Lip balms, scrubs and more, straight from the farm

Having worked as a graphic designer for India’s first cake art magazine, ‘Sugar’, Sivaranjani took a plunge into the art of baking. Her passion for cooking and creativity helped her carve a niche for herself in the baking business. Apart from cakes, thanks to her strong affinity towards natural cosmetics, she regularly experimented with home grown veggies and naturally extracted oil from her farm to create her own range of soaps and scrubs, that caught the attention of a few of her friends and family.

Finally, a year ago, under her brand name Amato, she ventured into a unique line of organic and nature friendly skin care range. “My mother gave me a bath powder with 18 herbs. It had to be mixed in water before application. When I hunted for similar organic bath products in the market none of the products made me happy,” she begins. After her constant search, she decided to make customised products and signed up for a soap-making workshop during her visit to New Zealand, where she attempted to convert her bath powder into soap. “I started making soaps for myself. I did a lot of research to find the right combination of ingredients for serums, face washes, body washes, lip balms, scrubs and bug repellent lotions.”

She tried it on her family members first and later marketed her products through Facebook and Instagram. She uses coconut oil as the main base product for her cosmetics. Sivaranjani says, “I get it from my farms in Salem and Thoothukudi. I also use almond oil and a variety of essential oils, few of which a made by me.” About her soaps she says, “They have natural ingredients

like wild turmeric, milk and poppy seeds, all of which have inherent

health benefits.”

Ganapathy procures the raw materials from around the world. “The containers are imported from the US.” She helps her customers choose products based on their skin type. She also plans to have her own store soon.

When we ask her about the target customers, she says, “I have something for everyone, even for the kids. We have formulated a cream called ‘Bug-me-Not’ that does wonders by shielding them against mosquito bites in this dengue season.”

On her customer base and future, she says, “60 per cent of clients are from Chennai. I get continuous streams of calls from people placing their customised orders, day in and day out. Considering such a huge demand, we are planning to open an exclusive store in Chennai as we already serve most IT friends there at various SEZs. But that will be a very calculative step, as the products are exclusively hand-crafted by me without any machineries or ready-made packaging. So, for now I am taking baby steps towards branching out, as my concentration is on serving the best of quality products to our customers who are our Kings… sorry, Queens in our case.”