Our Story
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I've always been of the mindset that "Less is more", mainly because I'm not a big fan of clutter. This forced me to be conscientious of my carbon footprint in all facets of life. I realized there was a whole lot more I could be contributing to health and wellness being educated as a Scientist and knowing the chemistry and delivery of compounds. It was like a chain reaction and one thing led to another from encouraging friends and family to read the label and educate them on sequence of ingredients and how it plays a huge role and ask themselves why add so many ingredients when they are not needed to thinking about making products that could do the task of 2 others just like myself and all those parents out there. In preparation towards my journey as an entrepreneur from the corporate world where I received projects through word of mouth and was the chemist behind formulation of skincare for some big name brands like Jack Black, Obagi, Revision Skincare, Elta MD, Joan Rivers, Image Skincare, Art of Shaving, Rocket Pure, Lily of the Desert, Freeman Beauty to name a few, it was a tough decision for me but family support and my strong will power to make a change was a game-shifter. In 2011, I quit my full time R&D Scientist job and out of my laundry room using hand me down mixer and beakers, started working on building SkinVeda. Being mindful of waste, I looked to create multi-tasking products that were performance based, yet with small ingredient decks of carefully hand-selected botanical ingredients from sustainable sources. My love for Ayurveda started early on as a young girl being born in an east indian family where herbs like turmeric, neem, amla, coconut were common household staples. I used to have fun mixing things up and applying on my face and always wanted to grow up to be a Cosmetic Chemist. Ayurveda had all the answers. Before I could know what to apply on my son's skin, I had to know the source of the problem, and his dosha (mind-body constitution). Being his mother, I knew everything about him. But the tough question was how to give the same experience to my customers? I designed a quiz; almost like a personality quiz, except that this was targeted to find all imbalances in your body (Vikriti - a sanskrit word) due to your lifestyle, stress levels, what you eat, and suggest based on the outcome what you need to help balance using the right mix of herbs and oils for your skin. In 2013, Skinveda was complete and ready to be presented! My first retailer was Whole Foods - a huge milestone for such a small company like myself. But they say hard work pays off and being at the right place at the right time. It also came down to Necessity - they wanted an Ayurvedic line that performed and created by a local chemist with over 15 years of experience and then once they felt these products they were sold! Lesson learned in life - As we take baby steps to continue our journey making more concerted eco-friendly efforts, SkinVeda has a taken a notch higher by eliminating excessive water purification that consume lot of electricity, using potent herbs, not testing on animals, being vegan, cruelty free, and gluten free. All this being said, we still have a long way to go, and I am committed to doing my part to responsibly make ethical, time-tested, holistic products where science and nature are in harmony.
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They say Necessity is the mother of invention and Skinveda grew out of a personal need. It all started when my son was diagnosed with childhood eczema, and was suffering from dry, irritated skin. As a trained R&D scientist, I was reluctant to use the recommended standard (petrolatum) occlusive. I researched to look for bio-identical compounds similar to the leading anti-histamines. After a couple of months of researching, a soothing Replenishing serum, was born. My son experienced a dramatic and quick resolution to his skin issues and this spurred me to look more into how to further integrate this knowledge and approach.