Eight entrepreneurs bin preservatives and turn to the environment to create luscious bath and beauty products that smell and feel good enough to eat
Beer shampoo bar
Harini Sivakumar
After Harini Sivakumar’s mother passed away from cancer, she decided to reexamine the products she was using and what she put onto her body. She started out making soaps with natural ingredients.
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The response — she sold 400 bars in a month — led her to start SoapWorks in July 2015. “Many people who are keen on using natural products but don’t know what suits them, their body or skin type. I decided that instead of making normal soaps, I will tailor them to skin types,” she says, adding that she intends to start selling cosmetics soon.
The Gurgaon-based entrepreneur makes handmade, natural, 100 per cent chemical free, paraben-free products — soaps, shampoo bars, body scrubs and lotions, conditioners, lotion bars and even a sunscreen. The soaps are made using oils like avocado, coconut, almond, palm and sunflower. Sivakumar doesn’t use food extracts, but looks at botanicals to help add colour to herher soaps. She has recently started using Indian and Ayurvedic ingredients like gram flour.
Choose from baby goat’s milk soaps, strawberry vanilla sugar scrub, vanilla sugar body wash, apple cider vinegar shampoo bar, passionfruit and rose lip balm and dried rose petal soap.
Call: 7042514128
Log on to: soapworksindia.com
Cost: 250 to 999
Shefali Shah & Karishma Gupta
Friends Shefali Shah and Karishma Gupta, are behind the handmade brand Bliscent. “We loved using Bath and Body Works and Bodyshop, so we thought why not start creating our own luxury body products,” says Shefali.
Cupcake soap
The duo started with five products and now have 13, including soaps, body mousse, hair oil, lip butters, hair oils, hair masks and scrubs.
Karishma and Shefali
The duo uses natural ingredients — walnut shell powder, ground almonds, orange peel powder, coffee, sugar, almond oil and chocolate.
Choose from candied apple or coffee bean soap bars, watermelon lip butter, peppermint foot soak, walnut and tea tree face scrub, strawberry body polish, cake frosting lip scrub and vanilla body mousse.
Log on to: Bliscent.com
Cost: '150 to '350
Manissha Dutta Chohan
It was after the birth of her first child that Manissha Dutta Chohan, 36, decided she needed to go natural and organic. “Since this was for my daughter, I thought it was safer to make it myself. The soaps are handmade and use natural ingredients,” she says.
Honey and oats soap (right) Peppermint bath salt
Cape of Good Soap (COGS), launched last February, sells bath products, salts and creams featuring fruit peels and extracts, essential oils, herbs, lavender and Himalayan red salt; they can be customised according to skin type, requirement or even a theme.
Choose from a chocolate scrub, coffee with carbon soap, a rose and wine or banana and coconut scrub, salt soap bars, or bamboo charcoal soap with citronella and sage.
Call: 9004955557
Log on to: facebook.com/capeofgoodsoap
Cost: From '190 (soap), '250 (salts), '300 (scrubs)
Mallyeka Watsa & Himani Singh
It was Mallyeka Watsa’s grandmother who created recipes for homemade, natural products. Last year, she and her friend Himani Singh decided to start producing these products under the name Ayca. “We blend different essential oils based on Ayurveda and aromatherapy processes to create bathing creams, lotions and balms,” says Watsa.
Ayca sells 25 products including body wash, body lotion, oils, balms, cleansers and creams. These are made using plant and fruit essences, without chemicals or preservatives. Choose from a bergamot-cardamom-ginger body oil, ylang ylang body cream for pregnant mothers and an oudh wood body wash.
Mallyeka and Himani
Log on to: ayca.in
Cost: '650 to '1,650
Dr Roma Thadani
“There is a great need for natural home therapies, especially for those interested in going chemical-free,” says Dr Roma Thadani, who founded Splurge Cosmetics in 2014. “All our ingredients are straight from our kitchen. We also add aromatherapy oils. It isn’t just about fragrance but efficacy, too.”
Splurge’s range of products. Pic/Shadab Khan
Splurge has 12 products — body butter, scrubs and lotion, conditioners, hair oil and shampoo, shower gels, face wash and soaps. All are PETA-approved, vegan, free of parabens, sulphates and chemical preservatives.
Choose from grapefruit lemongrass soap; a hair conditioner made of avocado oil and basil; saffron and honey shower gel, and a wheatgerm moisturiser.
Log on to: splurgecosmetics.com
Cost: '220 to '720
Dr Mohit Bhatia
“My wife and I are particular about our skin care routine, so we created our own line of products that is free of SLS, phthalates, parabens, mineral oils and artificial fragrances,” says the Delhi-based Dr Mohit Bhatia, who started Fuschia in October 2013. The base of the products is shea butter, aloe vera, grapeseed oil and pomegranate extract, and infused with fruity and floral fragrances.
They sell soaps, lip balms, creams, moisturisers, serums, mud masks, body mists, gels, facepacks and bath salts Choose from rose water and Dead Sea-minerals serum, activated charcoal scrub, orange and avocado moisturiser, clay herbal soap, and a calendula face gel.
Log on to: Vkarebiosciences.com
Cost: Starts at '225
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