Much like superheroes, every brand has an origin story, the place where it all started. And that often indicates its brand ethos. The Pink Foundry (TPF) believes that skin is stronger than it is given credit for, and the role that skin itself plays for products to show results is underestimated. They wish to drive the fact that interdependency between the innate power of the skin and how skin care products work is either not known or hugely under-appreciated.
Talking about parabens in beauty, the young entrepreneur, Niloni Shah, co-founder of The Pink Foundry, shares multiple revelations over my two-day stay with the homegrown brand in a rainy Goa. “It’s the dosage that’s poison, not the ingredient”, she says. With fellow beauty creators and journalists in tow, the brand opened up its doors to ‘skinthusiasts’ to let us in their manufacturing unit to learn what goes behind the scenes.
What stands out about the brand story is that it is a family affair. Daughter of Mehul Shah, Founder and Managing Director of Encube, Niloni has grown up on factory floors. Equipped with a pharmacy background, her main quest is to combine pharmaceutical knowledge with cosmetic products. On paper, having someone like Niloni at the helm of a brand – the girl lives and breathes skincare.
Niloni’s vision for the brand goes beyond just creating quality products that are effective and enjoyable to use. She, along with her team, wishes to create education around the science of skincare. And their first attempt at doing this begins with transparency, which is why they opened up their factory doors to journalists, a rare occurrence in the skincare community. Trust me, even as a beauty journalist, it is indeed quite rare that you get to go behind the scenes. At the state-of-the-art, US FDA-approved plant in Goa, we managed to pick products fresh off the conveyor belt and use them. For a skincare enthusiast like me, I felt like Charlie at the chocolate factory, without the eccentric Willy Wonka, of course.
The Pink Foundry And The Overnight Acne Spot Corrector
For TPF, the journey begins with the conception of their spot-correcting treatment. The unique bi-phased formula works on your blemishes overnight, drying them out to gradually reduce their size and appearance. With their initial offering and further launches, they tap into the magical ability of the human skin, which, if stimulated and activated from within, with the right interventions, can restore and enhance its innate strength and health. Featuring a Tria –DermTM action (Stimulate – Boost – Regain), their product range works with the most carefully chosen ingredients to activate the innate power of the skin.
TPF And Skincare Education
In my exciting conversation about skin science, what stood out the most was the brand’s goal to educate its consumers and the skincare community in general. Backed by over 24 years of skin expertise in developing highly efficacious cosmeceutical solutions, their understanding of developing safe, high quality, and efficacious products that work with the skin (and not just on it) is unparalleled. Shunning market trends as the driving force, getting the science absolutely right, and including it in their brand communication, is crucial for TPF.
TPF And Safe Skincare
There is absolutely no human intervention in creating any one unit of The Pink Foundry products. A consumer is the first person to touch the contents of their products. They are made at the Goa-based world-class facility with ISO grade clean rooms and a nested design to ensure 100% contamination-free products. The facility is certified by the world’s most stringent and highest rated regulatory agencies like US FDA, ANSM (France), WHO-GMP and more precision manufacturing. All ingredients are weighed, dosage delivered through computerised systems, and manufactured in closed-loop jacketed vessels. Each unit follows a seven-tiered quality check that includes raw material qualification, product sample tests before, during, and post batch making, microbiology testing, and stability testing.
The Pink Foundry And Advanced Sciences
The involvement of advanced sciences in the manufacturing process doesn’t stop there. The state of the art digital factory systems constantly monitors air, water and temperature requirements to suit the quality standards. The air at the facility is 10 times puree than the Atmospheric air (ISO 7 level). This goes on to use the highest level of purified water used for manufacturing, meeting USP and EPA Standards. This also applies to the sustainably produced products; Encube is a zero discharge plant! The AI-based command centre ensures that production maintains the same consistent product and efficacy every time a consumer opens a product.
TPF’s commitment to maintaining quality in ingredients begins at the storage level. Their product’s life cycle begins with high quality and safe ingredients stored efficiently to maintain their goodness until the time they are used. On our exhilarating factory visit, we were made privy to their rigorous safety standards of de-contamination, quality checks, and temperature-controlled storage for all material at the ASRS & Warehouse. A fully automated storage and retrieval system, they contain temperature-controlled pallets stored across four warehouses. With seamless barcode tracking and traceability, the SAP and Warehouse Management System can keep a close eye on the ingredients that go into their products. So much so that a less than satisfactory batch can be traced back to the raw materials used, alleviating quality control to a new level.
TPF And Transparency
A two-day trip ended with a head full of skincare anecdotes and a heart full of regard for the brand team. The brand undoubtedly has one of the most exciting and intriguing stories. With a no-BS attitude and passionate founders at the helm, the momentary glimpse I had of their daily ongoings was an exciting outing indeed. Plus, I got to walk away with incredible formulations fresh off the conveyor belt; how cool is that!
