Founder ‘Salon & Spa Studio by Tangy Rose’
A champion of the environment and sustainability, when Divya Kohli launched ‘Salon & Spa Studio by Tangy Rose’ in 2007, she had already had 15 years of global experience in clothing design and exports under her belt.
Her company created a special niche in the Indian Wellness & Beauty industry by delivering high performing products and services through their distinctive line of Salon and Spa furniture and brands from Italy such as Pietranera, Beauty Star UKI & TANGY ROSE Spa furniture brands from the Far East.
Becoming a favoured supplier to the salons/ spas, she launched two more internationally reputed Italian brands, Comfort Zone, the conscious luxury skin care brand in 2015 and Davines, a sustainable haircare brand in 2018. Tangy Rose presently has a showroom and academy in Mumbai and New Delhi and is in the process of setting up both in Bangalore in 2021.
Divya is convinced that her background as an international clothing designer and exporter was a great foundation for her beauty venture. A nature lover, she believes in doing business with ethics and with a good conscience.
“We are a unique Company of Unique brands & that’s our strong USP”
Sandhya Chipalkatti: What has your experience been in terms of business during COVID-19?
COVID-19 struck India and almost the entire wellness industry including salon & spas came to a standstill until July 2020.
We faced a lot of challenges in business in those months, but decided to get positive and create opportunities for the company. We created the WE CARE offers for salon staff for Davines & Comfort Zone to help the salons and the staff in troubled times. The luxury Davines Hair Care was launched in 2018/19 by my company, Salon & Spa Studio by Tangy Rose and we were growing at a strong 20%++ rate pre COVID.
We also created our own luxury E commerce portal for Davines Hair which goes live from October 2020. Lastly, we worked on some luxury salon & spa projects for Resorts/ Condos & homes for furniture.
The key point was to stay positive and look for nudging growth upwards instead of living in a negative zone.
“Living a balance of beauty and sustainability, what we call “Sustainable Beauty” can improve our lives and the world around us”
You sell premium brands. Is a brand’s sales potential is influenced by its profile – mass/ premium?
The Indian market has yet to evolve completely as it perceives a product placed in shopping stores, highly commercial online portals and mass salons as a non-premium/luxury category product.
Since our Davines Hair Care & Comfort Zone skin care brands are luxury and sustainable beauty brands, we are extremely selective in the placement of the product. Instead of a horizontal sales format with more doors, mass volumes and high operations cost, we follow a vertical growth which means lesser doors with controlled overheads and yet deeper sales imprint in every door with education and sustainable beauty as a key quotient.
We are value driven not volume driven.
What role can brands play to support the industry, now that the market is opening up?
Today’s end consumers are very media savvy and want multi brand products for self-use.
Where product companies tie salons into 1 brand contract, they are ultimately forcing the end consumer to buy the desired product online, thereby resulting in loss of sales for the salon. Instead of trying to monopolize and kill other brands and control the salons, brands need to create a ‘live a let live’ working style and creating harmony in the professional space.
With everyone focused on clean beauty now, are your brands more relevant than before?
We are a unique Company of Unique brands & that’s our strong USP. Davines & Comfort Zone started the clean beauty movement in the wellness world 20 years ago.
Our clients and end consumers have not only started showing love for our products and their quality, they have also started slowly embracing the brand philosophy of ‘Sustainable Beauty’. We strongly believe in doing business with ethics and with a good conscience. Monetary benefits achieved from selling harmful products and practices are not acceptable.
Tangy Rose, Davines & Comfort Zone brands believe that living a balance of beauty and sustainability, what we call “sustainable beauty,” can improve our lives and the world around us. It is important to spread the message that clean beauty and caring in the beauty industry and work with make the environment clean and healthy for mankind.
“We are value driven not volume driven.”
Will the beauty business come back on its growth track by 2021?
Since travel and festivities are still restricted to a certain extent, consumers are not spending as much on the wellness and beauty quotient. Different growth tactics have to be applied and avenues have to be created within the beauty industry for achieving a solid growth. If one works strongly like a team, stays positive and creates incentives for the teams, we are likely to hit normalcy in 8-10 months from now.
One positive learning from COVID?
COVID-19 It’s given us a strong message – ‘Stop abusing Mother Nature and Mankind’ as we have angered Nature. We need to give back goodness to her by encouraging people to use the right practices and products which heal her. COVID has also, made us realize that we can all survive with less and but have to appreciate precious and good things and good people. At the end we will all go, but what good we did for the world will stay etched in history chapter we write today.
Be Unique, Be Strong, Be Kind!
