From a young age, I have been inclined towards physical wellness and always endeavoured to learn more about the natural world and its benefits. Having found my calling in sustainable living, I studied biodiversity, bioavailability and bio-individuality in college. With these values in place, I have always sought a holistic lifestyle, constantly exploring ways to be closer to nature even while living in Hong Kong and New York. My roots in naturopathy led me to co-found asa beauty, a luxury beauty label.

Having gained this expertise, I became an integrative health coach and am currently the director at Jindal Naturecure Institute. During this time, I also started working alongside and taking inspiration from my mother-in-law, Asha Jindal Khaitan, who has grown up in the nurturing environment of Jindal Naturecure Institute. On this journey, I found more and more people educating themselves on how to be clean and conscious consumers. Especially after the pandemic, I saw growing awareness among consumers about the products’ ingredients, their physical side-effects and also how they impact one’s natural environment. I realised that today people have also become mindful of the waste they generate and aim to minimise their carbon footprint and contribute minimally to the growing environmental crisis.

With my collective experience and with my mother-in-law’s guidance, I began my journey of being a clean and conscious consumer. I believe in making conscious and mindful choices at every step in my life — eliminating dairy and animal by-products, avoiding parabens and choosing clean beauty formulations. But I discovered that there was a lack of clean beauty brands specially created for the Indian skin tone, where a woman can feel beautiful without compromising on her ecological or ethical concerns. I also noticed that there was hardly any brand with a wholesome ethos — whose values of animal compassion and sustainability ran deep and were reflected not just through their formulations but also through the brand experience and consumer journey. Being a strong advocate of veganism, I believe that compassion towards animals does not just entail that there is no animal testing, but also extends to the avoidance of animal by-products.

Given our mutual understanding and passion for a clean way of life and with a newfound resolve to alter the beauty landscape in India, it was only natural for us to join hands to create asa beauty. The brand was born with a desire to help the contemporary Indian woman to embrace her true potential through clean formulations of makeup with deep-rooted beliefs seeped in its core values of ‘purposeful beauty, purposeful luxury and purposeful living.’

As a first-of-its-kind brand in the country, with all of it products made in India, asa is not just a luxury clean beauty brand. It also aims for a clean awakening, a path of life that is built on choosing good not just for oneself but also for the larger community and planet. It is an exercise that I have partaken in for many years now and hope to instil values of conscious consumerism and to create a balance between indulgence and living intentionally. I have been aiming to create conversations around clean makeup by proving to women that a product can not only accentuate their existing features but also heal and nourish their skin.

I am also keenly aware of the endless wastage generated by the beauty industry, with India ranking eighth globally with sales worth $14 billion in beauty and personal care. I have been concerned about the environment with the knowledge that there has been indiscriminate use of palm oil in almost 70% of cosmetics that has led to massive deforestation. To counter this, we opted for carefully crafted casings made from aluminium, an endlessly recyclable material. We also created a smart and accessible refill programme that ensures that customers can sustainably replenish their products again and again without increasing their carbon footprint.

After doing extensive research to create an essentially sustainable experience, asa beauty was launched in January 2021 to an incredibly warm and supportive response. It has very successfully begun its journey of revolutionising the beauty industry by having formulations that are more than 92% natural, vegan, sustainable and cruelty-free.

It is extremely inspiring and humbling for me as the co-founder to already see a difference after being launched. Today, we can see women making a switch towards clean beauty products and exploring sustainable options for their everyday makeup needs through asa. As an emerging woman entrepreneur, I knew the consumer base and I’m extremely grateful to see the brand made for women and by women doing so well in the industry.

I am looking at expanding the brand to various geographies, along with strengthening our portfolio, enabling it to be a wholesome beauty experience and building on a platform called ‘The House’ for like-minded people to share their ideas of lifestyle, including art, music, wellness, mental health etc. Apart from expanding in India, we also want to make asa a global brand, bringing ‘clean awakening’ to those who seek the cosmetics of a beautiful, hopeful future.