Losing a Friend to Cancer at 21, Woman Starts Natural, Vegan Skin Care Brand

Delhi-based Nandeeta Manchandaa started Enn’s Closet, a natural, vegan, and cruelty-free skincare brand that aims to promote natural and homegrown alternatives to big, chemical-based beauty brands.

While she was completing her undergraduate degree in the US, Nandeeta Manchandaa was a witness to one of her friends passing away due to skin cancer. The dermatologist had said that the cosmetic products that she was using were the cause of the skin cancer. “Any sort of chemical that builds up in your body can trigger cancer. He advised us to start carefully reading the labels of whatever products we were using and look out for anything that could ‘stay’ on the skin,“says Nandeeta.

She returned to India with this thought on her mind. She got married shortly after and opened her salon. Here, after noticing the chemical bleaches and hair products that she was using on her customers, she decided to launch a few natural products of her own. This step sowed the seed of starting a full-fledged natural beauty business in her mind.

Years of interacting with and understanding her customers in the salon, her own experiences, and her research formed the basis of what today is Enn’s Closet — a range of vegan, natural and hand-made skin and hair care products launched in 2018. These products are SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate) and paraben-free, cruelty-free, and aim to “put your health first”.

“When you keep using chemically derived products, you’ll notice that over the years, your skin will thin out. It’s important to use them mindfully. So, Enn’s Closet tries to offer natural alternatives to these. Chemical products can give you fast results, but the long-term effects are severe. In the case of natural products, you may see the results slowly, but it won’t be harmful,” she explains. “These are some things we want our customers to know.”

To keep in line with their idea of sustainability, Enn’s Closet packs most of its products in glass jars, and the packaging is done with paper and biodegradable bags. Around 70 per cent of their work is done manually, which saves electricity and increases employment opportunities.

Enn’s Closet has a website and tie-ups with Nykaa and Amazon. They receive around 2,000 orders a month. Today, Enn’s has a range of over 60 products for the skin, hair, lips and eyes.

Credits: The Better India