Tag Archives: Shahnaz Husain

Brand dame

NEW DELHI :

ShahnazHussainMPOs15oct2018

Entrepreneur, under-the-radar philanthropist and an over-the-top personality — the relevance of Shahnaz Husain 40 years after her first formulation

Shahnaz Husain’s press kit weighs 12.3 kilos, and contains press clippings from around the world. But then everything about her is over the top, and it’s not just her red hair threaded through with gold ribbons. Of her 58 homes, one is in Delhi’s tony Greater Kailash. There is a Rolls-Royce and a Jaguar parked up front, while inside is a sort of Midas-touch shocker. There are swans, a Ganesha, cushions, high-backed chairs, window valances, all in gold. There is an MF Husain on the wall that the artist did especially for her, large urns in the corners taller than people, horses sprinting across the carpet. Curios clutter, and I imagine a dusting nightmare.

She is not short on staff though. There are at least 15 people I have counted, and I am there just for a couple of hours. They appear, to offer food, tea, more food, juice; and to take instruction each time Shahnaz rings her bell to show me something — her first husband’s photograph, a letter from romance novelist Barbara Cartland’s friend’s son whose eyesight she cured, a picture of a man she picked up off the street because he was lame. They are dismissed soon after, with a wave of Madam’s hand.

She is wearing a blue-and-leopard print cassock-like garment, and holds forth for the next couple of hours. While she knows just what to say to the media, often telling the same stories, there is a certain warmth I feel, even as she holds my hand, her 70+ years, showing only in her hands.

Cosmetic shift

She begins with the first of many stories (these are her forte, not the dates or the details): when on a course with cosmetics entrepreneur Helena Rubinstein, she had a friend whose mother would come and sit outside the class because she was blind and had no one to take care of her at home. “She’d been a sought-after model who had worked for an eye make-up company,” says Shahnaz. She had modelled a new line, complaining to the manufacturers that her eyes would feel blurred after use. “They told her to wash them and put Optrix.” The blurring continued, until she simply could not see any more.

Shahnaz was learning what she calls “chemical beauty” at the time — Arnould Taylor, London; Christine Valmy, New York; Lancome, Paris; Swarzkopf, Germany; Lean of Copenhagen, Denmark. “There was no school I hadn’t been to, until Rubenstein started to say ‘we have nothing to teach you’.” She had funded herself through her writing work. Married at 15 to Nasir Husain, who was director foreign trade in the State Trading Corporation, she was determined to study. She did, for eight years.

Back in India when she was about 24, she set up a small factory in Delhi’s Okhla (that she still has) and “employed a yurvaids . I gave them the chemical formulations and asked them to convert them”. She also recruited chemists to make products for “treatment and cures” — falling hair, acne, pigmentation, dark circles, stretch marks. She asked people who came to her home salon to test them and give her feedback, tweaking each product as she went along. They retailed out of Sahib Singh Chemists in Connaught Place, in little white bottles with green caps and handwritten labels. That is the thing, she says. It has never been about beauty, but always about Ayurveda, in the days before it became a marketing tool.

Thinking beyond business

There is no marketing, in fact. At an address at Harvard Business School in 2015, she spoke about how she created a successful business sans advertising. Two years ago she told the same school in an interview how she entered Selfridges and broke a 40-year record, selling products worth £2,700 (approximately Rs. 2,63,500) in the first two hours, even as she displaced half of the space allocated to Pierre Cardin.

Her way of entering a foreign market is often through the Indian government (as in Selfridges, where Ingrid Bergman bought 12 of her cactus cleansing creams at the Festival of India), and by liaising with the press. She says wherever in the world she goes, ambassadors are happy to organise a press conference. She will talk Ayurveda, distribute samples, and get enormous press coverage. She is clear that the future is Ayurveda, not chemicals.

In fact, even as a young girl travelling the world studying, her father, Nasirullah Beg, a chief justice of the Allahabad High Court, would write to the ambassadors in various countries so his daughter could stay with them through the duration of the course.

But it is not just running a business; she is happy to dole out products made for cancer patients free of cost, especially those with patches of alopecia, and will pick people off the street, offering them jobs, connecting them to medical specialists.

Today, the company invests in R&D, with customers from salons testing them out, though it is not clear whether they know they are part of the research. She also talks in terms of “prescriptions” and “fairness creams”, a throwback to an era where protocols, both medical and social, were not as strict.

The label life

Earlier this year, the Shahnaz Husain brand was relaunched, with a new store at Delhi’s Select Citywalk, with new branding that seems rather mixed, with large pictures of flowers all over the frontage. Her face is still on some of the packaging, not retro-styled, but much like how it would have been done in the ’90s. She is not about to sell out or have anyone invest in the company. The brand is present in 40 countries today, including Iceland and Vietnam.

I dare not ask, ‘What after you?’ For Shahnaz is the brand.

As we conclude, she declares, “I think you have enough for a book now,” in her alto. Then she asks for her matching blue-and-leopard print bag, as we sit in her foyer, surrounded by a garden of plastic flowers, taking photos, with a couple of photographers jumping into the fray, seemingly from nowhere (waiting in the wings for this moment, perhaps). “Now we are best friends,” she declares, after we cut a cake, the done thing when a guest comes to her house for the first time.

She says wherever in the world she goes, ambassadors are happy to organise a press conference. She will talk Ayurveda, distribute samples, and get enormous press coverage. She is clear that the future is Ayurveda, not chemicals.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Weekend / by Sunalini Mathew / October 13th, 2018

‘Beauty is everyone’s concern’

Hyderabad, TELANGANA / NEW DELHI  :

Appetite for knowledge Shahnaz Husain at The Park’s Fire restaurant in New Delhi | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma
Appetite for knowledge Shahnaz Husain at The Park’s Fire restaurant in New Delhi | Photo Credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

Shahnaz Husain says quality of food plays a vital role in making a person look attractive.
It is usual to find film stars, sport personalities and politicians surrounded by fans and followers. One did not expect such response for Shahnaz Husain, one of the pioneers of herbal beauty care movement in the country. From the moment she steps into Fire, the multi-cuisine restaurant of The Park for a luncheon interaction, men and women of all age groups douse my cynical mind with their requests for selfies and autographs with the doyenne of cosmetic industry.

Perceiving my surprise, Shahnaz says, “This is the goodwill that I have earned thanks to my profession. For me, money was never primary. It was to help people look good without adverse effects. I’m always keen to help people including strangers whenever I observe a skin or hair problem. I try to suggest what is good for them. Recently, I noticed the girl doing my cardiogram at the doctor’s clinic had a bad case of skin pigmentation. I advised what was best for her.”

Chef Abhishek Basu has specially curated organic seasonal menu for the guest. Shahnaz remarks, “Being conscious about my diet, I am glad about this menu.”

Carving her own niche

Considering that Shahnaz comes from a family of legal luminaries — her grandfather Samiullah Beg served as the Chief Justice of Hyderabad High Court, father Nasirullah Beg was the CJ of Allahabad High Court and uncle Mirza Hameedullah Beg was the CJI — many find it surprising that she decided on cosmetic business as a career. “My father wished me become the Chief Justice of the International Court of Justice in Hague while I teased him that my limited schooling was not enough for that. Having been married at 15 and becoming a mother at 16, I wondered what to do with my life. Not keen on interior decoration or fashion, I decided to opt for cosmetic therapy and cosmetology.”

What she decided, she did with style, studying in eight countries and getting trained in globally reputed institutions like Helena Rubinstein, Swarzkopf, Christine Valmy, Lancome and Lean. “Having dropped out of school, I was hungry for knowledge , till they said, there is nothing else to teach,” she quips. Remarkably, Shahnaz paid the fees for these institutions on her own by writing articles on beauty for magazines and weeklies.

Shahnaz took a major decision when after learning Western techniques and methods she decided to create herbal products based on Ayurveda. She says it happened because of a chance incident. “At Rubinstein, my classmate Catherine used to come with a very beautiful woman whom she made wait outside. Unable to control my curiosity, I found out that the lady was her mother. A well known model, she had gone blind by using a famous eye make-up while advertising for the product. I was completely stunned and wondered that if a cosmetic product led to loss of sight, there is something wrong with the beauty business. Pondering over it, I decided to tap India’s more than 3000-year-old Ayurvedic heritage to find alternatives for the chemicals used in beauty products.” After returning to India, she employed several ayurveda practitioners for the job. “You would be surprised to know that for each formulation we discovered 20 alternatives. Such is the richness of this ancient science.”

Meanwhile, the chef fills the table with healthy options. There is sol kadhi, bael pathar ka sharbat and bhutte ka kees taco. Each finds favour with Shahnaz. “This is the strength of natural ingredients. It not only lends taste and flavour but also provides required nutrients.” As we finish the main course of Thanjavur manga curry, mangodi ki subzi and munsiari rajma masala is served. Shahnaz remarks, “The sheer colour, aroma and presentation makes the dishes so tempting. I will try a little of each.”

As we enjoy the delicacies, Shahnaz observes that while most people think that creams, lotions and treatment makes one look good, it is essentially our food intake that plays a major part. “If possible, people should go vegan, otherwise they must eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables; go high on protein and less on carbohydrates; eat dal and rice after removing the water. These are the mantras for healthy skin and hair.” One couldn’t help observe the hotel staff, listening in rapt attention as did other guests around us.

Strict diet

On being asked if she herself practices what she preaches, Shahnaz says. “I follow my diet rigorously. Breakfast is oats, papaya and green tea. Lunch is usually fruit juice, brown bread, cheese and vegetables while dinner is one roti with subzi.” It must be tough to resist the temptation. “Yes it is,” she admits candidly. “I do have cheat days when I eat Hyderabadi biryani, korma, roast potatoes, kakori kababs, sheer mal and kheer.” Her favourite cuisine is of course South Indian. “Being light and healthy, I prefer idli and dosa with sambar. I learnt this from Vyjayanthimala, who told me that a doctor had advised her to eat these when she wanted to be fit for a particular film.” Likewise, she prefers Chinese cuisine, particularly chicken chowmein, Peking duck and sweet corn soup. “Bahut light hota hai!”

Amazingly dealing with chemicals and their formulations, Shahnaz does not lead from the front in kitchen. “I never had a chance to learn since we always had a cook at home. Once venturing to make rice, I was so confused about the quantity of water and the time required to boil it, that I ended up adding milk and sugar to make kheer,” she quips.

As the doyenne emphasises the need for proper diet for healthy body and mind, one wonders what beauty means to her. “Beauty is what a woman exudes from inside. There are essentially two aspects to it. A woman needs to be intelligent besides being attractive. One without the other never works. Secondly, neither the skin nor hair colour is important, it is the quality that counts.” Then what about this fanatic longing about fairness? “That is really unfortunate. I know several women having underwent chemically induced treatment to look fair. That never helps as the side effects are terrible. We too are entreated by parents to make their daughters fair to help them get a suitable match. All this pains me.” The cosmetic industry too fuels this fascination as evident from ads. “Instead of changing public perception, they are promoting it. Skin colour does not decide the character or nature of a person or how he or she will be as a life partner,” remarks Shahnaz.

Instead of this obsession for fairness, Shahnaz suggests one should take care of oneself. “Looking good is feeling good. People in general and women in particular must take out ‘me time’ to take care of themselves. This need not necessarily mean visiting salons or parlours.” Stating that beauty consciousness is no longer confined to the upper crust of the society, she narrates some interesting anecdotes. “I once met a woman selling Rajasthani cushions in Connaught Place. She recognised me and eagerly shared that she uses one of my products which she picks up in bulk during her visits to Delhi. Likewise, a guard once asked me what cream to buy for his wife. Beauty is everyone’s concern,” she sums up.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food /  by S. Ravi / June 20th, 2018