The story of a mother who joined forces with nature

"Beauty isn’t skin deep."

Of course, you know that. But did you know that beauty care isn’t skin deep either! As much as 70 per cent of the beauty care product you apply on your skin is actually absorbed by your body.

Now, let’s think about what that product might be. When you carefully apply that cream on your face at night, you could be actually rubbing chemicals into your skin. Even if it is labelled “natural.” If you were given a bottle of Disodium EDTA, Imidazolidinyl urea,Phenoxyethanol, would you rub it into your skin? Definitely not! Yet, garbed as face cream or wash, you unwittingly do that – perhaps everyday. And a significant amount of thisis absorbed by your body to potentially cause dangerous allergies and diseases.

Foryears now, our beauty care regime has been throttled by chemicals. In fact, many skin care products comprise synthetic chemicals that are skin irritants, skin penetrators, endocrine disrupters and even carcinogenic.

Grappling with a harsh truth!

Alkaa Punia, founder of SNAANA, discovered this truth the hard way. As a young mother, she felt vulnerable as she watched her 3-year-old daughter Maaira suffer from dermatitis. She went from pillar to post to find a treatment, consulting numerous dermatologists, trying a variety of medicated soaps, lotions and creams– but all in vain. Her daughter’s rashes showed no signs of abatement. Frustrated with the lack of progress, Alkaa decided to try natural Ayurvedic treatment. Yet, once again to no avail. Maaira’s skin was clearly reacting to something.

Determined to find the allergen, she began to scrutinise the labels of all the soaps and lotions she was using. That is when she came to realize that the so called “natural” products she’d been using included a variety of additional chemicals.

Worried about the impact these chemicals could be having on her child’s development, she began to make the soap at home, using just natural ingredients like olive oil, coconut oil and caustic soda. “It looked like halwaa,” she recalls. But she persisted, using only home-made products. And within weeks, the rashes began to fade away.

Encouraged with the results, Alkaa researched further into the subject to see what other natural products she could make. She also discovered that the lax legal framework around natural products left the field open for malpractice. “Do you know that a product can be labelled natural even if there is just one per cent natural product in it?” she points out incredulously. The more she learnt, the more determined she became to drive change.

The birth of a game changer

Word spread quickly about the miraculous recovery this young mother had pulled off for her daughter and she began to get requests for her remedies from others in her community.

Before she knew it, SNAANA was born, offering 100 per cent natural products. She even converted a part of their office into a lab to test raw materials. Her husband Hemant lent further strength by building the necessary infrastructure around her effort. And, inspired by their commitment, Mr Pramod Kukreti too joined in as a partner, investing in the SNAANA promise.