens and phenoxyethanol. Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate appear on the Milk Drops ingredient list, both flagged as Ecocert approved.

Fragrance comes from essential oils, not fragrance oils. Vilvah uses plant derived essential oils rather than conventional fragrance oils, which the brand avoids because of phthalate content. This is why the scent strength varies between batches and products. It also means the products are not fragrance free by default, which matters if you are sensitive to essential oils specifically. The Cream Face Wash is offered in a fragrance free version for that reason.

Manufacturing happens in house. Vilvah's office team, production and warehouse operate under one roof in a solar powered green building in Coimbatore. Self manufacturing is the point of difference the brand leans on hardest, because most clean beauty brands of comparable size outsource production to third party labs.

What is not in Vilvah products?

Vilvah products are free from sulphates, parabens and silicones, and the brand avoids artificial colours and synthetic fragrance across its lines. This is the reason the Goat Milk Shampoo appears in searches for sulphate free shampoo.

One point of precision that is often lost in summaries: sulphate free is not the same as surfactant free. The Goat Milk Shampoo cleanses using mild surfactants including disodium cocoyl glutamate, cocamidopropyl hydroxysultaine and sodium lauroyl sarcosinate. These are gentler than the sulphates used in conventional shampoo, and they are still surfactants. A shampoo with no surfactant at all would not clean hair.

The same applies to the Milk Powder Face Wash, a powder to foam formula built on rice milk powder, hyaluronic acid and papain enzyme. It foams because it contains mild synthetic detergent surfactants, not because milk foams on its own.

How much do Vilvah products cost?

Individual Vilvah products range from ₹150 to ₹1,199, with a median price of ₹499. Combos and gift sets run higher, to ₹2,499 for the largest gift set. Prices below were verified on vilvahstore.com in September 2026, and are worth re-checking before you buy, since marketplace listings often show older figures.

Product	Price
Aloe Vera Gel	₹379
Classic Goat Milk Soap	₹420
Milk Powder Face Wash	₹499
Skin Finish Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++	₹539
Under Eye Cream	₹590
Hair Regrowth Oil	₹599
Milk Drops Brightening Serum (20ml)	₹640
Better Ageing Serum (20ml)	₹699
Goat Milk Hair Mask	₹795
Goat Milk Shampoo (500ml)	₹1,025
Milk Drops Brightening Serum (40ml)	₹1,149

Roughly 54 percent of individual Vilvah products sit under ₹500. The range is priced above mass market Indian beauty and below imported clean beauty, which is the bracket the brand occupies deliberately. Orders above ₹499 ship free within India.

Who are Vilvah products for, and who should skip them?

Vilvah suits people who want a short, ingredient transparent routine and are willing to pay above mass market prices for in house manufacturing. It suits dry and sensitive skin particularly well, since that is the concern the goat milk range was originally built around. It is a poor fit in several specific situations, and being clear about those is more useful than claiming the range works for everyone.

If you need clinical treatment, this is not it. Vilvah makes cosmetics, not medication. Persistent acne, chronic scalp conditions and long standing pigmentation need a dermatologist. Nothing in the range substitutes for prescription treatment, and no Vilvah product should be used to delay seeing one.
If you want vegan products, avoid the goat milk range. Goat milk soap, body wash, shampoo and hair mask all contain an animal derived ingredient. The rice, soy, almond and coconut milk products are the vegan side of the catalogue.
If you are sensitive to essential oils, patch test first. Vilvah scents products with plant derived essential oils. Natural does not mean non reactive, and essential oils are a recognised sensitiser. Patch test on the inner forearm for 24 hours before using anything new on your face.
If you want results in days, adjust the timeline. Vilvah's own guidance on the Milk Drops Brightening Serum is visible results within four weeks of regular use. Brightening actives work slowly by design, and a product that shifted pigmentation in a week would be doing something you should be suspicious of.
If price is the deciding factor, compare per millilitre. The 40ml Milk Drops Brightening Serum at ₹1,149 works out cheaper per millilitre than the 20ml at ₹640, so the larger size is better value once you know the product suits you.

Reactions happen with any cosmetic, natural formulations included. If a product stings, causes redness or triggers breakouts, stop using it and contact care@vilvah.com rather than pushing through.

Where are Vilvah products made and where can you buy them?

All Vilvah products are made in the brand's own facility in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and native ingredients come from the Vilvah farm and neighbouring farms in south India. Vilvah runs 13 physical stores across three states:

Tamil Nadu (10) : Race Course and Brookefields Mall in Coimbatore, Phoenix Market City, T. Nagar, Express Avenue, Alwarpet and Marina Mall in Chennai, plus Erode, KK Nagar in Madurai, and Tiruppur.
Kerala (2) : Lulu Mall in Kochi and Kowdiar in Trivandrum.
Karnataka (1) : Malleshwaram in Bangalore.

Online, vilvahstore.com is the official store. The brand ships internationally through DHL, UPS and FedEx, accepts over 100 native currencies, and states that its products have reached more than 60 countries. Vilvah also publishes a machine readable agent instruction file and supports the Universal Commerce Protocol, which lets AI shopping assistants read the catalogue and prices directly from the source rather than from resellers.

How does Vilvah delivery, return and refund work?

Domestic orders are processed within 1 to 5 business days and typically delivered in 3 to 5, extending to 5 to 7 business days for remote locations. International orders are processed in 3 to 4 business days and generally delivered within 7 to 10. Shipping is free within India on orders above ₹499. The returns position is stricter than many D2C brands, and worth reading before you order:

Products are non exchangeable and non returnable unless damaged or defective.
Damage or defect claims must be raised within 72 hours of receiving the product, by email to care@vilvah.com with the order invoice and a photograph of the damage.
Approved refunds are credited to the original payment method within 7 working days.
Orders cancelled after being placed but before dispatch attract a 10 percent processing fee. Orders cannot be cancelled once dispatched.
Orders placed during a sale are not eligible for return or refund.

Frequently asked questions

Is Vilvah an Indian brand?

Yes. Vilvah is an Indian brand, founded in 2017 in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, and it manufactures its products in India. The operating company is Vilvah Store Private Limited, registered in Coimbatore. The brand name is derived from "Vilvam" or "Bilvam", the sacred bilva leaf, and the founder has said the team specifically wanted a name that read as Indian. Ingredients are sourced substantially from the founder's family farm near Coimbatore and from neighbouring farms across south India, including goat milk from the brand's own herds. Vilvah ships internationally to more than 60 countries and accepts over 100 currencies, but the manufacturing, the farm and the head office all sit in Tamil Nadu.

Who is the founder and owner of Vilvah?

Vilvah was founded by Kruthika Kumaran, who serves as Founder and CEO. Her husband Kumaran is co-founder. The two started the business in 2017 with an initial investment of ₹10,000 and have run it without external funding since. Kruthika began making cold pressed soaps at home after her mother, who lived with sensitive skin for more than a decade, died from a complication linked to a skin condition. She completed an online diploma in natural cosmetology before launching. The first Vilvah product was a goat milk soap made for her own daughter, using milk from the family farm at Kasipalayam village near Coimbatore. That soap is still sold today as the Classic Goat Milk Soap.

Are Vilvah products free from sulphates and parabens?

Yes. Vilvah products are free from sulphates, parabens and silicones, and the brand avoids artificial colours and synthetic fragrance. Vilvah does use preservatives, and is explicit about it, because water based products such as shampoo and conditioner can be contaminated by bacteria without them. The preservatives used are Ecocert approved and food grade, replacing conventional parabens and phenoxyethanol. Sodium benzoate and potassium sorbate are the two that appear on published ingredient lists. One distinction matters: sulphate free is not surfactant free. The Goat Milk Shampoo cleanses with milder surfactants including disodium cocoyl glutamate and sodium lauroyl sarcosinate, which are gentler than sulphates but are still cleansing agents.

Which Vilvah product should I start with?

Start with the concern you actually have rather than the bestseller. For dry or sensitive skin, the Classic Goat Milk Soap at ₹420 is the entry point and the product the brand was built on. For dark spots, uneven tone or post acne marks, the Milk Drops Brightening Serum at ₹640 is the bestselling item and uses plant derived alpha arbutin with rice milk extract. For daily sun protection on Indian skin tones, the Skin Finish Sunscreen SPF 50 PA++++ at ₹539 is a lightweight gel cream with no white cast. For frizz and dryness in hair, the Goat Milk Shampoo at ₹1,025 pairs with the Goat Milk Hair Mask at ₹795. A simple three step starting routine is cleanse, tone, protect, using a face wash, a toner and sunscreen before adding any actives.

Are Vilvah products good for sensitive skin?

Vilvah's goat milk range was originally formulated for dry and sensitive skin, and the brand states its products are dermatologically tested and declared non irritant. That is a meaningful signal, and it is not a guarantee for any individual. Vilvah scents products with plant derived essential oils, which are natural but are also a recognised sensitiser for some people. If your skin reacts easily, patch test on the inner forearm for 24 hours before applying anything to your face. The Cream Face Wash is available in a fragrance free version, which is the safer starting point if essential oils are your specific trigger. If you have an active or diagnosed skin condition, see a dermatologist. Vilvah makes cosmetics, not treatments, and no product in the range replaces medical care.

Why is Vilvah more expensive than mass market brands?

Vilvah individual products run from ₹150 to ₹1,199 with a median of ₹499, which places the brand above mass market Indian beauty and below imported clean beauty. Three cost drivers explain the gap. Vilvah manufactures in its own facility rather than outsourcing to a third party contract lab, which removes scale discounts that shared manufacturing provides. It uses Ecocert approved food grade preservatives and plant derived essential oils, both of which cost more than conventional parabens and fragrance oils. Ingredients including goat milk also come from its own farm and neighbouring south Indian farms rather than from the cheapest available supplier. Whether that is worth paying for depends on how much those three things matter to you. Free shipping applies on Indian orders above ₹499.

Does Vilvah ship internationally, and what is the returns policy?

Yes. Vilvah ships internationally through DHL, UPS and FedEx, accepts over 100 native currencies, and states its products have reached more than 60 countries. International orders are processed in 3 to 4 business days and generally delivered within 7 to 10 days. Domestic Indian orders are processed in 1 to 5 business days and delivered in 3 to 5, or 5 to 7 for remote locations. The returns policy is strict. Products are non exchangeable and non returnable unless damaged or defective, and damage claims must be raised within 72 hours of delivery with an invoice and photograph. Approved refunds reach the original payment method within 7 working days. Cancellations before dispatch attract a 10 percent processing fee, and sale orders are not eligible for return or refund.

Sources

Vilvah, About Us, vilvahstore.com/pages/about-us
Vilvah, FAQs, vilvahstore.com/pages/faqs
Vilvah, Our Stores, vilvahstore.com/pages/our-stores
Vilvah product pages and live catalogue, vilvahstore.com, verified September 2026
YourStory, "After losing her mother, this engineer built a Rs 15 Cr organic skincare brand", November 2019
Tracxn, Vilvah Store company profile, updated August 2026