External funding, global market foray – next on its agenda
India’s vegan beauty brand Plum Goodness has entered the hair care market, with products
priced in the ₹ 675 – ₹ 875 range
Plum Goodness, which claims to be India’s only 100 per cent vegan beauty brand, has ventured into the hair care range of products. The thee-year-old company already has around 40 products in skincare, body and bath essentials categories, in addition to kaajals and colour cosmetics.
With the launch, Plum Goodness is offering four hair care products under two categories, named Olive Macadamia and Hibiscus & Rosemary. While the Olive & Macadamia range comprises a hydrating shampoo, a nourishing conditioner and a moisturizing hair mask; the Hibiscus & Rosemary currently includes a single product – a tender anti-dandruff shampoo. The products, priced in the ₹ 675 – ₹ 875 range, is available at leading cosmetics outlets across India, and also on leading online market platforms.
Shankar Prasad, Founder & Managing Director of Plum Goodness, states that right since the time the company launched skin care products three years ago, there has been a demand from satisfied customers for hair care products from the company. Informing that the hair products are created for long-term use, he says that like the rest of Plum Goodness products, the new range of products is also PETA-approved for being cruelty-free and 100 per cent vegan, and made from purely natural ingredients, picking the very best from what nature and science have to offer.
The ‘cruelty-free’ focus
More importantly, the company claims that its hair care products are free from any unsafe ingredient, be it silicones, alcohol, parabens, sulphates, propylene glycol, zinc compounds, or phthalates. For hair conditioning, Plum Goodness uses olive derivatives, macadamia oil, hibiscus extracts, shea butter, and specifically processed pro Vitamin B5 – instead of silicon components, stated a beauty feature in Femina.com. Unlike a majority of the beauty products that uses keratin derived from animals, Plum Goodness uses keratin that is 100 per cent plant-derived, and cruelty-free – collaborating with leading labs from across the world.
The Olive & Macadamia hair care range is specially made for chemically treated hair. It is augmented with a UV protection that heals UV damage, and also protects your hair and the colour from any more damage, and also ensures that the hair colour is retained for a long period. The Mega Moisturizing Hair Mask available in the range offers a naturally-derived pollution safeguard for your hair. The pollution shield in this mask ensures natural protection against deposition of particulate pollutants, and helps in retaining the hair's natural strength and quality, the article stated.
The Next Level of Growth
Though Plum Goodness products are currently sold through about 100 retail outlets across the country, mostly under the platform of wellness and health retail chains, such as Health & Glow, eCommerce remains the biggest business platform for the company. In addition to its own website portal, the company products are also available on Flipkart, Amazon, Nykaa, Snapdeal, Myntra, and Purplle. It does not sell outside India but is seeing emerging interest and demand among consumers and distributors from abroad. It serves about 60,000 customers per month and expects to double this figure in 2019.
The company’s operations have been self-funded till date, but Prasad plans to seek investors later this year to help achieve the next level of growth. Prasad states his company is still at the basic stage, whether it’s about product portfolio, distribution spread or also the kind of things that Plum would like to indulge in. In future, it plans to do a lot more in these spheres, for which external investment will have to play a crucial role, he says. A B.Tech in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay; and an MBA from the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad, Prasad worked for eight years at Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) and later at McKinsey and Everstone Capital. As a member of Everstone’s consumer sector investments team, he got an opportunity to be a part of the founding team for Faces cosmetics in the country.
Spotting the lacuna
On his frequent travels abroad as an employee, he began to feel that India lacked a beauty brand that combines science, sustainability, goodness and human values. With this though as his inspiration, Prasad founded Plum, headquartered in Thane, Maharashtra, about four years ago. The Plum brand was developed in a London design studio and has most products made in Europe – in collaboration with leading global reputed labs to ensure the safest natural ingredients to suit different skin types and apprehensions. It also has a manufacturing site in Thane.
Prasad says that his brand Plum signifies the features of the fruit by the same name – nourishing, juicy and delightful to savour. For him, the venture was the dream culmination of his values, his knowledge, and the rich and long experience gained from being part of the personal care industry. The company claims to be maintaining transparency of source and ingredients for the customer and applying the same philosophy to product packaging. The packaging materials are made from recyclable plastic instead of PVC or acrylic – to match the vegan standards of its products, the company informs.