Naaree Interviews Shahnaz Husain, Empress of Herbal Beauty
- Friday, July 27, 2012, 0:58
- Business Women, Women Achievers, Women Empowerment, Women Entrepreneurs, Women In Business, Women Leaders, Women's Interests
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Without her magnetic presence the world of beauty and wellness would not be so beautiful. Without her potent vision, probably the 5000-year-old art and science of Ayurvedic beauty would remain lost in the realms of antiquity and not be an integral part of modern day beauty and wellness traditions, as it is now.
Her infinite wisdom not only taught a whole new generation that the passion of chiselling beauty and enhancing the health and hygiene quotient of women and men can be translated into an enterprise, but also the fact that beauty must not be only about modern day cosmetics, some tagged with potentially baneful influences.
You can call this inspiring personality as the herbal empress of our modern era, the first beauty ambassador of India, or simply a living legend.
However, you can also call her Shahnaz Husain, the Founder, Chairperson & Managing Director of the Shahnaz Husain Group of Companies.
Beauty can also be about age-old herbals with lasting benefits, and Shahnaz Husain has managed to get global recognition for the very Indian tradition of beauty and wellness by packaging it in a post-modern avatar for the modern age.
Introduction to a Legend
Without Shahnaz Husain we would not have seen the mushrooming of natural beauty parlours and salons across our metros and small cities of India and the mushrooming of the Ayurvedic beauty business in our developing economy, for she stimulated this beautiful revolution into taking off more than four decades ago.
In 2008, the Indian market for beauty and wellness products was a whopping 5.7 billion USD in size and growing, and she was one of the innovators who gave shape and credibility to this industry.
Before her, looking good and making others look good was just a distraction for most Indian women. After her regal entry into the realm of beauty and wellness, it graduated into a lucrative career option for many women, and also men, in India.
She revived a long forgotten science of wellness and made it trendy by bolstering it with the latest research and technologies, and inspired a cottage business to become a global industry worth many thousands of crores, that was also to provide livelihoods to millions in the decades to come.
Amidst all these, she also created a huge empire for herself that seems to be growing unabated. It was worth 100 million USD a decade-and-a-half ago, by which time it has grown manifold.
In comparison to large numbers of modern Indian women who are delaying marriage because of their careers, it is interesting to note that Shahnaz, who was born into a royal, affluent, but conservative family of legal luminaries, was married at 15 and embraced motherhood at the tender age of 16.
Millions of women would have reconciled themselves to their marital cocoons and crushed whatever dreams they had. But Shahnaz was obviously made of different stuff; the stuff superwomen are made of. She rose above her day-to-day family responsibilities and hackneyed traditions through her sheer grit and passion.
“Life seemed perfect, but I was bored with the drudgery of perpetual routine. I was always interested in beauty and in making others beautiful, so I decided on beauty as a career. I was determined to get the best training available and decided to work my way to the prized institutions of the west, to learn the intricacies and nuances of cosmetic therapy and cosmetic chemistry,” explains the great lady.
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