Vijay Deverakonda Spent Nine Months Testing His Own Skincare Brand On His Face Before Launching It

Celebrity skincare launches usually follow a familiar script: a star lends their name and face to a product line someone else formulated, a few Instagram posts go out, and the brand lives or dies on the strength of that one endorsement. Vijay Deverakonda’s new venture, Unhype, is positioning itself as the opposite of that script — and the nine months he reportedly spent testing the products on his own skin before launch is the detail doing most of the work to make that case.

Unhype officially launched on September 11, 2026, with pre-bookings opening the same day and shipping scheduled to begin September 21. Here’s what the brand actually offers, what makes the development story different, and why it’s landing at a particularly active moment for India’s skincare market.

What Unhype Actually Is

Unhype is a unisex, functional skincare brand co-founded and co-built by Deverakonda, aimed specifically at consumers between 18 and 30. The brand’s tagline, “No BS. Only What Works,” sets the tone for its positioning: simple routines, science-backed formulations, transparent claims, and pricing that doesn’t try to pass itself off as premium just because a celebrity is attached.

Rather than launching a sprawling product catalogue, Unhype is starting narrow. At launch, it offers two “VD Signature Routines,” each a three-step regimen built around a face wash, moisturiser, and sunscreen. The Acne Safe routine targets oily, acne-prone skin, while the Brightening routine is built for tan and dullness — two of the most commonly searched skincare concerns among young Indian consumers.

How Deverakonda Describes His Own Involvement

What separates this launch from a typical celebrity-fronted brand is the specificity of Deverakonda’s own account of building it. Speaking about how the project came together, he said: “A year ago, I met a team that had its own R&D and manufacturing facilities, and what stood out to me was that they wanted me to be involved in building the brand, not just be the face of it.”

He’s been equally direct about the testing process itself: “I tried every single version on my own face. Nine months later, here we are. No BS. Only what works. I’ve been using these for months — now it’s time for you to join me.” According to the brand, that testing period covered successive formulation versions, with Deverakonda actively involved in refining them rather than approving a finished product handed to him.

One account of the brand’s origin traces it back further than the past year — reportedly, the idea grew out of years of fans asking Deverakonda about his own skincare routine, which eventually pushed him to explore building something of his own rather than simply answering the question repeatedly in interviews.

Pricing And What’s Actually In The Box

Each VD Signature Routine is priced at ₹1,299, covering all three products in that regimen. That pricing sits in an accessible middle ground — not a budget drugstore price point, but well below what most “clinical” or import-heavy Indian skincare brands charge for a comparable three-step routine.

The sunscreen across both routines uses new-generation UV filters specifically developed with Indian skin tones in mind, which matters given how often sunscreen formulated for other markets leaves a visible white cast on deeper skin tones. The products overall are described as dermatologically tested and formulated around conditions Indian users actually deal with daily: heat, humidity, sweat, sun exposure, pollution, and hard water — rather than being adapted from a formulation built for a different climate entirely.

A few reports also note that Unhype’s website currently lists coloured contact lenses in five shades at ₹399 a pair, along with six liquid eyeshadow shades, suggesting the brand may be expanding slightly beyond core skincare even at this early stage, though the primary launch focus remains the two skincare routines.

Why This Fits Into A Bigger Pattern For Deverakonda

Unhype isn’t Deverakonda’s first venture outside acting. He previously launched RWDY Wear, a youth-focused fashion label that debuted on Myntra in 2020, runs his own production house, King of the Hill Entertainment, and co-owns the Hyderabad Black Hawks volleyball team. Taken together, Unhype reads less like an opportunistic brand deal and more like the next step in a pattern of Deverakonda building and co-owning ventures tied to his own audience, rather than simply renting out his face for a licensing fee.

That distinction is increasingly relevant in how Indian consumers evaluate celebrity-linked products. A star attaching their name to something they clearly didn’t build has become an easy thing for audiences to see through; a founder who can describe formulation decisions and testing timelines in detail is a different, more credible pitch — whether or not it was always this way by design.

Where This Lands In India’s Skincare Market

Unhype is entering a market that’s already shifting fast. Indian consumers have been moving steadily toward ingredient-led skincare and multi-step routines, a trend heavily influenced by sustained interest in Korean beauty formulations and the broader global skinification wave. A functional, no-frills brand built specifically for Indian climate conditions — rather than imported and adapted after the fact — is a reasonable bet on where that demand is heading next.

Whether Unhype can sustain interest once the initial founder-story buzz settles will come down to the same thing every skincare brand eventually gets judged on: whether the Acne Safe and Brightening routines actually deliver results for the skin types and conditions they’re built around. For now, the brand has at least made an unusually specific, testable claim — nine months of a visible public figure testing the product on his own face — that gives early buyers something more concrete to go on than a glossy campaign alone.

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