What is your professional background?
I’m Engineer by education and a creative person at heart. I have studied make-up artistry in Australia and skin care, too. I’ve been in the make-up business in India and Australia for the last decade.
What was the inspiration behind launching SeaSoul Cosmeceuticals?
My mother has been in the beauty business for the last three decades and that is how I have it in my DNA. I’ve been the Miss Delhi Runner Up 2001 and a national award winner in Henna application. In fact while doing the wedding henna for a Malaysian friend in Sydney, my friend found out that her own makeup artist had met with an accident and she asked me to dress her up for her Hindu wedding. I did her bridal make-up and it went viral! Soon I was booked for the next six months with bridal appointments. That is when I realised that I love doing makeup.
While doing consultations on skin care, my biggest challenge was to advise the right products to my clients for various issues, especially those of Indian origin. As my first child had a dry skin condition called Eczema, I did a lot of research and now have a skin care line free from all sorts of harmful chemicals, that is infused with goodness of Dead Sea, Moroccan Argan Oil, American Goji Berries and Stem Cells. So SeaSoul was born.
SeaSoul Cosmeceuticals has now been in India for about two years, so how has the response been to the brand?
The response has been overwhelming considering that the brand is still an infant. We launched the operations in India in 2013. Our core belief has been wellness and bringing the best of the nature at most affordable prices. Thus rather than talking about turnover, we measure our progress in terms of client satisfaction and that has been extremely motivating.
What is the USP of the brand?
SeaSoul is a unique range of skin care products, a certified Dead Sea minerals based in
combination with Argan Oil (also called liquid gold.) and plant extracts. Each of the ingredient is handpicked like stem cells, goji berries and Moroccan Argan oil that goes into making a skin-friendly product. The brand is free from all sorts of harmful chemicals, parabens, sulphates, phosphates, formaldehydes, petrochemicals and more.
What are the marketing strategies you have employed for the brand?
Our incremental growth in the Indian market has been purely based on word of mouth. We have and continue to focus on building a high quality product at best price points and that is our marketing strategy because a high quality product which talks by itself.
What all categories have you added to the product range?
SeaSoul has four major lines segregated as Candle Body Spa Range, Hand-Foot Candle Spa, Professional facial range and a home care range.
What is the current SKU?
The current SKU is 100+ products where around 50 per cent of the products are for the face and rest are for the body.
Which is your star product?
It’s hard to define a star product at SeaSoul. Few of our most popular products include, the Dead Sea Facial Mud Mask, CC Cream with SPF 20, Moroccan Hair Treatment Serum and the 3-in-1 Facial Polish.
How many stores are the products available in India?
SeaSoul is available at more than 150 outlets Pan India. Pacific Mall in Delhi has our flagship store. We also have an online presence at several portals apart from www.seasoulspa.com.
What about the Beauty Advisors at the stores–how do you train them on the products?
The Beauty Advisors at the store go through extensive training on the know-how of the products, their uses, the benefits, which skin type to recommend what. There are proper certification courses held for them by SeaSoul to go through before they start selling the SeaSoul to consumers.
What are the plans for the future?
Moving forward, I personally believe we will see and hear more of SeaSoul across the Indian Subcontinent as we become more aggressive and tap market potential in the professional and consumer skin care segment. The Indian cosmetics market is growing at 15 per cent to 20 per cent annually, which is twice as fast the European and the US markets. The market size of the cosmetics industry is currently pegged at Rs.10,000 crores and is expected to double and we expect that we should be able to tap sufficient
share of the pie by the first quarter of 2016.
