Customise your own beauty product

Still struggling to decipher which shampoo would lend sheen to your hair or which face cream would suit your skin better? Wondering why none of the products give you the desired result? This is because each person has their individual needs that none of off-the-shelf products can fully cater to and fulfil. Just as you would look out of place if your clothes not stitched according to your shape and size, beauty products need to be customised too.  

To fill this void in the beauty & cosmetics market, a few enterprising entrepreneurs have set up bespoke brands. And, the huge traffic they are receiving is enough indication that this trend is here to stay. Indians may be new to bespoke beauty products, but it is well-accepted abroad. “It is a mature industry in the US, and I am confident, we too are heading that way,” says Rohit Chawla, Co-founder, Bare Anatomy, a customised hair and skincare brand. “What you pick up from the store doesn’t always do the trick. Sometimes, it just falls flat despite the presence of those ‘special’ ingredients that promise to cater to your concern,” he says. 

Chaitanya Nallan, spokesperson, SkinKraft, informs that the company was born out of two undeniable truths. First: to rescue women caught in an unrewarding cycle of experimentation in the quest to find good skincare products. Second: to avoid churning out generic formulations in the mass market. “Customisation is how the business started back in the day,” informs Chawla, adding, “With mass production, we lost the essence of what is good. You produce in bulk with ample preservatives so that the supply chain can sell it for at least three years. This way is profitable, but doesn’t serve the purpose.”

Developing formulas
Chawla and Nallan’s companies have devised methods of fine-tuning formulas with online quizzes and one-on-one consultations. A customer must first take a quick quiz on the website. While the quiz is intuitive enough to create the product your skin/hair needs, you can also avail  of online and personalised consultations with dermatologists. Each product is prepared after analysing a customer’s hair texture, scalp type, lifestyle, diet, etc.

A team of hair experts and scientists then create a special formula, unique to each individual. You can even pick the colour, fragrance, and a name for your product! Both brands use hi-end technology to innovate and disrupt the industry. And the results are showing. Chawla says they saw four fold increase in 2020, while Nallan says they got 3.5 million Skin Id’s (the backbone of the AI involved in creating customised products). “We have even hit two orders per minute and 15,000 orders in a day,” says Nallan.

Products you can customise
Hair care: Pre-shampoo mask, shampoo and conditioner
Skin care: face wash, day cream, night cream, cleaners, and moisturiser