Indian D2C beauty brands have figured out that no press release travels faster than a controlled scare.
On Friday, April 25, Hyphen — the skincare brand co-founded by actor Kriti Sanon — published a solemn Instagram post announcing that Sanon was stepping down as its Chief Customer Officer.
“This is not a statement we make lightly. After careful study, we believe that this should be addressed honestly. The road ahead represents a tremendous transition. Certain painful but important decisions were taken. With that, we publicly announce that Kriti Sanon is no longer functioning as our Chief Customer Officer.”
The post was subsequently deleted — but not before it had done its job.
Fans and customers flooded Hyphen’s DMs. Speculation ran immediately: some tied the move to Sanon’s upcoming film Cocktail 2, others wondered whether the brand was headed for an acquisition or a rebrand. Several outlets published straight-news coverage of the “exit.” What none of them reported — until now — is how the story actually ends.
Hyphen had been building toward a product launch the entire time.
On Saturday, the brand posted a video of Sanon dressed in a police officer uniform, designating her “SPF Police” — a character with, per the caption, “zero tolerance for skipping sunscreen.”
On Sunday, the full commercial dropped: a Blinkit-partnered ad in which Sanon, still in cop character, confronts a young woman heading outdoors without sunscreen. The girl opens Blinkit on her phone and orders one on the spot.
Alongside the commercial, Hyphen posted a clarification that closed the loop.
“Kriti Sanon is, has been & will always be our CCO. In fact, she’s now adding another title to the list — Chief SPF Officer. Thank you for all the love, panic, messages & overflowing concern in our DMs over the last two days. Honestly, we were overwhelmed (and slightly entertained). She’s NEVER going anywhere.”
The stunt landed because Sanon is not a passive endorser at Hyphen — she is structurally embedded in the brand.
Kriti Sanon co-founded it in July 2023 alongside PEP Technologies, launching on her 33rd birthday and positioning the brand as a personal entrepreneurial bet, not a licensing deal. CEO Tarun Sharma has said the company crossed ₹400 crore in revenue within two years, reaching four million consumers across 19,000 pin codes, with a 60% repeat customer rate. Products are priced between ₹449 and ₹649, available D2C and on Myntra, Nykaa, Amazon, Flipkart, and Blinkit.
That foundation is exactly what made the fake exit believable.
Audiences have been conditioned to see celebrity founders drift away once brands reach scale. A carefully worded “painful decision” post didn’t immediately read as theatre — it read as a founder quietly backing out. That credibility is a brand asset Hyphen just spent, and whether the payoff — a sunscreen launch with Blinkit quick-commerce distribution — was worth it will show in the numbers.
Not everyone found the two-day scare entertaining. Some customers felt genuinely misled, with one commenter writing that the announcement left them feeling “that connection is gone.”
Whether the SPF Police ad converts more than it alienates is the actual metric to watch. For now, Kriti Sanon has two C-suite titles and a Blinkit integration. The CCO isn’t going anywhere — she’s just got a new beat to police.
