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Astha Suri: How Naso Profumi Is Building India's First Green Perfumery From Lucknow | ChaiNet

Can Heritage Fragrance Become the New Luxury Obsession? - Astha Suri, Naso Profumi

Astha Suri is the founder and creative director of Naso Profumi, India's first green perfumery, built from Lucknow. She studied interior architecture in Bristol, fashion styling in Milan, and came back home to do what her family said was impossible. Naso is vegan, gender neutral, Ayurvedic and completely bootstrapped, and Vogue India named their tobacco the best fragrance of the year. She talks about what green perfumery actually means, why she calls true luxury the moment you stop chasing it, the unexpected channels that worked and the ones that did not, and why fragrance is one of the few categories AI cannot fully crack.

D2C Brands
Lifestyle & Fragrance
Sargam Dhawan Bhayana: How Planet Herbs Is Pivoting From B2B Ayurveda Manufacturing to D2C | ChaiNet

Can India's Oldest Medicine Win India's Newest Market? - Sargam Dhawan Bhayana, Planet Herbs

Sargam Dhawan Bhayana studied filmmaking in New York, came back to Dehradun, and joined her grandfather's 20-year-old Ayurvedic manufacturing business. After eight years inside the factory, she's pivoting Planet Herbs from a B2B contract manufacturer to a consumer-facing D2C brand, while also launching The Botanical Theory in skincare. She talks about earning credibility from a 30-year-veteran workforce, why being invisible makes you replaceable, the brutal five-level vetting process to stay listed on quick commerce, and what it takes to optimize for AI discovery in 2026.

D2C Brands
Health & Wellness
Kailash Nichani: How Topee Is Building India's Most Honest Hair System Brand | ChaiNet

Hair Loss Has a Stigma. He's Trying to Change That - Kailash Nichani, Topee

Kailash Nichani spent 20 years building businesses, including a stint at Swiggy and a failed run at Glassic. He started Topee in January 2024 after watching the hair patch industry overcharge, oversell and obscure its product quality. He talks about why he ditched his e-commerce thesis after 100% of customers pushed back, why he hasn't rushed to scale beyond one studio in two and a half years, the pricing opacity that lets some studios sell a 35,000 rupee patch for a lakh, and why he calls Topee an anti-2026 business.

D2C Brands
Health & Wellness
Akshita Singla: How Aakya Wellness Is Building Honest, Clean Label Supplements in India | ChaiNet

You Don't Need 20 Supplements, You Just Need the Right One - Akshita Singla, Aakya Wellness

Akshita Singla grew up around a pharmaceutical family and watched the Indian supplement industry boom into chaos. She walked away from a career in Luxembourg to build Aakya Wellness, a clean label nutraceutical brand sitting at the intersection of Ayurveda and modern bioactives. She talks about why most Indian supplement brands are marketing first and product second, the truth about no-sugar labels and stevia versus monk fruit, why she ran 70 to 80 iterations on a single collagen flavor, and how she actually uses AI to formulate.

D2C Brands
Health & Wellness
Shilpa Khadilkar: How Renewtra Is Building a Radically Honest Plant Based Protein Brand in India | ChaiNet

What a Pharmacist Sees When She Opens a Supplement Jar - Shilpa Khadilkar, Renewtra

Shilpa Khadilkar spent a decade inside the Indian nutraceutical industry as a pharmacist before bootstrapping Renewtra, a plant based clean label protein brand. She talks about why most Indian supplements are formulated in boardrooms instead of labs, why she put a traffic light label on every pack, what she sees on a supplement jar that most consumers miss, the recent peer-reviewed study that found 70% of Indian protein supplements were mislabeled, and her hard advice on running cash flows as a bootstrapped solo founder.

D2C Brands
Health & Wellness
Sam Chetwood: How CeCe & Me Is Rebuilding the Lost Trade of Pediatric Shoe Fitting | ChaiNet

Why Kids' Feet Are a Bigger Problem Than You Think - Sam Chetwood, CeCe & Me

Sam Chetwood walked away from a 15 year city career, retrained as a qualified shoe fitter, and built CeCe & Me to fix what most parents don't realize is a problem. The damage modern shoes do to a child's developing foot is real, mostly invisible, and lasts a lifetime. She talks about why she refuses to sell online, why barefoot shoes aren't a trend, why eight year olds are now developing bunions, and how a Tupperware-style shoe fitting party evolved into a multi-region franchise model that takes the service straight into family-friendly cafes and homes.

Retail
Children's Wellness
Nikita Naterwalla & Dr. Shefali Thakkar: How Arelang Naturals Is Reinventing Indian Supplements | ChaiNet

They're Building India's First Candyceutical Brand - Nikita Naterwalla & Dr. Shefali Thakkar, Arelang Naturals

Nikita Naterwalla started Arelang Naturals after her own perimenopause diagnosis left her drowning in supplements that didn't feel like food. Dr. Shefali Thakkar leads the R&D, formulating chocolates and gummies that act like nutraceuticals. They talk about coining the term 'candyceutical', why they refuse to use melatonin, the 1000 kg of walnuts it takes to make their sleep formula work, the 150 patient clinical trial behind their thyroid product, and why AI told them their best formula was 'fairy dust'.

D2C Brands
Health & Wellness
Dr. Kanan Doshi: How a 32 Year Veteran Therapist Built India's Patented Hands On Adaptive Device | ChaiNet

She Watched a Little Girl Struggle, Then Built the Device No One Else Would - Dr. Kanan Doshi, The Able Company

Dr. Kanan Doshi spent 32 years as a pediatric occupational therapist before co-founding The Able Company with Neera, the mother of a child with arthrogryphosis. Together they built Hands On, a patented mechanical adaptive device with seven attachments that lets people with physical limitations feed themselves, comb their hair, brush their teeth and write. She talks about why she kept the device deliberately battery-free for rural India, the two and a half years of prototyping that turned a screw mechanism into magnets, and getting incubated by IIT Madras almost by accident.

Assistive Technology
Social Impact

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