Harlin Sachdeva, Founder and CEO, House Of Makeup, talks about her passion for clean cosmetics with Kanishka Ramchandani.
House Of Makeup is committed to making your everyday essentials better by following the highest standards possible. It is the first Indian make-up brand to follow the European Cosmetic Directive, which bans 1300+ toxic ingredients. Harlin Sachdeva, Founder and CEO, defines the brand’s mission as ‘empowering individuals to embrace their natural beauty.’
What was the inspiration behind House Of Makeup?
I have been in the beauty industry for almost 12 years. My journey started with Sugar Cosmetics, and later went on to include Lakme and Nykaa. When Nykaa launched its private label brand, I used to read customer feedback on social media. They had queries like ‘Is the product paraben-free? Will it suit acne-prone skin? Will it suit sensitive skin?’
Women with skin issues tend to think that make-up will worsen their skin condition. In a lot of cases, it did, because the quality of the make-up was bad. Nobody was producing make-up for women with skin conditions. I realised this market gap and started working on a brand that can fill it.
The European Cosmetic Directive has banned more than 1300 ingredients, and I made that our starting point.
Take us through the product development process.
Firstly, we listen to our customers and find out what the market gap is. Secondly, I reach out to the global manufacturers spread across 20 countries such as Korea and Germany. Third step is receiving almost 100 samples from 20 plus manufacturers. We short list 5-6 of them and send them to our partner labs to test for heat, separation, efficacy and ingredients. Finally, the compatibility of the formulation with the packaging is tested. The packaging is tested separately. It takes a year’s time to put a product on the table.
Which platforms are retailing House Of Makeup?
We, of course, have our website. Nykaa is the second platform that you can find us on. We are going to be live on Tira and Tata very soon. We’re also live on Amazon. But Nykaa is a very important channel for us.
Are you looking at a brick-and-mortar store?
Not this year, maybe mid next year. Because a lot of planning has to go into it.
Do you think the cosmetic market has bounced back since the pandemic for you to actually invest in a store?
Yeah, it has. I am waiting for the right number of products to be able to make sense for us to go back to brick-and-mortar. I did do a physical store in 2019, just after my first launch in four months. We were there in the Lifestyle stores and a few beauty stores in Mumbai. They were doing really well. But when COVID hit, we realised we were not at a place where we could take that hit. Today, we want to make sure we are at that point where we can do this in a much more organised way.
What challenges do you face while launching a new product?
Number one is to keep up with the demand. We don’t want to be stocked out. That’s a bummer for the customers. No matter how hard we try, it’s difficult to anticipate this.
Secondly, since this is capital intensive market, we have to pay everything in advance to our manufacturers. It takes a year for the product to sell and for you to recover your money. The turnaround time is slightly less when you are selling online. But you have to be able to bear that kind of capital expense for nine months at least.
What is your marketing and sales strategy?
Small brands don’t have much of a marketing strategy. We really are betting on what customers have to say and sharing customer stories. Luckily, customers are loving our products.
We are running Instagram ads – that’s about it. We don’t even have a proper brand AV because it’s too early for us to invest in such things. We are investing in product development and a little in Instagram ads.
What is the plan to expand the customer base?
Retail is another ball game altogether. Majority of our customers are on Instagram, and we are getting a lot of word-of-mouth publicity too. I want to ensure that we keep on launching new products, and eventually get into retail stores, which will give us more visibility.
We are definitely up for collaborations. Anything that gives us some recognition with the right set of partners, we’re definitely up for it.
Are you bootstrapped?
I am bootstrapped. I put my hard-earned money into this. However, before the relaunch, we found a pre-series A investor who invested a small capital, which helped us launch 54 products.
Is there any message that you would like to give to budding women entrepreneurs?
We women doubt ourselves so much. We should cut ourselves some slack. If you ask a woman about someone, she’ll say good things about them. But if you ask her about herself, she will think of10 negative things. We should have the courage to follow our passion. It should be okay to make mistakes. Treat yourself like any other person and don’t be too hard on yourself. And most importantly, go for your dreams!