Recently, Blossom Kochhar, the pioneer of aromatherapy in India, launched her fourth book, `The Glow Getter’s Guide to Everyday Skincare’. This 226 page book offers natural beauty and self-care tips. It draws from her four decades of practice. These tips are for everyone, regardless of gender.
Kochhar has divided the book into four parts – facial care (skin), revitalise your body (body), nourishing your locks (hair) and beauty within (emotions). It is not necessary to read it from cover to cover. However, it is easy to read from any section one wants. It is a book for all ages, from baby to old age. “You’ve got to teach your children right from beginning to look after their skin and hair, and not by using cosmetics but by cleansing. If we tell our children don’t use this or that, they will have an adverse relationship with beauty. How do we do it that they celebrate it? So cleanse, tone and moisturize, in the morning and evening, these are very important. And of course, now we have the sunscreen,” says Kochhar. “These are some things that they have to do as they are growing up. And if the children look after their skin as they are growing up, they will have beautiful skin right through out. Cleansing both in the morning and evening is very important. I know so many grown-ups who don’t clean and then they start getting pimples and other things,” she adds.
Very often people look after their skin, but not their hair. So Kochhar has added a section on hair “because hair is a very important part of our body,” she says. Another important aspect that has been added to the book is how to analyse one’s own skin and hair.
Kochhar started in the Indian beauty industry way back in the late 1960s – early 1970s when the only creams availabe in the Indian market were Pond’s and Charmis. She started her career in Wellington, in the Nilgiris, Tamil Nadu when her husband, who was with the army was stationed there. “When I had to give facials to my clients, I couldn’t give them a facial with Charmis or Pond’s, so that is how this whole aromatherapy started, and the DIY and natural cosmetics,” says Blossom Kochhar. According to her, at the time she used to make the cosmetics in her kitchen and she would perfume them with the pure essential oils which were available in Wellington. Hence, she was one of the first to enter the space and the first to introduce us to the word `aromatherapy’ which was an alien concept almost three decades ago. In fact, according to Kochhar India is a large source of essential oils and most of the large beauty companies source their essential oils from India.
Gradually her business grew from aromatherapy to cosmetics. Blossom Kochhar Aroma Magic, the aromatherapy cosmetic range has 200 products, which are sold across 100 cities in India and available in many more countries abroad.
As sales of cosmetics dwindled during Covid, Kochhar started her DIY recipes. “All these have come from my grandmother and my mother,” she says. “In the old days there were no cosmetics. Even Charmis and Pond’s were not there. They used to use these natural cosmetics. And I must say that their skin was amazing,” she says.
Kochhar, is a big proponent of holistic beauty “because beauty is holistic and is greatly influenced by a balanced body, mind and emotions. What I really find beautiful is if the person is beautiful inside, it is automatically expressed on their faces, in the way they walk, in the way they talk and it is something that comes from inside out. And where you can really find it is their eyes,” she says.