Mumbai Woman Once Survived A Brain Haemorrhage, Now Her Natural Beauty Brand is a Blinkit & Amazon bestseller

Driven by intense love for voiceless beings like animals, plants, and nature, Natasha Tuli’s story is one of compassion, purpose, and strength. 

She entered the essential oils industry when there wasn't a lot of awareness about it. She survived a brain haemorrhage. She pivoted Soulflower into the online space.

And she did it all with an unwavering sense of resilience.

“I owe a lot of my grit to my father and his brother. They migrated from Pakistan during the Partition and built commendable lives for themselves from scratch. So beginning from the beginning and reinventing is kind of wired in me,” Natasha Tuli, founder of Soulflower, tells Startup Pedia in an exclusive interview.

Founded in 2007, Soulflower is a clean beauty brand that offers natural products in the categories of hair, skincare, and essential oils. Currently, it is the highest-selling premium hair growth oil on e-commerce platforms like Blinkit and Amazon.

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HOW IT ALL BEGAN

Hailing from Mumbai, Natasha Tuli studied architecture from the JJ School of Architecture.

“I come from a film family. My father, Virendra Kumar Tuli, is a producer. My uncle, Rajendra Kumar, was a very well-known actor. But I wanted to do something of my own. Nature and architecture inspired me, and I decided to blend them,” Natasha tells Startup Pedia.

After a couple of jobs where she specialized as a landscape architect, Natasha decided to establish an art gallery. She named it Gallery Soulflower and curated art shows, as well as co-authored art books.

It was around 2007 that she started noticing a trend in the Indian market.

“People were shifting away from Indian products and were preferring internationally-made products. I studied the essential oils industry and realized that India is one of the largest producers of essential oils, but we have a very small consumer base in the country. People here were also unaware about essential oils and didn't know the benefits of aromatherapy,” entrepreneur Natasha Tuli shares.

Along with her co-founder, Amit Sarda, she decided to start Soulflower as a bootstrapped brand that offered essential oils in the form of diffusers.

The initial investment came from the money that she got after selling her jewellery.

From 2007 to almost 2020, Soulflower functioned as an offline B2B brand that manufactured high-quality essential oils in the form of diffusers, packaged them, and sold them to retail chain stores like Shoppers Stop and Lifestyle.

“At the time, anyone walking into the mall would be our customer. The entire branding and messaging were aligned to a wide demographic,” startup founder Natasha Tuli mentions.

But when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, malls were shut down. Natasha Tuli and Amit Sarda realized that they needed to make a pivot and bring the brand online.

“We knew that the lockdown would be eased and malls would open up again. But we also knew that we couldn't cater to a large base of customers until we came online. This is when we strategized a shift from pure B2B to a mix of B2C and D2C,” Natasha explains.

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SOULFLOWER’S REBIRTH

Around 2021, Natasha and her co-founder, Amit, began working towards making Soulflower into a Mumbai-based online-first brand.

This was also the time when Natasha’s expertise in essential oil formulation came into maximum utilization. 

Soulflower identified the main problem areas that customers grapple with when it comes to skincare and haircare.

“Market research brought forward hard truths. A lot of brands were saying they were natural but weren't really. Others simply didn't have the clinical studies to back their claims. Customers kept trying one hair oil after another…only to be disappointed with minimal results,” startup founder Natasha Tuli says.

“We decided to become the David in the market of Goliaths, who were the giant FMCG brands. We wanted to solve for customers and provide them with a brand that gave real results without any harsh chemicals. We decided to truly listen to what their skin and hair were saying,” she adds.

With this, Soulflower became the first hair oil in the market to introduce the effective Rosemary formulation. Since then, Natasha claims, numerous brands have been taking inspiration from their products.

Around 2021 and 2022, hair regrowth solutions like Minoxidil started gaining traction. But with them came extreme side effects like sexual health problems and a hormonal imbalance. Soulflower emerged as a safe and natural alternative.

Soulflower released its premium hair growth oil, packed with natural ingredients like castor, rosemary, amla, coconut, and olive.

Eventually, Natasha Tuli and Amit Sarda began scaling Soulflower as a farm-to-face clean beauty brand.

“In Rajasthan, there is a small tribal area with a school and an attached farm. We taught the school’s teachers how to make the oils and started using the farm to grow our very own organic herbs used in our formulations. So now we are in complete control of the quality of ingredients that go into our products. Plus, helping the teachers find a stable source of livelihood was the cherry on top,” Natasha shares.

In addition to hair growth oils, Soulflower manufactured and started selling natural hair serums, shampoos, conditioners, shampoo bars, face wash, face serums, soaps, sunscreen, and skin oils.

The brand prides itself on being clinically proven as well as FDA-approved.

“I am the Chief Formulator of Soulflower and have absorbed myself in deep, clinical research for close to two decades. A key ethic for us is to use natural formulations, not Ayurvedic ones. The thing is, Ayurvedic products operate in a grey area. But Soulflower is all about ultimate transparency and efficacy,” entrepreneur Natasha Tuli explains.

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WIPRO FUNDING

In 2022, Soulflower received Rs 15 crore worth of funding from WIPRO.

“WIPRO approached us and asked if we required funds to build the brand’s online presence. We were very grateful to be backed by them. The interesting story is that the CEO approached us because he had seen our products in his daughter’s bedroom and was immediately interested in knowing more,” Natasha Tuli tells Startup Pedia.

Since then, the funds have been invested in growing Soulflower’s presence on social media as well as e-commerce and quick commerce channels.

CONSISTENT GROWTH

Currently, Soulflower’s premium hair growth oil is the highest-selling hair oil on quick commerce platforms like Blinkit and Amazon.

“We’ve even surpassed brands like Parachute in online sales. All because we have a very strong word-of-mouth marketing happening for us by real customers who have seen real results,” Natasha shares.

Apart from India, the FDA-licensed farm-to-face clean beauty brand has a strong market presence in countries like the United States of America, Singapore, Dubai, and Saudi Arabia.

Before WIPRO came into the picture, Soulflower was clocking less than Rs 1 crore in annual revenues. However, with the funding, the brand has rapidly scaled online.

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PERSONAL VICTORIES

Natasha Tuli, apart from being an entrepreneur who has consistently reinvented herself and her brand, is also a brain haemorrhage survivor.

In 2013, she had an accident which caused a brain haemorrhage. The doctors said that she would have to stop all physical activity for the next few years. They advised her to complete bed rest.

“But running was kind of in my bones by then. I loved taking part in marathons. I was addicted to feeling the breeze brush against my face while on long runs. So when I got the surgery, I didn’t let it stop me. Within the next three months, I was up and running. I don’t know if it was real physical recovery or whether I had forced the universe to surrender to my wish,” Natasha Tuli shares with Startup Pedia.

In November 2013, Natasha participated in the 21.1-kilometre marathon in her city and completed it.

Since then, there has been no looking back for her – in fitness, entrepreneurship, and her commitment to caring for people’s skin and hair naturally.