Ten women entrepreneurs providing a platform to pamper yourself
The beauty and wellness industry is a high growth sector. The last few years have seen high end salons, spa and beauty service providers mushroom across the country. In fact, the revenue growth in the industry is expected to increase by 3.3 per cent annually through 2017 according to SBDCNet.
Many women have been successfully contributing to this sector, be it through products or services. Some of the veterans include names like Shahnaz Husain, Vandana Luthra, etc. Over the years, many women have also taken to manufacturing skin, hair, and wellness products that are in high demand with spa and salons such as Skin yoga, SeaSoul Cosmecuticals, etc. Adding to the list are a chain of service providers that have set shops across many cities in India and these include Naturals, YLG, etc. In a city like Bangalore, places like Body & Craft rule the roost.
There are people with hectic lifestyle and disposable incomes who are looking to either detox, rejuvenation, or just want some relaxation. While the demand of such services is high everyone wants these services at their ease and convenience too. So here is a quick look at 10 women entrepreneurs who are beckoning you to pamper yourself now.
1. VanityCube
Renu launched VanityCube with Pragya. Renu is a computer science graduate from JNTU, Hyderabad, and a MBA from Symbiosis, Pune, while Pragya is the alumnus of St. Xavier’s, Mumbai, and XIMR, Mumbai.
VanityCube was started with a personal need of getting affordable and quality beauty services due to time crunch. Delhi-based VanityCube caters to delivering on demand professional and affordable beauty services at your doorstep within 90 minutes. As Uber aims to be everybody’s private driver, similarly VanityCube wants to be every woman’s private stylist and use it regularly. Other than the online services, customers can also book appointments over the phone. The company also has a mobile app for an efficient mobile facing customer interface and robust backend. The company earns commission on every transaction.VanityCube is presently operational in NCR, Mumbai, and Delhi.
Working women hardly find time for personal grooming sessions. Salon visits are often confined to weekends that take away their leisure time. Housed in Mumbai, Rishika Chandan faced the same situation and started the home salon. Aiming to replicate the salon in your home, they provide professional therapists who are well trained. According to many customers, salon provides a sense of relaxation which they don’t attain from home services. The Home Salon aims to change this by offering the client with a beverage of her choice or carrying spa/aroma candles to every service. They also offer spa parties for women to give them some time out. Spa corners in kitty parties, bridal showers, or just a party at home are also organised by the home salon.
3. BigStylist
Located in Mumbai, BigStylist was founded by Richa Singh. Richa obtained her bachelor’s degree from IIT Kharagpur. While pursuing the course and even after graduation, she realised that one of the biggest problems for girls is the lack of access to affordable and decent parlours.
Prior to BigStylist, Richa worked as a business analyst and a consultant at Capital One and Oliver Wyman, respectively. BigStylist is an on-demand marketplace for beauty professionals. It gives easy access to the network of certified beauty professionals in one’s neighbourhood. It aims to offer the best beauty services in the comfort of your own home, on your own schedule, and from carefully curated beauticians in your locality.
4. Belita
Belita is a Spanish word which means ‘little beauty’. Garima Jain founded the company in late 2010 because of a personal pain point. She did her masters from ISB, Hyderabad. Belita has a team of more than 50 beauticians on its platform. Garima wanted to empower women both as consumers and suppliers. With the easy access to beauticians and the increase in the population of working women, the supply was not a challenge. Belita claims to have a full-stack service provider delivering seamless experience to the customers.
The level of standardisation Belita provides is the reason behind their high repeat ratio. They are presently operational in Mumbai and Pune.
5. Shahnaz Husain
Born in a royal Muslim family, Shahnaz Husain got married at the age of 16 and gave birth to a daughter within a year. During her husband’s posting in Iran, she realised her passion for beauty and cosmetology. She worked in institutes such as Helena Rubinstein, Arnould Taylor, Schwarzkopf, Christine Valmy, Lancome and Lean of Copenhagen and supported her education by writing for the Iran Tribune.
She observed the harmful effects of chemical treatments and was thus attracted by the ancient practice of Ayurveda.
She started her salon with a budget of Rs 35,000 in Delhi and was booked for six months in advance. She believed in the word of mouth publicity by satisfied customers. Shahnaz expanded her consumer base by entering the retail markets in 1990’s.Her below Rs 250 range is targeted towards the masses. The Shahnaz group has diversified into health resorts, spas, and low calorie health drinks. The Shahnaz Husain Group has over 400 franchise clinics across the world covering over 138 countries.
6. SeaSoul
From an engineer to a make-up artist to an entrepreneur, Manisha Chopra is the Co-Founder of SeaSoul Cosmeceuticals, which started in 2012 and is located in New Delhi.
Her qualification as an engineer along with her study of chemistry and mathematics have aided her to pursue her passion for cosmetics. SeaSoul offers a range of skincare products made from sea salt, mud, and minerals and is free of harmful chemicals. It provides a variety of products such as facial care masks, polishes, creams, cleansing and toning lotions, bath salts, healing candles, kits and hair treatment serums. She aims to increase the product range and scale up the presence to extend her business model from B2B to B2C in the near future.
7. Spa.Ce
Nina Bual is a British born Punjabi. She and her sisters started working at the age of 15. She has worked in a variety of sectors including Boots the Chemist, McDonalds and, after University, she pursued a career in advertising sales in London. After eight years, she came back to India from UK to pursue her dream. Nina founded SPA.ce which is an organic spa in Bangalore. She launched a new brand called Chamki which falls into four spectra: Badtameez, Teaz Churi, Dulhaniya, and Masti to customise the nail art according to different festivals and occasions. They are present on the e-commerce platforms like Myntra and Snap Deal and offline with Shoppers Stop and Reliance Trends.
8. Nomadic Spalon
Founded by Seema Nanda, Nomadic Spalon is a travelling spa and salon. It provides spa and salon treatments to your home. Her mother owned a spa and salon in Hyderabad. After completing her education, Seema moved into the hospitality industry and moved to Delhi. She worked with Intercontinental, Radisson, The Park, etc. To cut down the monotony, Seema quit her job and began to train in hair and skin care and got certified as a spa consultant from Core Wellness Ltd.
Nomadic offers special services to elderly people unlike most beauty salons that offer the same services to older clients that they do to younger clients. From doing hair, nails, face, etc., to treating their back or headaches with therapeutic massages, the team takes care of nearly everything for its clients. Not limiting the services to old people living in individual houses, they also provide for those staying in old age homes. They provide services in Noida and NCR regions.
9. The SkinYoga
SkinYoga is a 100% natural skin care brand owned by three sisters namely Radhika Choudhary, Jagriti Choudhary, and Deepika Choudhary.
Radhika gets to the interiors of a country to source the purest and the most premium quality ingredients. She showcases the practical market research and know-how from her nomadic lifestyle.
Jagriti has an in-depth knowledge in finance and economics and is the business brain of SkinYoga and ensures that the product reaches through reliable channels. Deepika is responsible for branding and creating visuals. Since childhood, they were exposed to natural remedies for fever, cough, etc. Living a chemical-free life and applying the same to their venture, they created solutions for people to adopt a natural lifestyle. They have been trained to identify unadulterated ingredients through their taste, texture, smell, and shape. Being an online venture, SkinYoga does retail its products through select boutiques.
10. Nykaa
Falguni Nayyar graduated from IIM, Ahmedabad, and spent 19 years as an investment banker and a broker with the Kotak Mahindra Group. Her past interactions with a number of successful entrepreneurs motivated her to pursue an entrepreneurial journey.
Nykaa.com is a Mumbai based venture which is an e-commerce store that is focussed on beauty and wellness products. It offers a varied catalogue for customers to select products that suit each and every concern. The store has been created with a lot of advice and concern-based selection for products. In order to help the clients with advices regarding which product to buy, there is a separate section called the ‘BeautyBook,’ which features product reviews, tips, and tricks on applying the right makeup and guidance on choosing the right products.
“Beauty sector is one of the sectors which is tremendously growing. Being a woman myself, I get a lot of satisfaction when I help people in making them feel beautiful which in turn helps them gain confidence to be who they are. And this is what we do at the beauty industry. If you consider mompreneurs or different roles of women, this is something they can do sitting at home not necessarily being a part of corporate. There are so many options available such as owning a salon or working part time with a cosmetic company,” says Manisha Chopra, Co-Founder of SeaSoul Cosmeceuticals.
(Image credit – shutterstock)