Today on the blog we feature, artisanal soap maker Lakshana Leelakrishnan of Nakedly Yours. The maker shares with us in detail about her bath and beauty products, her inspirations, her favourite picks, and her line up at the By Hand From The Heart Makers Market. Her story…
About yourself.
I began my career as a hotelier and have worked in global brands in both India and London. Being a people person came naturally to and enjoyed working in the hospitality industry. However I felt a void with respect to my creativity and ideologies close to my heart. In order to keep me distracted during this dilemma I learnt soap and cosmetics crafting from an apothecary in London. There was no looking back ever since. What started as a passion to fuel my creativity then turned into my profession. I thoroughly enjoy concocting, divine smelling skin treats which are so gentle on the skin and the environment.
How did you begin Nakedly Yours and how has it evolved over the years?
Hailing from Ooty, The Nilgiris, I have grown one with nature and have always been fascinated by its abundant resources. Ever since I came back from London in 2014, I wanted to make use of the resources locally available from the Nilgiris biosphere to create economic opportunities for the local community. I initially started cosmetics crafting in a minuscule manner just for gifting purpose and my individual use. Friends and family coaxed me to start selling it as they could see a real difference on their skin. I decided to test the waters in small flea markets. The response and feedback were so encouraging and I kept participating in more such events for two years. When I got to know about a flea market in Cochin, I immediately participated knowing Kerala is the hub for piloting FMCG products.
It is there I met my co-founder, Harsha Badhran who happened to visit the flea market. Having similar love for handcrafting, involving local communities and love for ethical and environment friendly products made us come together and conceptualise Nakedly Yours. Nakedly Yours carefully crafts 100% vegetarian, ethical, fresh and cruelty friendly soaps and cosmetics. I work on the product line up and Harsha works on bringing it out to a larger platform. However we are closely involved in each others roles as well. Many a times Harsha suggest different product range or fragrances and its a lot of fun to formulate it. We spend a lot of time sourcing ingredients too. We predominantly sell our products online and in Flea markets. We are working towards an exclusive flagship store and pop up kiosks.
What is your personal favorite pick from your Nakedly Yours right now? And why?
My favourite product right now is the coffee and cream body polish. It has fresh coffee grounds and picks me up on any grey day. However I am so excited about our launches lined in. We have some amazing cosmetics like natural lipstick and cheek tint and highlighters to be unveiled soon. I am sure they are going to be my favourite without doubt.
What are your displaying at the By Hand, From The Heart.
We are displaying a whole range of body butter, foot soaks, face masks, bath salts, lip balm and lip scrubs. We would be having a live counter for our gourmet soap where we cut a piece from the loaf of your choice. We also have an exclusive handcrafted pet soap for your furry love.
Your work space.
My work space is a bit of everything. There is table full of all the possible research material you can think of. I spend most of my (when I am not crafting cosmetics) researching about ingredients and its effectiveness. I believe in constantly learning and updating. Then there is a mad chemist corner where the new inventions and quality control tests happen. There is a crafting kitchen where all the products are manufactured. We also have an area specifically to dry and store our botanics apart from our regular storage areas.
Your favorite ingredients and tools.
My favourite ingredients are the botanicals we use in our formulations. The entire phase of growing our herbs to foraging them and finally incorporating them in our products is almost rewarding. My favourite tool is my set of knives and mixing spatulas. Even though I am no chef, whipping these skin delicacies have sure made me partial to my personal set of knives and spatulas.
A typical day at Nakedly Yours.
A typical day at Nakedly yours is calmingly chaotic. As rhetorical as it may sound, it stays true to the quote. We are currently scaling up our manufacturing unit which would take a couple of months, until then we hand-craft small batches of the products. Therefore there is quite a lot of work to ensure consistency and quality remains the same batch after batch. This is particularly difficult when you use Au naturel products. For example an essential oil of one batch would react differently in one batch of soap than the other batch. We had a classic example where one of our raw materials, a base oil to make soaps, normally renders the soap white.
There was this once when the same oil was slight darker (natural occurrence) in colour and our soaps turned a mild yellow. Everything remained the same but the colour had a huge impact. Therefore the chaos sets in to keep up the pace to meet the demand and ensure that the consistency remains the same. The calmness comes from the place itself (The facility over looks farm on one side and forest on the other) and all the heavenly aromas around like freshly distilled lavender oil or the crisp comforting eucalyptus aroma from the freshly foraged leaves.
Any product story you would like to share.
I spend a lot of my time sourcing ingredients and formulating a product. I spend even more time in naming the product. Almost all our products have quirky names. For example our charcoal face mask is called black magic, our pink clay face mask is called pink panther. One of the first products I formulated was a soap with eucalyptus oil and an infusion of tea extract. Both the ingredients synonymous to Ooty. The combination quite different and unheard of was named as Ode to Ooty as that was where the story actually began. Our unique combinations paired with the quirky names, right from the brand name ‘Nakedly your” has turned a lot of heads.
Handmade in India / Make in India – what does this mean to you?
Most of our peers have products with ingredients which are shipped from different countries and proudly advertised too. Thats what places Nakedly Yours in a different league all together. Our ingredients are sourced from local communities all over India. We don’t even buy raw materials from big supermarkets chains. We source from small time farmers and manufacturers who produce it ethically. This not only helps them economically but gives us a better control of whats going into our products. We ensure that our products are fresh from the farm to your face.
Consumers have the mindset that Indian skin care means Ayurveda. Our products are a fusion of traditional Indian ingredients spiced with other exotic ingredients grown India. Even though we have a soap that’s called All English Bar, the lavender oil used in it comes from a farm in Ooty that grows and distills the oil. We buy coconut oil from a manual oil mill near Mysore. Our Marigold flowers come from a village called Angala. Our tea and rose flowers are sourced locally in Ooty. Our marine botanicals come from Cochin. Our spice extracts come from Kerala. Vanilla is sourced from a farm in Pollachi. Make in India to me is not buying products from other countries and simply assembling it in India. It means to make use of local resources and create economic opportunities in multiple levels in India.
By Hand From The Heart: MAKERS MARKET – 21st Edition
Date: Friday – Saturday, 8th – 9th September, 2017
Time: 10:00 a.m – 8:00 p.m
Venue: Crowne Plaza Chennai Adyar Park
Address: 132, T.T.K Road, Alwarpet, Chennai – 600018, Tamil Nadu. India
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