OCTOBER 13, 2023
India is in the throes of a beauty and fashion brand avalanche in the country, with Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez launching during the summer in June 2023, followed by many more that have launched, and are planning to launch since. But the bigger question here is: When will Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty, Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics and Kim Kardashian’s SKKN – all three being coveted celebrity owned and fabulous beauty brands – come to India? Beauty is a business to make money in, especially in India!
MUMBAI / JAPAN: Actor Tamannaah Bhatia’s skin is always in, making her the first Indian brand ambassador for the Japanese cosmetics brand, Shiseido. This ambassadorship in India is a collaboration with Shiseido’s Indian distributor, Baccarose Perfumes & Beauty Products Pvt. Ltd. founded by the late Hemansu Kotecha in 1984, in a landscape nascent of luxury beauty in India. “I am absolutely thrilled to be associated with Shiseido, a brand that has consistently set the standard for excellence in beauty for over a century,” says Bhatia. She makes an excellent poster girl for Shiseido in Asia with her flawless skin and personable countenance. Shiseido was founded in 1872 by Arinobu Fukuhara as Japan’s first Western-style pharmacy in Ginza, Tokyo. Fukuhara, the son of an Eastern herbal medicine doctor, was a trained pharmacist, educated in Western medicine, who rose up the ranks to Chief Pharmacist in the Japanese Navy. The name Shiseido comes from Chinese Yi Jing, the Book of Changes from the Four Books and Five Classics of Confucianism meaning, ‘Praise the virtues of the Earth, which nurtures new life and brings forth significant values.’ Translated into English, Do means ‘house of’, and Shi Sei means ‘where everything is born’. The first non-pharmaceutical product Fukuhara created was a cake of toothpaste in 1888 that sold successfully at eight times the price of regular toothpaste. And 151 years on, Shiseido is not just a global leader in the beauty business with its skincare, makeup and fragrance lines today, it is a lasting legacy of the Japanese visionary. Shiseido’s presence in India so far has only been online via Shopper’s Stop, Parcos, Sephora and Nykaa. But the brand is set to open its first brick and mortar store in India on October 18th, 2023 at the Inorbit Mall in Malad, Mumbai, with their skincare trio regime being unveiled by Tamannaah Bhatia.
Tamannaah Bhatia ©Shiseido India
MUMBAI: A fresh-faced beauty from Juhu, Paloma, made her debut as an actor and not a star, in a film called Dono last Friday. And I say this because Paloma can act, and not everyone from the Juhu zip code in Mumbai can! She did not break character for a nano-second with her succinct and able performance in her portrayal of a regular working girl dealing with a red flag of an ex boyfriend in the film. Her zephyr-like body language and her perfectly made-up face (big ups to her makeup artist) express the emotions of her character in a manner most beguiling. Her dialogue delivery is well-timed and she speaks Hindi clearly, without any affected accents and pretentious colloquialisms like some of her ilk. I see Paloma making big strides in acting roles in films and headlining fashion and beauty campaigns in India with her arresting eyes and lithe body. Though what I’d really like to see her in is in a gripping Netflix series because that will make her shine internationally. Daughter of the beauteous actor, Poonam Dhillon and film producer Ashok Thakeria, Paloma has done the work that goes into the making of an actor, and if she keeps honing her innate acting skills, stardom will be hers.
©Paloma
MUMBAI: NARS Cosmetics launched in India on October 10, 2023 with its bestselling Cruella Velvet Matte lips, Tinted Moisturizers, Light Reflecting Collections and so much more just an “Add to cart” away for Indians. “Don’t be so serious, it’s only makeup” said François Nars, the founder and creative director of NARS Cosmetics. But who should know better than Nars, a makeup artist and photographer, that beauty is a serious billion dollar business that’s been making him coin since he founded NARS Cosmetics in 1994. NARS Cosmetics started with twelve lipsticks created by Nars, that were sold at Barneys New York and has gone on to create multi-use beauty and skin products since. Born in Tarbes in the South of France, Nars assisted some of the top makeup artists in Paris, and graduated from the Carita Makeup school in Paris subsequently. He worked with fashion’s very best – the legendary photographer Steven Meisel and hairstylist Oribe Canales when he moved to New York in 1984.
©Nars
NARS Cosmetics is a subsidiary of Shiseido since 2000 after it was sold to the Japanese company, but Nars remains the artistic director, copywriter and in-house photographer for the brand he created.
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Rubina A Khan 