Mother-daughter led Raipur-based beauty and wellness brand offers organic products from farm to finish
Set up by a mother-daughter duo, RAS Luxury Oils’ range of wellness products made from natural, plant-based ingredients has found its way to luxury hotels and online portals.
At a glance
Startup: RAS Luxury Oils
Founders: Shubhika Jain and Sangeeta Jain
Year it was founded: 2017
Where is it based: Raipur
The problem it solves: The brand offers a range of therapeutic skincare and wellness products made from natural, plant-based ingredients.
Sector: Beauty & Wellness
Funding raised: Bootstrapped
Organic may be the buzzword in the wellness industry, but not all organic is actually organic.
“The main challenge in the natural and organic wellness industry is educating customers about the benefits of using 100 percent natural products. Just how what you eat affects you; similarly, what you apply to your body is absorbed and slowly starts accumulating in tissues,” says Shubhika Jain, Co-founder of RAS Luxury Oils.
RAS Luxury Oils claims that its products are made from ingredients that are only natural, vegan, cruelty-free, and are free of synthetic fragrances, additives, alcohol, wax, silicon, and parabens.
Shubhika highlights that the brand uses organic essential oils and cold-pressed virgin oils to give consumers the best therapeutic grade oils.
The beauty and wellness brand offers face oils, body oils, body polishes, pure essential oils, pure plant oils, face & body spritz, and miniatures, among others.
The brand caters to a niche clientele, satisfying individualistic tastes. RAS is distributing and marketing the products via selective 5-star hotels and salons. RAS products are available at the luxurious spas of St. Regis Hotel in Mumbai, Four Seasons Hotel Mumbai, Park Hyatt Hyderabad, and Mirrors & Within- UB City Mall Bengaluru, and Shangri-La Bengaluru.
The brand is also in the B2B space as it manufactures products with ingredients from its own cultivation along with an oil extraction unit and R&D lab in Raipur, Chhattisgarh.
Focusing on quality products
“Ours is a completely vertically integrated process. The cultivation, oil extraction, formulation, bottling, packaging, shipping, marketing etc. – it’s all in-house. We are the first farm-to-face venture in India,” Shubhika claims.
In an endeavour to offer high-quality products, the beauty and wellness company has a completely vertically integrated process from cultivation to oil extraction to hand blending in small batches in its own DSIR-approved lab in Raipur, to bottling after a quality check. This gives the company maximum control over the quality of products. The raw materials are grown in their own family estate or ethically sourced (fair trade) from farmers across the globe.
A family-backed venture
Shubhika (23), an alumnus of Lady Shri Ram College, joined her family business in 2015. She looked after the aromatic oil division with the existing farms and oil extraction unit.
Sangeeta, 50, Shubhika’s mother, is the Co-founder and inspiration behind the brand. Her passion for plants and love for gardening led her to set up her own garden centre and nursery, The Mango Tree. She also had set up a computer centre and an Abacus learning centre for children in the early 2000s.
Shubhika says: “I was looking for high-performance completely natural, preservative-free, vegan skincare products for my mother and really couldn’t find one. It struck me that there is no brand in India that focuses on organic, luxury oil-based skincare and wellness products, manufactured by them from farm to bottle.”
She and her mother used to create a few concoctions for personal use. This made them realise the need for a brand that would give the consumer 100 percent natural products. The mother-daughter duo started product development in their R&D Lab with the existing team of scientists to create natural and organic skincare/wellness products.
For this, they leveraged strong research and their existing presence in the industry as manufacturers and suppliers of raw materials to many brands in the wellness and skincare space in India and abroad.
Vertically integrated process
Shubhika feels their brand’s USP is that the products are handmade in their vertically integrated farm: cultivation, oil extraction, formulation, bottling, packaging, shipping, and marketing.
“Both me and my mother have attended various conferences on aromatherapy, skincare and taken courses to learn more,” she says.
Apart from that, the duo participates in exhibitions and expos in India and abroad to keep pace with the latest trends in natural skincare, cultivation, and application.
Shailendra Jain, 51, Shubhika’s father is the advisor to RAS Luxury Oils. Shailendra, a businessman with a background in the education sector (as the Secretary of Mahanadi Education Society with RITEE Group of Institutes, he helps in running seven colleges and a day boarding school in Raipur) and agri-biotechnology, defines the roadmap for technology and business in Raipur.
He led the development of ABLR (Adithya Biotech Lab & Research) and transitioned a plant tissue culture laboratory into the diversified field of plant biotechnology like Aditya Seeds, ABARD – R&D Unit, Aditya Aroma, Aditya Fiber.
Suramya, 21, Shubhika’s younger sister, is studying design in the UK and is the brand’s creative director. She looks after social media and content creation.
Plans for the future
Launched earlier this year, Shubhika highlights that the brand has been concentrating on tie-ups with luxury five-star hotels and hopes to generate sizeable revenue by the end of FY 17-18.
The bootstrapped startup is backed by a team of 15 people, including in production, administration, marketing, web, and R&D. The brand aims to tie up with JW Marriott & Ritz Carlton Bengaluru, JW Marriott Delhi, Roseate House Delhi, Grand Hyatt Kochi, Grand Hyatt Mumbai, and also in Grand Hyatt Hong Kong and Four Seasons Hong Kong.
“Our brand definitely has received good traction with many repeat and loyal clients who love our products. We have grown to three countries – India, Hong Kong, and Dubai – and are expanding our retail channels. We have also participated in International Organic and Beauty Expos in Hong Kong and Dubai, and are expanding our presence internationally as well,” Shubhika reveals.
Apart from offline, the brand is also concentrating on building a strong online presence and is present on popular online portals like Nykaa and Amazon India, along with its own portal.