THE BARE BAR
Website:
thebarebar.in
Job details:
About us:
The Bare Bar is a body care brand developed and manufactured by Clean Beauty Private Limited, our Bengaluru-based parent company.
Alongside building The Bare Bar, Clean Beauty specialises in private-label manufacturing, contract manufacturing and new product development for other skincare and personal care brands.
We’re hiring a Head of Cosmetic R&D, Formulation & New Product Development to lead formulation and innovation across The Bare Bar and Clean Beauty’s wider client portfolio. This position is with Clean Beauty Private Limited and is being shared through The Bare Bar’s network.
About the Role:
This is a hands-on technical leadership role owning formulation and new product development from brief through testing, validation, scale-up and commercialisation.
You will develop formulation concepts, make scientific decisions, troubleshoot complex challenges and mentor the formulation team. Working with founders, clients and cross-functional teams, you will ensure products are innovative, safe, stable, effective, sensorially excellent, commercially viable, scalable and compliant with target-market requirements.
You should be comfortable managing multiple briefs and delivering fast development while maintaining scientific rigour and product quality.
Key responsibilities
- Formulation and technical ownership: Lead development across skincare, haircare, body care, cleansing, bath and body, wellness-oriented topicals and innovative formats. Develop technical approaches, supervise trials and optimisation, troubleshoot challenges and ensure robust, reproducible formulations with strong performance, texture, appearance and sensory quality.
- End-to-end NPD and client development: Own the journey from brief, concept and prototypes through testing, validation, scale-up, technical transfer and commercialisation. Manage multiple internal and private-label projects, assess feasibility, propose alternatives and translate client and founder feedback into rapid, technically sound iterations while balancing quality, cost and timelines.
- Global innovation: Track international beauty developments, including Korean, Japanese, European and US innovations. Evaluate emerging actives, clean and naturally derived ingredients, biotech and fermentation-derived ingredients, textures, delivery systems, preservation technologies, sustainable formulations, and waterless and solid formats for technical, regulatory, manufacturing and commercial feasibility.
- Ingredient sourcing and supplier relationships: Build Indian and international supplier and technical-expert networks; source innovative materials, assess supplier data, samples and formulation compatibility, and identify alternatives. Partner with Procurement to balance innovation, availability and cost.
- Testing, efficacy and validation: Oversee accelerated and real-time stability, microbiological and preservative challenge testing, sensory and functional evaluation, efficacy testing, SPF testing where applicable, and claim substantiation. Ensure products meet required technical standards before commercialisation.
- Regulatory and market readiness: Integrate applicable Indian cosmetics requirements, BIS standards, ingredient restrictions, safety, labelling, claims, GMP and licensing considerations from the outset. Apply working knowledge of US, EU, GCC/Middle East and other export-market requirements, collaborating with regulatory teams on registrations, licences, technical dossiers and market-specific documentation.
- Claims and marketing communication: Work with Regulatory, Marketing and founders to review and substantiate product claims, ingredient benefits and technical marketing call-out sheets, ensuring communication accurately reflects formulations and is appropriate for each target market.
- Scale-up and manufacturing: Lead laboratory-to-pilot-to-commercial formulation transfer. Partner with Production on mixing, homogenisation, addition sequences, heating/cooling, processing conditions and batch sizes; resolve viscosity, shear and consistency issues; and establish transfer parameters and batch reproducibility. Production ownership remains with the Production team.
- QA/QC collaboration: Define quality and testing parameters, review validation and quality data, investigate formulation-related deviations, support root-cause analysis and corrective actions, and ensure approved specifications are met. Maintain clear technical documentation across R&D, Production and QA/QC.
- Packaging compatibility: Work with Packaging, QA/QC and Production to assess containers, pumps, tubes, closures, leakage, migration, product-package interactions, final-pack stability and the consumer dispensing experience.
- Team development and R&D systems: Mentor junior and mid-level formulators, review laboratory work, allocate projects and build scientific, troubleshooting and innovation capabilities. Establish technical standards, accountability, SOPs, trial documentation, formulation databases and version control, ingredient libraries, testing protocols, stability programmes, project tracking, knowledge management and laboratory equipment plans.
- Commercial discipline: Own formulation costing, raw-material substitution and cost optimisation in collaboration with Procurement, Production and Management, protecting performance, sensory quality, safety, compliance and scalability.
Qualifications and experience
- Bachelor’s or Master’s degree in Cosmetic Science, Chemistry, Pharmacy, Chemical Engineering or a related field.
- 8–12+ years of relevant cosmetic formulation, R&D and NPD experience, with demonstrated independent formulation capability and successful concept-to-commercialisation delivery.
- Strong industrial scale-up experience and knowledge of skincare and personal care formulations, actives, raw materials, emulsions, surfactants, preservation, stability, compatibility and efficacy.
- Practical understanding of Indian and international cosmetic regulations and market requirements.
- Proven technical leadership, mentoring and cross-functional collaboration skills, with the ability to manage continuous briefs in a fast-paced environment.
- Experience across haircare, body care, cleansing and innovative formats is highly desirable.
- Private-label, contract-manufacturing or multi-brand NPD experience is strongly preferred; an established ingredient-supplier network is a significant advantage.
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