Lakmē’s Crayon Café Had the Right Idea. Indian Beauty Retail Needs Its Second Act.

A beauty launch built around crayons is an unusually honest idea. Colour is not only something to wear; it is something to try, spoil, redraw and share. Lakmē’s Crayon Café in Mumbai understands that. My concern is that the best part of the idea may have been treated as a launch setting when it could be a durable way to discover make-up.

The campaign account published on September 8 says the café ran on September 5 and 6 at Carter Road, pairing art crayons with the new Lakmē 9to5 Forever Matte Lip Crayon. Guests customised keepsakes, made charms, had caricatures drawn and explored the product range before taking home a kit. Those are reported details, not evidence of sales uplift or long-term loyalty. No public conversion, footfall or repeat-purchase results are supplied, and I will not invent them.

The point of play is not to look playful

Lakmē’s own positioning has long connected 9to5 with the working Indian woman. The café translated that into an after-hours ‘5-to-9’ pause. This is more precise than another generic empowerment line: it gives the customer a different relationship to colour after work. Instead of asking her to perform confidence, it allows a small, ungraded act of making.

The campaign account also describes photo-worthy moments. That is sensible for earned reach, but it creates a familiar trap. If the best part of an activation is the background against which a visitor photographs herself, the brand has bought a stage, not necessarily a new behaviour. The difficult question is what a guest learned about shade, finish, comfort or self-expression that a normal counter could not teach.

This is my interpretation, not a claim about how Lakmē judged the event internally. I would ask the team to separate three outcomes: content created during the weekend, product understanding at the moment of trial, and a reason to revisit colour later. The first may be visible on social media; the other two require deliberate design and consented measurement.

A better second act: make the sketch useful

The new crayon is presented on Lakmē’s product page as a retractable colour product with line-and-blur or full-fill uses and a 20-shade range. Those are brand descriptions rather than independently verified performance claims. Yet the application difference gives the café a powerful learning mechanic: let a visitor draw two marks on paper, then try the equivalent soft and saturated looks on herself, with a mirror and lighting that resemble her actual day.

The paper should not be a disposable prop. It can become a take-home colour card: the customer marks the shade name, how she wore it and when she would choose it again. A companion digital card would be opt-in, not an automatic data capture. This does two commercial jobs at once. It makes product comparison easier and gives the brand a legitimate reason to follow up only if the customer asks.

I would also stop treating every ‘creative’ action as equal. A charm may make a charming souvenir; a caricature may be enjoyable. But neither necessarily helps someone choose among lip colours. The strongest stations would connect a form of play to a form of product judgement: layering, blending, contrast against clothing, or testing colour in daylight rather than showroom light.

From a weekend to a repeatable retail language

The most interesting proposal is not to recreate Carter Road in every mall. It is to reduce the idea to a portable kit that beauty advisers can run in a store, college neighbourhood or workplace-adjacent setting: blank cards, safe sampling tools, two lighting conditions and a brief conversation about occasion and comfort. A customer should be able to enter and leave in minutes without being made to feel that an art workshop is compulsory.

That change matters because beauty retail is often organised around fast shade selection. A playful service can slow the right moment without slowing the queue. It can also give advisers a common vocabulary: ‘soft line’, ‘full colour’, ‘evening change’ is more useful than an arbitrary personality quiz. The sale remains a possibility, not the premise of the exercise.

The business test should be modest and credible. Compare a participating store with a matched counter, track shade-trial completion, whether a customer takes a card, and whether she returns with it; if consent is given, follow the subsequent purchase path. Record what did not work, too: time spent, sample wastage and adviser burden. An attractive activation becomes a retail capability only when it can survive those ordinary conditions.

The cultural question underneath it

There is a difference between offering women a creative pause and turning ‘self-care’ into another task to complete beautifully. The café’s reported invitation to put the phone down is valuable precisely because it resists performance. A design system that rewards imperfect marks, allows private trial and does not require a selfie would honour that premise more fully.

Indian beauty brands have spent years telling customers that make-up expresses identity. The next competitive advantage may be making experimentation less public and less consequential. Colour can be tried without a verdict. A customer might leave with no purchase but with a better sense of what works. That is a relationship worth building.

India-specific questions

Was the Crayon Café a permanent retail format?

No. The published campaign account describes a September 5–6 activation at Carter Road, Mumbai. A permanent or recurring store format is my proposal, not a reported Lakmē programme.

How could an Indian beauty brand measure a play-led activation?

Measure more than photographs and reach: compare shade-trial completion, adviser time, opt-in preference cards, sample use and return visits. Do not infer sales impact from social engagement alone; publish the measurement method before claiming an effect.

Should every visitor be asked for contact details?

No. The sketch and product lesson should work anonymously. A digital follow-up can be offered after the activity, with a clear choice and a real benefit such as remembering a preferred shade.

For a contrasting view of speed-led beauty, see our Thirty-Minute Beauty commentary. The two pieces ask different questions: whether access should be faster, and whether discovery should be more generous.

This analysis represents my opinion, based on public campaign and product information; Afternoon was not involved in the launch. If you lead a beauty or retail team and want to turn a one-off colour activation into a testable store experience, write to Afternoon with the customer moment you want to improve.