For all the sales and profits she is getting, Rita Sood credits her daughter-in-law Ginni. It is Ginni who became instrumental in spreading the word of her homemade skin and hair care products; a skill Rita inherited from her mother.
“My mother would make her own hair oil, hair pack and shampoo using kitchen ingredients, which I too learnt and these came in handy after I got married,” says Rita. Over the years, she stuck to using her home-made products. But thought of turning this skill into a full-fledged business idea never occurred to her.
“When Ginni became my daughter-in-law, she showed interest in my products and started using them. After her friends and office colleagues appreciated her improved skin and hair, she told them I had made these at home.” Soon, Rita had requests pouring in from Ginni’s friends for hair oil and masks, moisturiser to remedy a tanned or lacklustre skin, and home-made soaps.
In time, Rita started framing at a business model, and decided to take some classes to perfect her skill. “But I realised, all the classes used chemicals for making skin and hair care products. I abhor chemicals, as these are artificial and do more harm than good. So I resorted to self-learning, bought books on herbs and Ayurveda and learnt how to make pure herbal products without an iota of chemicals,” she says.
As the popularity of the products grew, Ginni took care of the packaging, and Nishtha, Rita’s daughter opened an Instagram profile (@ginniherbal). That was in 2019. “I named my venture Ginni, after my daughter-in-law’s name,” says Rita, as a thank you gesture.
In the last 1.5 years, Ginni Homemade Herbal Products has increased its customer base to Delhi-NCR, all by word of mouth publicity. “It is a network formed by my children, relatives and friends, and their friends,” says Rita, who still has no assistants to help her in making these products. “I usually take 2-3 days to make one product. As these are pure herbal products without preservatives, their shelf-life is a week-long, except for hair oil and hair shampoo that does not get spoiled for long,” she says, adding that every product is custom-made. She does not adhere to the one-size-fits-all approach as “each one’s skin and hair are different with their own problems”.
Rita’s products range between Rs 100-Rs 220. “I have never worked out the costing of any product, just fixed an amount for each. In future, I may expand my ‘business to earn profit model’, but as of now the customer-satisfaction is my earning. The positive feedback that I receive is enough to keep me working on it,” says Rita.