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AAVRANI Founder Rooshy Roy Interview · Skin Anarchy

0:20
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to L4.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: Available now.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: We did premature.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: Have the banner or visit this episode's page to learn more.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: Hi guys, welcome back to another episode of Skincare Anarchy.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: This is your host, Ekta, and today I have an awesome guest with me today.
0:44
SPEAKER_02: Her name is Rushi Roy.
0:46
SPEAKER_02: She is the founder and CEO of Avrani Beauty and Avrani Skin Care.
0:51
SPEAKER_02: And I'm so so excited to introduce her to you guys.
0:55
SPEAKER_02: She's got an amazing, amazing line.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: I've been using it nonstop.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: Welcome, welcome so to the show.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm so so happy you said yes to us.
1:04
SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having me.
1:05
SPEAKER_04: No, I'm so excited to be here and talk to you more about whatever you want to know.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:10
SPEAKER_02: I want to actually let's I want to start off by just um you telling us all about yourself, you know, your career, how you kind of came upon wanting to starting um Avrani and you know all of the details behind all of it.
1:23
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
1:23
SPEAKER_04: Um, I mean I could talk for days on that.
1:25
SPEAKER_04: So feel free to to stop me from rambling or ask me to elaborate on any given part of it.
1:31
SPEAKER_04: Um so I grew up, uh I was born and raised in a suburb of Michigan uh in Detroit, and uh my extended family uh remained in Kolkata in India.
1:43
SPEAKER_04: My parents moved to Detroit in the late 80s, uh, and I felt like I grew up kind of with one foot uh in each culture, so to speak.
1:54
SPEAKER_04: Uh my life at home, uh, I was surrounded by predominantly uh Caucasians, which was great, uh, but it was just very different uh from my experiences uh in India.
2:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
2:08
SPEAKER_04: And so uh I always felt like I was either all of one or the other and not quite um the perfect blend anything else.
2:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, exactly.
2:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
2:19
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so for me, beauty was always about uh personal care.
2:26
SPEAKER_04: It was always intertwined with personal care.
2:28
SPEAKER_04: So it's not just about feeling beautiful, but uh I remember when I would get you know a minor cut or scrape, my dad would put uh turmeric on it to help the blood plot.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: And so beauty was always intertwined with the broader concept of wellness for me.
2:47
SPEAKER_04: And as I got older and started working in finance, actually in New York, uh, I started to really internalize uh what that meant and what all natural ingredients uh mean and why they're so much better for us.
3:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh I was working crazy hours, 80, 90 hour weeks.
3:08
SPEAKER_04: I was eating very poorly, ordering uh burgers and fries and wings every night, and my skin was freaking out uh in ways I'd never experienced, of course.
3:18
SPEAKER_04: Um and I started spending money on, you know, the fancy brands.
3:23
SPEAKER_04: I started making my own money and was excited to splurge on a few things and self-reward, but none of that stuff was actually working for me.
3:32
SPEAKER_04: And so uh I was suddenly feeling in a place where, okay, why is this happening?
3:38
SPEAKER_04: Uh I'd never even really suffered from horrible acne through puberty, luckily.
3:44
SPEAKER_04: And here I am, like 21, 22, like looking um looking what I felt like unprofessional and and not put together.
3:53
SPEAKER_04: And it really uh took a toll on my self-esteem.
3:57
SPEAKER_04: Right.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: Uh but it wasn't really until I I went home um over the holidays one year, and my mom was just, I mean, horrified by my face and started whipping up a turmeric mask for me, actually, with turmeric, neem, raw honey, uh all the good stuff.
4:18
SPEAKER_04: And it actually calmed my skin in a way I had never experienced before.
4:24
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and it still felt like a little bit of a disconnect in the sense that, um, sure, like my mom can make me a mask like this at home, but what about when I go back to New York and I'm working like crazy again?
4:37
SPEAKER_04: How do I access this?
4:38
SPEAKER_04: Right.
4:39
SPEAKER_04: And it was a it was a pain point that had kind of uh bubbled over time.
4:44
SPEAKER_04: But of course, I was making adjustments to my lifestyle, starting to take care of myself better as well.
4:49
SPEAKER_04: And uh to my good fortune, when I started in uh started at business school in the summer of 2017, I met my co-founder, Justin Silver, uh, who was telling me about his experience in finance, specifically uh growing and scaling another skincare brand.
5:07
SPEAKER_04: This one was inspired by Japanese traditions, uh, so like matcha, black charcoal, rice barren oil.
5:14
SPEAKER_04: And I was just like, wait a minute, there are all these ingredients that are so sacred to our culture.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, wait a minute, have you heard of India?
5:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, exactly.
5:24
SPEAKER_04: Um, and he had he he has a lot of Indian friends um that he's still very close with.
5:31
SPEAKER_04: I mean, like ironically, he's been in more Indian weddings than I have, even.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I I reached out to Justin on, by the way, on Instagram.
5:39
SPEAKER_02: He was so amazing.
5:41
SPEAKER_02: So hello, Justin.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Shout out to you.
5:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, no, shout out to Justin for sure.
5:45
SPEAKER_04: Um, he he actually got me thinking big in the sense of, well, why can't we, why can't you buy that at the store?
5:51
SPEAKER_04: Like if these are so great, um, we should, you know, share them with everyone.
5:56
SPEAKER_04: And I I was so um, I was so caught off guard in the sense that here I was feeling very uniquely positioned to do this thing with a partner who was ready and willing to to explore this with me.
6:12
SPEAKER_04: And at this point, it was just, you know, I I needed to believe in it myself and bet on myself uh in order to do it in earnest.
6:20
SPEAKER_04: And so the first year of the business, or I should say actually the first year of business school, um, we we dove in right away.
6:29
SPEAKER_04: This was like week two of the fall semester in 2017.
6:32
SPEAKER_04: We transferred our business school tuitions into a joint business account and took out loans, uh, enlisted a team of RD chemists to help me translate the formulas that I knew and loved growing up uh into that modernized shelves shelf stable format.
6:49
SPEAKER_04: Um I iterated on 15, 16 uh samples of formulas of each of the four products.
6:57
SPEAKER_04: The turmeric mass took that extra 16, uh 16th one in order to get it right.
7:03
SPEAKER_04: I was having focus groups, aka my girlfriends at Wharton, uh, trying the products uh from different backgrounds, ethnicities.
7:11
SPEAKER_04: I wanted to make sure that I was remaining authentic to the ancient Indian rituals that you know we actually created, uh but also remaining accessible and um, you know, a product that can actually fit in the modern lifestyle here in the US.
7:28
SPEAKER_04: And so we launched Avrani.com uh in that summer between business schools, so in the in June 2018.
7:37
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and that's when I realized the real work started because uh in beauty, as I've learned, I as I said, I I've only experienced professionally in finance.
7:47
SPEAKER_04: Uh so it took me a bit to learn that beauty is just so personal and great products that work and do what you say they're gonna do uh are table stakes, right?
7:58
SPEAKER_04: There's no longer in a business that you know just has cool packaging or a beautiful story.
8:04
SPEAKER_04: Right, exactly.
8:05
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
8:06
SPEAKER_04: So now that we had the products in place that I felt really great about, uh, I realized it was time to step back and actually develop a brand that was a lot more authentic to me.
8:19
SPEAKER_04: And essentially uh what you see now on Abrani.com is is that to me.
8:24
SPEAKER_04: It took about a year to be.
8:25
SPEAKER_02: No, it's very, very authentic.
8:27
SPEAKER_02: It's very authentic.
8:29
SPEAKER_02: No, honestly, I want I want to say this to everyone listening because when I first um even the packaging, you know what I mean?
8:35
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to like go over that because your packaging is phenomenal, honestly, Rushi.
8:39
SPEAKER_02: It's it's beautiful.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: And the reason I say that is because I love that on the side of your like to the box that it comes in, right?
8:47
SPEAKER_02: So the moisturizer comes in the box, and on the side, you have an explanation of the history of where these ingredients came from.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: That is so so cool to me.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: I think I found that to be the coolest packaging idea I've seen in a long time because the thing with Indian, you know, derived um ingredients is nobody wants to talk about the history of Ayurveda.
9:08
SPEAKER_02: Nobody wants to um put on those dates, you know, put the dates on the boxes and and really cite this stuff like it's a you know what I mean, like a resource.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: And so you doing that in my mind as a consumer, just seeing that, and especially as a South Asian woman, I felt like my culture was being represented the right way.
9:26
SPEAKER_02: You see what I'm saying?
9:26
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's so sweet.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: And no, that's exactly what I what I was going for.
9:30
SPEAKER_04: So I really appreciating you uh you recognizing that detail.
9:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: I I mean, I I just I I had I had to shout that out.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, please continue.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: So um just tell us more about your brand journey.
9:44
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so um I mean that that was near the end, I guess, where we're at today.
9:49
SPEAKER_04: Um, I I started recalibrating and rethinking about what I wanted the brand to look like uh in the summer of 2018, or excuse me, in the summer of 2019, uh, after we graduated from school and moved back to New York from Philly, um, I could tell that very clearly we had something here.
10:09
SPEAKER_04: Uh people were loving the products, especially when they were trying them.
10:14
SPEAKER_04: I think the most difficult part of that customer funnel, I was starting to realize for us at the time, was uh getting people to try it and getting that discovery um really in motion.
10:28
SPEAKER_04: We had a ton of women who, of course, understood what a turmeric mask is of South Asian descent of some sort, but I was starting to understand now, you know, who my customer is and how I should be uh communicating with them because I myself took for granted that some women don't even know what turmeric is, and then some have only heard of it uh from seeing it on a Starbucks menu, you know?
10:56
SPEAKER_04: Um so there's an education gap uh behind these ingredients and why they're so great for skin.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: Uh and on top of that, there was a gap I felt myself personally, uh never really feeling like I could actually be the face of a beauty brand.
11:13
SPEAKER_04: As I said, I I didn't grow up being like a makeup enthusiast.
11:18
SPEAKER_04: I was I was very much a tomboy.
11:21
SPEAKER_04: Uh and and personal care was was beauty.
11:25
SPEAKER_04: So like uh doing hair masks, body mask, face masks, that's that's how I uh interpret beauty.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: And so looking at the landscape of beauty brands today, uh, there aren't that many women like that who don't know at all how to do a winged eyeliner, you know, but are trying to make waves in something else.
11:46
SPEAKER_04: And at first that really intimidated me.
11:49
SPEAKER_04: I I was trying, I I can't even tell you for how long, maybe even six months of like basically trying to copy what I was seeing other beauty brand founders do.
12:01
SPEAKER_04: And a lot of that is like YouTube tutorials, uh, get ready with me, get unready with me, whatever that might be.
12:08
SPEAKER_04: And let me tell you, I I am not camera ready whatsoever.
12:13
SPEAKER_04: I I'm very shy on camera, not just on camera, but even in large groups.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: No, there's a reason why there's a reason why this podcast is audio only.
12:21
SPEAKER_02: I'm the same way.
12:22
SPEAKER_04: Like no, I I do appreciate that.
12:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, but but at first, that sort of like my differences were all I could really focus on.
12:33
SPEAKER_04: And I was seeing it in a negative way of like, okay, well, if you're not gonna be able to, you know, do your skincare routine on camera, then what it what even are you doing?
12:44
SPEAKER_04: You know, and I I was just I was very caught up in in what everyone else was doing.
12:49
SPEAKER_02: Um, I want to I want to say this though, Rishi, that like I really, really um aligned with everything you said because I was kind of the same way.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: And I and I think the the interesting part of skincare for me is that um it has to become uh for a lot of us, it's a personal self-care ritual.
13:07
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
13:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's like we can't always put that up on like social media, we can't always make a video about it, you know?
13:15
SPEAKER_04: Thank you for saying that.
13:16
SPEAKER_04: I and and so I I am naturally uh a pretty introverted and private person too.
13:22
SPEAKER_04: So it every time I would try to do my the skincare on camera, it just it felt like it was disrupting the whole point of it.
13:31
SPEAKER_04: It it suddenly wasn't for me anymore, it was for the camera.
13:35
SPEAKER_04: And that's what would cause all this pent-up anxiety.
13:38
SPEAKER_04: I'm like, well, well, when am I ever gonna get good at this?
13:40
SPEAKER_04: And it really wasn't until earlier this year, um, in 2020, that I was like, you know, fuck it.
13:48
SPEAKER_04: If I'm not good at it, why am I pushing myself or trying to mold myself into this sort of persona?
13:54
SPEAKER_04: I should be leaning into the things that do naturally come to me.
13:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I just need to figure out what those are.
14:02
SPEAKER_04: And I'll just figure out what that is.
14:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but the point is, like, it was just very liberating to let go um of a lot of the things that were unnecessarily holding me back uh on a personal level.
14:15
SPEAKER_02: I completely, completely uh understand that.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: And I actually commend you for kind of sticking to your guns and saying, well, this is how I am, and you know, I'm going to show that in my work.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: And and I think that's so important for women right now because we unfortunately, the way that media has been for many, many years, and the way that the beauty industry was when we were growing up, I mean, there was nothing but examples of how beauty should be.
14:40
SPEAKER_02: So it's like, you know, having this mindset, you know, I know when I was growing up, I I tried to, you know, recreate looks and stuff like that, but I wasn't the best at makeup either.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, like, you know, having that process of discovering what looks good on you, how do you like your skin looking, all of that is so personal.
14:58
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
14:59
SPEAKER_02: So it's like just I really commend you for sticking to your guns because not a lot of women will say that.
15:04
SPEAKER_02: A lot, many, many women say, Well, I learned it from my mom, or I learned it from this person.
15:08
SPEAKER_02: But it's like, at the end of the day, I think we have to learn it from ourselves, you know, by exploring ourselves.
15:13
SPEAKER_04: So absolutely.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: So like I want to know more about um when you finally, so when you finally um were established with Avrani, um, and then and then you were trying to um come up with your, I guess, demographic, right?
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Of of customers, um, did you think a lot about the South Asian um community and stuff?
15:33
SPEAKER_02: And did you want to market it to them, or did you want to make it a more of like a, you know, just an all-inclusive line?
15:39
SPEAKER_02: Because that's I I I see it as all inclusive in terms of everything, like your packaging and everything, but it's still very appealing to the people who do know, you know what I mean?
15:48
SPEAKER_02: Like the Indian people that know the words and we know about the coconut oil.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: So it's like, you know, it's like very charming to see that.
15:53
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, what were your thoughts about that?
15:55
unknown: Yeah.
15:56
SPEAKER_04: Um well, it's it's it's funny you say that because when we first soft launched Devrani.com in 2018, um I I was in a very like business mindset and not not an astute one at that either, in the sense that I really wanted to be everything to everyone because of course I want to have the most number of customers, the most number of sales, you know, like I wanted to thrive as a businesswoman.
16:24
SPEAKER_04: And of course, that that sort of journey through the first year um helped me understand myself why um the brand needed to be authentic to me because I was feeling increasingly disconnected from it.
16:43
SPEAKER_04: Um, and so as part of the rebrand, uh I wanted to own who I was in a much more unapologetic way.
16:52
SPEAKER_04: Instead of trying to be everything to everyone, I wanted a Rani to be a creative expression of myself in the most authentic way.
17:02
SPEAKER_04: And if people resonate with it, great.
17:04
SPEAKER_04: If they don't, that's fine too.
17:06
SPEAKER_04: But I was no longer concerned uh with, you know, is it Indian enough?
17:12
SPEAKER_04: Is it Indian Indian?
17:14
SPEAKER_04: Like all the things that were in the forefront of my mind during the first year of the business suddenly were no longer important.
17:23
SPEAKER_04: And that, and and when I stopped thinking about it that way, that's when I've started receiving a lot of feedback, like the one you just gave me of oh, it's so accessible to non-Indians too.
17:33
SPEAKER_04: And it's like, that's so funny because I I didn't I didn't create it with that intention anymore.
17:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you weren't making a Daisy only line.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
17:43
SPEAKER_04: I was creating it for me.
17:45
SPEAKER_04: It like Avrani is very much the the beauty brand that I needed to see growing up, and so uh because I feel like even through my own personal struggle of understanding my identity as an Indian American woman, um, I've started to also um honor the Indian Americanness as a oneness.
18:07
SPEAKER_04: I think that's a lot of people.
18:08
SPEAKER_02: God, I love I love hearing this.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: You have no idea, dude.
18:12
SPEAKER_02: I cannot tell you how refreshing it is to hear you say that.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand why more women are not saying that that are Indian American.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: But yes, please continue.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
18:22
SPEAKER_04: Um well, yeah.
18:24
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm as I'm sure you can sympathize.
18:26
SPEAKER_04: Um, and as I alluded to in the beginning part of this conversation, it's always, you know, I'm American here or I'm Indian here.
18:34
SPEAKER_04: Like I'll go home and I'll we'll be doing a puja and I'll be I'll have a bindi on, and then I'm like, I'm Indian.
18:40
SPEAKER_04: And then I'll go to school and I'm wearing like Adidas track pants and a baseball cap and all that, and I'm American.
18:46
SPEAKER_04: And I'm I never did I feel like completely, you know, whole in myself because I was always trying to uh compartmentalize those parts of my of my being.
19:02
SPEAKER_04: And so I think the important thing is, and it's not just for Indian Americans, it's for anyone who feels uh like they're straddling the divide between different things, you know, and different cultures, mixed race individuals.
19:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, of course.
19:15
SPEAKER_04: Uh there's a little bit of, oh, I'm half this, I'm half that, or the hyphen kind of makes it feel like you know, you're not really one of anything.
19:23
SPEAKER_04: When really your identity and your lived experience is its own niche genre.
19:30
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
19:32
SPEAKER_02: 100%, 100%.
19:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes, I completely agree.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: I think that is the fundamental um premise on which anything, see, I'm gonna just honestly go on a tangent.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: I think that is really what is needed to end racism.
19:48
SPEAKER_02: I'm not even gonna lie to you.
19:49
SPEAKER_02: Because if we don't acknowledge that we are a blended, you know, we are blended people and we no matter who we are, you know, my both of my parents are Indian, right?
19:59
SPEAKER_02: But it's like I was raised in America.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: So at the end of the day, I'm not gonna sit um across from a Caucasian woman and be mean to her because she doesn't look like me, right?
20:08
SPEAKER_02: So it's like that mentality, and that that's why it's so important.
20:11
SPEAKER_02: So I love everything that you're saying.
20:13
SPEAKER_02: I completely am right on board with you on that.
20:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
20:16
SPEAKER_04: Um, yeah, and I think I even like I'm trying to bring this out with the brand a bit more right now.
20:23
SPEAKER_04: You know, we just launched a few months ago, so I'm still kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall, trying to figure out what's resonating.
20:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh, but this idea of duality and how it really runs through us in so many different ways, not just how we look and where we're from, but our personalities.
20:40
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I would love to bring that to the forefront because not just to end racism, just to restore that sort of faith in humanity that it's okay that you know we can be inspiring, but also gentle, right?
20:58
SPEAKER_04: Like we don't get to see enough examples of women, right, being very strong-willed, but then also extremely maternal.
21:07
SPEAKER_04: Like we like to bucket each other in in these like one labels, and then also suggest that because they are that, they can also not be essentially the opposite of that.
21:21
SPEAKER_02: And well, I I was talking to Priscilla Martinez yesterday, and we talked about exactly what you're saying.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: We were, it was like, you know, um, she she has a Mexican um background in terms of her heritage, and we were talking about how it's so hard for women because when we're career oriented, we get, you know, we get kind of this extra stuff piled on us, right?
21:42
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you know, why can't we just do all of it in our own way without somebody constantly judging us, right?
21:48
SPEAKER_02: It's like you you don't need to fit a mold.
21:51
SPEAKER_02: You need to be an individual.
21:52
SPEAKER_02: That's I think that's really the bottom line of it.
21:55
SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
21:55
SPEAKER_04: And the way that we sort of give men the freedom to Be individuals.
22:01
SPEAKER_04: They can be great fathers and great businessmen and very gentle and open.
22:09
SPEAKER_04: We don't give women the same sort of flexibility for some reason.
22:14
SPEAKER_04: And I think it starts with us women acknowledging it to each other before we're able to help others really understand just how multifaceted we can be.
22:25
SPEAKER_02: Right, right, exactly.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: I completely agree.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's really where women empowerment is.
22:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's really the meaning of it, right?
22:32
SPEAKER_02: It's like we we have so many campaigns out there that are like, you know, um doesn't matter what your size is, but at the end of the day, why are we focusing on size?
22:40
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, that's the kind of thing I think about is like, why are we making an issue out of something that shouldn't even be an issue?
22:46
SPEAKER_02: Um and that's not just one example, that's for everything, including beauty, right?
22:50
SPEAKER_02: So, like um, coming back to skincare, um, it doesn't have to be like just because a brand is founded in Ayurveda, just because there are Ayurvedic ingredients in a brand, it does not have to be fitting into this one, you know what I mean, mold image where it's like you're either completely Ayurveda or you're not.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: Like your brand has amazing ingredients.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: You guys use these amazing ingredients, like coconut oil.
23:13
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I grew up with my mother giving me a coconut hair uh oil massage every day.
23:17
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
23:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:18
SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, I'm not looking for coconut oil in the little parachute bottle everywhere I go.
23:23
SPEAKER_04: Right.
23:24
SPEAKER_04: And and I think one of the uh one of the things that inspired us the most, I mean, starting a business, there are so many factors to consider.
23:32
SPEAKER_04: And one of them is just the macro sort of tailwinds and the place we're at as a society.
23:40
SPEAKER_04: I myself wasn't sure if, you know, this was the time to introduce something like iBeauty or an Indian-inspired modernized brand, but we saw over the last five to 10 years the rise of K-beauty or Korean-inspired beauty to the point where there are entire sections of K beauty um at global retailers, right?
24:03
SPEAKER_04: Exactly, and K beauty as well, dude.
24:06
SPEAKER_02: It's like everything as well.
24:07
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
24:08
SPEAKER_02: Let me tell you, I started an iBeauty movement hashtag on Instagram.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna start tagging everybody in that.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Please.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh.
24:15
SPEAKER_02: And I really think we need to do it because I'm totally I started this iBeauty page on Facebook, no one joined.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: But I that's the thing.
24:25
SPEAKER_04: It it I've come to learn that we need like a hundred Indian brands, right?
24:31
SPEAKER_04: It's not just one brand that's going to make an entire category.
24:37
SPEAKER_04: If we're gonna disrupt the global beauty industry with a category that they've never seen before, we need to work together and collaborate and partner.
24:47
SPEAKER_04: Uh, I used to, of course, you know, when I again the early days of self-launching of Rani, I looked at other Indian beauty brands as my competitors.
24:56
SPEAKER_04: And now I'm realizing, you know, they're my friends.
24:59
SPEAKER_04: The real competitors are these large incumbent brands uh who are run by teams of white men and have, you know, a foothold in the beauty space today when they don't even, you know, know what they're talking about and there's no authenticity there.
25:15
SPEAKER_04: Those are my real competitors who I want to take market share away from.
25:20
SPEAKER_04: The other Indian beauty brands I need to help us all make noise and create the category so that eventually non-Indian people around the world catch on to the beauty of Ayurveda and in many ways the original form of what clean beauty is.
25:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and also can we please stop saying that you know Ayurveda is the only Indian beauty?
25:41
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying you're not saying this, but like there are so many people out there that really think that Indian beauty just means Ayurveda.
25:48
SPEAKER_02: No, India was the first one to introduce the number zero to the world.
25:51
SPEAKER_02: Let me just highlight that.
25:53
SPEAKER_02: Um, we were the first ones to have these, like you know, Raman Nujin came from India, which we're still using his equations today to figure out black holes.
26:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we have so much to offer as a culture, so can we please just expand that, right?
26:05
SPEAKER_02: It's like Ayurveda is not the only way that we can make people use that.
26:09
SPEAKER_04: I look at Ayurveda as a as a part of Indian beauty, it is not the whole of Indian beauty.
26:17
SPEAKER_04: Uh, and because Ayurveda is so complex and holistic, uh, it's it's easy to assume that you know everything coming out of India is Ayurveda.
26:29
SPEAKER_04: It's like at this point, to me, it doesn't really matter.
26:32
SPEAKER_04: Uh, it's just that what we've seen in the market today in the US, um, people latching on to Ayurveda as this like mystical ancient thing that's like super intricate, when when really it's like, no, it's it's pretty accessible and and you can use it too.
26:51
SPEAKER_04: Um it's easy to get distracted by all the intricacies sometimes.
26:55
SPEAKER_04: And and that's a big part of why I'm trying to pioneer the idea of I beauty without using the word Ayurveda, because I want to penetrate the hearts and minds of of people who are now more willing and open to try trying other cultures, but I don't want to intimidate them so quickly.
27:14
SPEAKER_02: Of course, and that's actually the you know, I I have an MBA and from the business standpoint, I can honestly say that I think that is the best business strategy because you can't alienate people, you know, you can't we can't keep alienating people in the sense that, well, you're not cool enough to have this, like, you know, or like you don't know enough to have this, like it's so stupid, right?
27:36
SPEAKER_04: Right.
27:37
SPEAKER_04: I mean, tell me what you think about this.
27:38
SPEAKER_04: Might be a little bit off tangent, but I feel like in Indian culture specifically, we ourselves aren't proud enough of our beauty and our culture to own it until someone else.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Listen, I literally am so irritated at the fact that we don't like embrace our own designs, our own culture in a media platform way.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
28:07
SPEAKER_02: Like, we don't like why is it that we have TV shows on Netflix with women who are talking about all this stuff that in the Indian culture nobody talks about, right?
28:16
SPEAKER_02: But it's like that's not how Indian women or I see myself as an Indian woman.
28:20
SPEAKER_02: I completely I know what you're saying.
28:21
SPEAKER_02: I know what you're saying because it's it's it's BS and it doesn't represent us.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, I would rather see an Indian woman wearing an amazing couture design or an amazing, you know, makeup line, like lipstick that was created by an Indian founder that has, you know, a huge diverse background rather than wearing the you know, the cliche, you know what I mean?
28:41
SPEAKER_02: Whatever that is.
28:42
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and and and I've I've been seeing uh I've been inspired by some some more Indian founders, designers, uh businesswomen who are coming to the forefront.
28:54
SPEAKER_04: Like the other day, uh I saw um anthropology just um just brought on uh an Indian designer where the clothes of that line are actually made in Indian India by an Indian designer as opposed to a lot of the stuff we see in the US where it's definitely Indian inspired, but it's made in China and there's no no attribution to the culture whatsoever.
29:22
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
29:23
SPEAKER_04: And it's only when Indian people start seeing that, you know, at Zara, at Nordstrom, that they're like, oh, this is cool.
29:31
SPEAKER_04: And and I want people to to think a little bit more um originally in that sense of you're allowed to say it's cool and awesome uh without the validation.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's it's really come I completely agree, 100% agree with you.
29:47
SPEAKER_02: And I also it's like not just Indian culture, if I wanted to buy a kilt, I would go to Scotland.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: Like you know what I'm saying?
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Like it's like I would not be getting it from an American distributor who is mimicking the design of this, right?
30:02
SPEAKER_02: So, like going back to like, for example, just you know, kurthas, for example, we see those everywhere, right?
30:08
SPEAKER_02: Every designer for a long time was making their own version of a kurta.
30:11
SPEAKER_02: And it was like, I've never in my life bought a that design, like that shirt design from any American brand because it comes from India.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: So why wouldn't I just get it from India?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: Wouldn't I just go to India and get it?
30:25
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
30:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yes, absolutely.
30:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I mean, I think you know, coming back to skincare and I especially Avrani, I I really think it's important to realize um for everybody listening out there that you know, your brand, something, what you're doing is extremely rare.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Seriously, Rishi.
30:44
SPEAKER_02: Like this is this is exactly, in my opinion, how our community and our Indian American community should be represented, I think, in skincare, because there's so much um just it's not just Ayurveda, there's so much science.
30:57
SPEAKER_02: And that was the point I was trying to get to earlier.
30:59
SPEAKER_02: Um, a long time ago, I published a paper before anyone was talking about these natural extracts in skincare.
31:04
SPEAKER_02: I published a paper um about natural extracts and their effect on mycobacterium and staph aureus and all these bacteria that are involved with, like acne and stuff, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_02: And I remember at the time, it was like, of course, I got inspiration from, you know, obviously Indian, you know, ingredients.
31:21
SPEAKER_02: But when I published that, I realized that there's a huge medicinal benefit that can be quantified and it can be put out there in the scientific literature, and we can stop calling it Ayurveda.
31:33
SPEAKER_02: We can seriously start saying things like, this is an extract, this is an extract of meat, this is an extract of turmeric or mint or eucalyptus.
31:41
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
31:42
SPEAKER_02: So like shifting that, shifting that conversation, you know, and and and that's my that's why I'm I'm just in love with your brand, honestly.
31:50
SPEAKER_04: Oh, I appreciate that.
31:51
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, the conversations need to shift uh first, right?
31:56
SPEAKER_04: Before we're able to have more brands that grow beyond, you know, our culture and our early adopters.
32:04
SPEAKER_04: Um, I so I'm really happy that you're doing this and you're having these conversations.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
32:09
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, and thank you for having it with me.
32:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean, shit, dude.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Like I can't find people to have confided conversations.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Like nobody wants to talk about it.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Everyone wants to be politically correct or socially correct.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, you know, the time for that is gone, especially in skincare, because right now dermatologists are coming up out of the, you know, out of the ground, and they're really making a claim for how what skincare means and stuff.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: And I think this is the ideal time for brands such as yourself because you guys are using ingredients that have genuine merit behind them, scientific merit.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
32:42
SPEAKER_04: So, like Yeah, and and that's actually one of the the the benefits, right?
32:45
SPEAKER_04: Like, I'm not a chemist, my co-founder isn't, uh, but we have centuries of use and proven benefits uh from our heritage to lean on from that.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
32:59
SPEAKER_02: And you have a reference point, that's the most important thing, the reference point.
33:02
SPEAKER_02: And you know, that's why like there's brands, you know, the ones that are rooted in like Chinese medicine and stuff, and um like even K Beauty, which you brought up, I mean, they're not compromising their own technology and their innovation, you know what I mean?
33:16
SPEAKER_04: Right, right.
33:17
SPEAKER_04: They're they're very true to to what their people want, and if other people want it too, great, they'll share it, but they're not trying to impress anyone else.
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
33:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so what's next then, uh Rishi for Avrani?
33:30
SPEAKER_02: What's next?
33:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you guys have such an amazing line already.
33:33
SPEAKER_02: Um, is there something you're uh kind of coming up with right now, or you know, anything you can share?
33:38
SPEAKER_04: So we have uh a bunch of products in the pipeline that we've been doing RD on for a couple years now.
33:46
SPEAKER_04: Uh and so I'm excited to share, we'll be launching a cleanser next year, early next year.
33:52
SPEAKER_05: Ooh.
33:53
SPEAKER_04: That was inspired actually by our community.
33:56
SPEAKER_04: So, as part of the Avrani ritual, which starts with an exfoliator, uh, we kept the trimeric exfoliator, we kept getting responses or questions from our community asking, you know, what do you use to remove your makeup?
34:09
SPEAKER_04: What succeed you recommend to use before the exfoliator?
34:13
SPEAKER_04: And so that's what got us started on exploring sandalwood, amla, uh amazing ingredients that we would love to bring to the forefront in in the form of a cleanser.
34:25
SPEAKER_04: So, really, really thrilled to be able to introduce that soon.
34:29
SPEAKER_04: Um we we're also working on expanding across verticals.
34:33
SPEAKER_04: So, hair is, of course, as I'm sure you can appreciate.
34:36
SPEAKER_04: Yes! Oh my gosh, please do hair, especially huge in South Asian culture, and uh my mom's mom uh still has hair down to the floor.
34:48
SPEAKER_04: It's it's still luscious, thick, strong, healthy, amazing, yes, and um I I I just can't wait to be able to introduce some of the ingredients that she has in there, you know, including coconut oil, castor oil.
35:03
SPEAKER_02: I was just gonna say that.
35:04
SPEAKER_02: I was like, please put coconut oil in there because like that, I I'm telling you, it works so good.
35:09
SPEAKER_04: And and not just coconut oil, but coconut milk and coconut water are really great for the scalp as well.
35:15
SPEAKER_04: So just really, really thrilled to bring these uh to the forefront.
35:20
SPEAKER_04: I think that uh one of the decisions, early decisions that I had made was to avoid color cosmetics.
35:27
SPEAKER_04: And I think I want to stick by that uh because as part of our ethos around elevating our natural beauty and uh connecting beauty with wellness, uh color cosmetics does not seem to be in line.
35:42
SPEAKER_04: So that was an easy thing to um rule out because a constraint.
35:47
SPEAKER_04: Yes, exactly.
35:49
SPEAKER_04: And and then of course there's body care in general.
35:51
SPEAKER_04: I mean, we have skin all over, and right now uh we're highly focused on our faces, but um not just body care itself, but body tools uh that can help you know activate blood flow, create that inflammatory, uh lymphatic sort of release that we we get from massages and stretching and exercising.
36:16
SPEAKER_04: There's so much wisdom in Ayurveda uh to be brought that it's it's honestly we're at a point where it's just what do we do first and and when and how can we do it?
36:27
SPEAKER_02: I completely I'm I'm so excited.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: Seriously.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: I you you have to you have to let me know when these things come out because I'm excited.
36:34
SPEAKER_02: Yes, absolutely.
36:35
SPEAKER_04: I'd love to send you an early sample of the of the cleanser too.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yes, I would love that.
36:41
SPEAKER_02: I want to just ask you something, actually.
36:43
SPEAKER_02: What do you think about this?
36:44
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know how like turmeric, okay, so turmeric is like this huge concept.
36:48
SPEAKER_02: Um, obviously, we just talked about that, but you know how in Indian weddings they use milk to wash off the turmeric from the bride?
36:54
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
36:55
SPEAKER_02: Do you think there's any like skin benefit to that?
36:57
SPEAKER_02: Like, I have no idea why they do that.
36:59
SPEAKER_02: I know it's a cultural thing, but like I always wondered like if that's even part of Ayurveda.
37:04
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm so curious.
37:06
SPEAKER_04: I that is actually driven by because of the staining that turmeric leaves typically, and milk, it has properties that prevent the pigment from sticking onto the skin that's a little bit stronger than water.
37:21
SPEAKER_04: So because it's the wetting, you know, period of time, um, especially we don't want to be stained with the orange.
37:29
SPEAKER_04: Uh, milk is a great agent to do that faster.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing.
37:33
SPEAKER_02: I did not know that.
37:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, wow.
37:36
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's so cool.
37:37
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for answering that.
37:38
SPEAKER_02: Of course, of course.
37:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you, Roshi.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: This was amazing.
37:42
SPEAKER_02: Seriously, you are such a rock star.
37:43
SPEAKER_02: And please say hi to Justin for me.
37:45
SPEAKER_02: I love everything you guys are doing.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: I mean that.
37:48
SPEAKER_02: Like, seriously.
37:49
SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate that.
37:50
SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and everybody out there, please, please, please go check out Avrani Beauty.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Um, please follow them on Instagram.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, whatever you can do, this is an amazing line.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: It's truly, truly something that's um needed in the skincare world.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: So please follow them.
38:07
SPEAKER_02: Don't forget to subscribe and rate us on um whatever platform you listen listen to us on.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: We're on Spotify, iTunes, um uh a bunch of stuff.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Seven different platforms.
38:17
SPEAKER_02: So pick one and just leave us the rating.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Rishi, so much.
38:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh I hope we can talk again soon.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: That would be absolutely.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: I would love to stay in touch.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
38:27
SPEAKER_02: Talk to you guys next time.
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