Chennai: It is shak shak time at Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) with the company entering the poshak, naashak and rakshak segments.

With competition biting into its market share with a slew of niche ayurvedic and herbal products rolled out by several desi companies, the fast-moving consumer goods company has decided to take the plunge by launching five ayurvedic beauty and healthcare products under the HLL ayush brand umbrella.

The company has introduced a cough naashak syrup, headache naashak roll-on, dandruff naashak shampoo, hair poshak oil and body rakshak soap with the purity of the ingredients endorsed by Arya Vaidya Pharmacy (AVP), Coimbatore. On the anvil, under the HLL ayush portfolio, are digestive, nutrition and personal care products.

''We will first establish the five products and later launch the others,'' says HLL director (new ventures) Dalip Sehgal. ''We plan to make each of the new products a Rs 300-crore brand. Our target is to be number one or two in every product category we are present.''

The HLL ayush brand will be launched first in Tamil Nadu and will be later expanded nationwide. In addition, an HLL Ayush Therapy Centre will be set up in Chennai in collaboration with AVP.

After its failed attempts to buy out Amrutanjan and the Cholayil group's Medimix soap and other herbal products, HLL, two years ago, decided to get into the ayurvedic segment in a major way and approached AVP to assist in combining chemicals (detergents in shampoo) and herbal ingredients.

For the Rs 25-crore AVP, which makes ayurvedic drugs, foraying into an over the counter (OTC) market on its own was not an easy proposition, as the money required for marketing is huge,'' says HLL vice-president (technical) Dr G G Gangadharan. ''AVP will develop products and we will remunerate them,'' says Sehgal. ''The new OTC products were tested in hospitals and research organisations adopting the testing procedures of allopathic medicines.''

Says HLL business manager (healthcare) Vipul Chawla: ''The market size for herbal healthcare products is around Rs 2,000 crore, logging an annual growth of 15 per cent. The growth is 50 per cent faster than similar non-herbal products as every second household uses at least one branded herbal product.''

He classifies the consumer herbal product segment under three heads: personal care (soaps, shampoo and others), symptom relief (cough syrup, pain and ache relievers, digestives) and positive health (children nutritive supplements).

''The market is highly fragmented and there is a chance to leverage India's knowledge in ayurveda using technology,'' he says. ''The consumer's dilemma is that chemicals (as in non-ayurvedic products) are harsh, while ayurveda is slow and not proven. This is the problem we are trying to solve.''

The company's pricing strategy is also in line with competition. The 75-gm soap is priced at Rs 9.50 while the 200-ml shampoo is sold for Rs 88, and the 7-ml sachet is available for Rs 2. The 100-ml hairoil will cost Rs 24 and the roll-on headache vial is priced at Rs 17.

The company's earlier attempts to have a presence in the herbal segment through Hamam bath bar adding neem didn't succeed. HLL changed the cleansers' composition by reducing the total fatty matter (TFM), to cut costs and get excise benefits. The reduction in the TFM resulted in Hamam getting disqualified from being called a soap, and many consumers changed loyalties.

''The HLL ayush body rakshak soap is really a soap with 59 per cent TFM,'' says Sehgal. But the market leader Medimix has 65 per cent TFM with the soap base derived from coconut and other natural oils. According to experts, the higher the fatty matter in a soap the better it will be for the human skin. In case of baby soaps the TFM content will be much higher to keep the skin soft.

While all HLL ayush products list out the herbal ingredients the packs are conspicuously silent on their carrier - in case of soap the vegetable oil base, and in respect of shampoo the detergent base. The dandruff naashak shampoo pack does not mention whether the detergent base is sodium lauryl ether sulphate (less harsh) or some other harsher base.

What is interesting to note is that no company has come out with herbal hair cream or gel. Says J L Morison technical consultant and former vice-president R Rajagopal: ''Ladies prefer herbal lotion while men like cream or gel, which is not greasy. And developing the same is not difficult.''

Sehgal does not foresee the HLL ayush dandruff shampoo cannibalising Clinic Plus, another anti-dandruff shampoo. ''We expect the market to expand as the new product will widen the appeal. Only 30 per cent of the urban population and 10 per cent of the rural population use shampoo.''

All ayurvedic products are contract manufactured. The well-known name among them is Cipla, manufacturing the roll-on headache reliever and another group company, Health Secure (India), producing cough syrups.