Beauty launches – Hair,Skin,Fragrances

Founder’s Club: Megha Asher, Juicy Chemistry

Meet Megha Asher who founded indie beauty brand Juicy Chemistry along with spouse and co-partner Pritesh. JC was was born when Megha herself battling hair and skin issues related to PCOD found that the ‘safe’ organic brand she picked up was actually loaded with synthetic c petrochemicals I often have one of Juicy Chemistry products…

Valmont: The luxury Swiss skincare brand is in India

Valmont is a highly storied, luxury skincare care brand coming from a Swiss clinic legacy that goes back to the 1900’s.  Yes, Coco Chanel went there, so did Ingrid Bergman. The brand’s luxury skincare retail line based on the clinic’s protocols and experience, was born in the 1980’s and Valmont has over a 100 products…

Lip balm anyone ?

For lip balm lovers here is a Chennai based brand dedicated to lips and lip balms alone. At least for now . Lip balms have always been popular and have scaled up to being hybrid blends balancing flavour, tints and therapeutic goodness. A win win for lip balm fans and of course this is a…

Founder’s Club: ilana Organics Nikita Deshpande

”The biggest pain point for women today is the abundance of choice in beauty but lack of awareness/ knowledge to be able to navigate through this” Nikita Deshpande, Co founder ilana organics A tree called ilana “Ilana” means to be like a tree in Hebrew. That is anything that possesses the quality of a tree….

Bakuchiol -the phyto retinol skin care alternative

This article of mine appeared in the Mint on Babchi or Bakuchiol which is Natural Retinol and has been known as a skin healer in Ayurveda for a long time . I  am posting the text here .  `If the adaptogen ashwagandha was the trending herb in the beauty and wellness world for the last…

Kansa – Ayurvedic, ‘Vedic’ or just hyped?

Kansa is as old as the hills or as old as the Bronze Age. It is a kind of bronze, an alloy of copper and tin and has been used for centuries in India for cooking and serving food.  Kansa is recognized by its clear sound and temple bells are usually made of kansa which…

Mittee – born from the Earth

Yashica Keswani, the founder of Mittee cosmetics had me at the names Ixchel and Yemaya. I loved her brand back story – she has looked at Earth Goddesses from different cultures for inspiration and woven  this into a range of skin care products. So there is Ixchel from Mexico, Yemaya from Nigeria, Rateeh from Indonesia…

Can local seaweed and algae be a multi million dollar opportunity for India’s beauty&health industry ?

I recently posted my breakfast of boiled egg and vinegared indrayani rice rolled and wrapped in a nori sheet on Instagram and a friend commented “Too fancy!” Blame it on fancy Japanese restaurants but her comment got me thinking. Why aren’t we more sold on seaweed and sea vegetables and why should it be just expensive…

My A2K salad : for all the vitamins you need

I am not a believer in vitamin supplements and when  I saw a documentary  on vitamins and where  synthetic vitamins that are in our supplements came from, this reinforced my view. The reality is that we don’t need massive amounts of vitamins in our system (unless you are massively deficient in one or the other…