Kruthika Kumaran recalls her first time making soap out of goat’s milk.
“My mother suffered from an extreme skin condition for over a decade before she passed away. It was she who encouraged me to take up cosmetology classes,” she says, adding, “My daughter has eczema. It makes a person’s skin dry. That is when I decided to make goat milk soaps.”
Ever since, Kruthika has dreamed of formulating a new range of organic skin and hair care products in the hopes of starting a skincare brand of her own. Today, her dream has come true in the form of Vilvah, the store she recently-opened at the Varnamala wedding experience centre in T Nagar.
Conceived in Coimbatore in 2017, Vilvah offers handcrafted products from soaps, lip balms, day cream, face masks and serum.
Kruthika says that Vilvah manufactures all its products with farm fresh coconut oil, neem, oil, jasmine oil, avarampoo (Tanner’s cassia) and turmeric.
“We have our own farm near Coimbatore where we rear goats, and that is how I started making goat milk soaps. All the ingredients for our products come straight from our farm, and so we don’t have to worry about sourcing raw materials,” she says.
- Goat milk acts as a moisturiser as it is rich in essential fatty acids and triglycerides, and contains skin minerals like selenium and Vitamin A — believed to be the most important vitamin for the skin, which is why the brand uses it for skin repair, eczema and psoriasis.
The concept of sustainability is also on her mind as she goes about building her brand. “We shifted to plastic-free containers a few months ago. We are also planning to bring refill machines for shampoos; our customers can bring old bottles and get them refilled instead of buying more bottles,” she says, adding that the ingredients she uses in her products are also bio-degradable.
“We ask our customers to recycle their bottles here. This is what will help in the sustainability of our brand, and it is also the only way forward,” states Kruthika.
What is not on her agenda, at the moment, is brand expansion. “The products we have curated are for Indian skin types and conditions, and so we do not plan on popularising the brand abroad,” she says.
