Ravi Prasad: Co-Founder of Almora Botanica

Episode 872

On today’s episode, we welcome Ravi Prasad, Co-Founder of Almora Botanica — a luxury, natural and sustainable skincare brand bringing together Ayurvedic wisdom, Himalayan botanicals, adaptogens, green chemistry and modern science. After decades working in Ayurvedic medicine and wellness, including leading Himalaya Wellness Company, Ravi saw a major gap in skincare: too many products treat symptoms, not the root cause.
In this episode, Ravi shares why he made the shift from Ayurvedic medicine and supplements into skincare, and how Almora Botanica is taking a “pharma to farm” approach rooted in the Himalayas. He breaks down the idea of researched Ayurveda, why Indian beauty is finally gaining momentum in the luxury market, and how the brand’s Sapta Complex is challenging the perception that Ayurvedic oils have to feel heavy or greasy. We also talk about COSMOS NATURAL certification, green chemistry, the “If you won’t eat it, don’t wear it” philosophy, and why today’s consumers are looking more closely at what they put on their skin.
A must-listen for founders, operators, and anyone interested in the future of beauty, skincare, wellness, sustainability and how ancient traditions are being validated by modern science.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up. That I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be. We just want to make sure you will get knocked down, but just make sure you don’t get knocked out. Knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin Show. So, join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go! Let’s go! Hi, everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin Show. What if skincare stopped chasing trends and started treating the actual problems? Today, I’m joined by Ravi Prasad, co-founder of Almora Botanica, a luxury skincare brand combining Ayurvedic wisdom, Himalayan botanicals, adaptogens, green chemistry, clinical testing, and advanced delivery technology. After decades in Ayurvedic medicine and wellness, including leading Himalaya wellness company, Ravi saw what many skincare brands were missing. Most products were treating symptoms, not the root cause. So we built Almora Botanica with a clear philosophy, and I cannot wait to talk with Ravi today about his pharma to farm approach and all that has gone on in building this incredible, incredible brand that he has, as I mentioned to Ravi before we hit record, I am wearing the products this morning, and I am so thrilled that he is here with us today from India. Actually, so very excited and honored that you’re here with us today.

Ravi Prasad 1:57
Thank you, Kara. So am I. Thank you for having me on the show, Kara.

Kara Goldin 2:00
Absolutely. So, for listeners who may not be familiar yet with the Almora Botanica brand, how do you describe the brand and what makes it unique and different?

Ravi Prasad 2:12
I describe the brand as a wellness brand which uses Ayurvedic ingredients, but we apply modern science to Ayurveda so that the results are validated, the the efficacy is validated, and the safety is validated. So it’s really a tech brand where we have done a lot of innovations in terms of creating the base that we created that makes the products super light. It’s the viscosity of the products, be it oils, it could be a blend of seven oils or 10 oils or 15 oils or serums. Is only 5x of water, so it’s almost as like light as water you apply on the skin and it just vanishes into the epidermal layers. So that’s the first innovation we did for which we received a patent. The second we did was the efficacy of a skincare formulation is more a function of how effectively transports the active principles or the active ingredients that’s present in the product into your skin more so than the ingredients themselves that are present in the formulation. So we created a delivery system which is a molecular emulsion, and it transports about 50-five to 60% of active principles into the skin, as opposed to an average of about 20% in other brands, for which we got our second patent. So we applied really a lot of innovation. It took us almost four years from conceptualizing what needed to be done to getting the products out after doing the testing in vitro, in vivo, clinical studies, occlusive patch tests, consumer studies, taking some products back to the drawing board, and that finally the products saw the light of a commercial day at the end of four years after we started work on them, and it’s a green tech brand which uses 99.4% natural ingredients, applying molecular distillation, supercritical extraction, fermentation, stem cell technology, and various other things that we have created to arrive at the final product.

Kara Goldin 4:28
So so interesting. It always takes longer, right? You are a serial entrepreneur, so you know this firsthand. But it always takes longer to develop products than you think.

Ravi Prasad 4:39
Yes.

Kara Goldin 4:40
So you spent decades in Ayurvedic medicine and wellness before starting Elmora, and you know you could have stopped and and just stayed in medicine versus actually developing the products or developing the products just for yourself, but not wanting to. Develop them for the rest of the world, and this, of course, is not your first company and and series of products either. But what made you decide to become an entrepreneur?

Ravi Prasad 5:13
I wanted to wanted to create something that was really special, and I also wanted to create something chase the last grain of rice to get something that you know I would be happy with. So I was very lucky to get a cohort of people who believed in my thinking, and particularly my investors. And they said, “Yes, go for it. I mean, we don’t want you to launch something tomorrow. Take your time. But what comes out should be really unique. So, if I was working for another company as I was before, there was always a commercial pressure on the company that you know you got to launch something now. It’s already been in the research stage for so long. We need to have the numbers coming in. I didn’t want to be fettered by the chain of numbers that you know I have to drive the numbers. Everything should be focused on driving the numbers. I didn’t want to do that, and I would not have started this company had I not had the good fortune of finding investors who believed in the way I thought. And once I had that with me, then we decided yes, this is what we need to do. So interesting. So your first company, I believe it was your first company, Himalaya Wellness Company. I worked for that company. It was not my company. I worked for that company, but I worked for almost 20-five years with the company, taking it out of India to many countries: the Middle East, the U.S. Europe, and Southeast Asia. Yes, and it was a very successful brand. It still is a very successful brand, but I wanted to showcase Ayurveda in a very contemporary and in a very scientific light, which required a lot of work, and I thought it would be best for me to do it through my own company.

Kara Goldin 7:11
So, 20-five years at that company, I bet. Actually, you know, speaking about Ayurvedic, but also organic and and all of the kind of things that are spoken about today, clean, all of these different terms. I mean, that was just non-existent, correct?

Ravi Prasad 7:32
It was non-existent. Yes, absolutely. So I mean, it was these were all ideas that were floating around. But you know, I’m sorry to be saying this, but there’s a lot of greenwashing that is still happening, and I’m I’m very afraid, you know, of the consumers who are being carried into that stream of greenwashing, which is which requires to be tightened. There has to be controls that need to be put into place so that what we give to the consumer is actually what is intended for the consumer.

Kara Goldin 8:08
Yeah, definitely. I love your term “pharma to farm. Can you speak about that a bit?

Ravi Prasad 8:14
So I came from the other side of the fence. I started my career in the allopathic industry, and I was very soon disillusioned with it because it was chemical molecules. More often than not, are symptomatic in their relief; they are not curative. They do not go to the cause of the problem, which is producing the symptoms. So I moved from there into Ayurveda, and and soon I started realizing that Ayurveda really has some very very strong merits, and one of the merits is that it’s an extremely strong preventative science. It prevents problems from arising, and if there is a problem, which is usually caused because of an imbalance in the body, it takes care of the problem at the root level, so that the symptoms don’t arise again. And it happened with me personally. I moved to a city where I just could not breathe easily. I was having respiratory distress, and no no allopathic molecule and antibiotic or steroids could cure me, but an Ayurvedic medicine did, and that’s when I realized that there is science in this, and if the science can be tempered with the new advances that science is making, we really would have something unique to offer to the consumers, and keeping that in mind, we applied the pharmaceutical principles to the carefully curated farms from where we selected our ingredients, and we select ingredients from all over the world based on various filters that we can talk about subsequent. So it’s really the farm and the pharmaceutical principles that have come together in Almora Botanica.

Kara Goldin 10:08
So interesting. So the gap in skincare that you felt no one was solving. Can you speak a bit about what you have found to be? Are there five different ingredients that are really life changing that you feel are making such a difference in your products that is so different, or do you feel like the entire formula? I mean, what is it that is just so dramatically different that you’re that you’re doing with Almora Botanica?

Ravi Prasad 10:38
First, let us talk about a trend that has emerged, Kara. What has happened is, particularly after COVID, consumers are moving to natural ingredients. They are prioritizing natural ingredients, but at the same time, they are demanding proven performance, backed by clinical studies. And that is really not a trend anymore. It’s a truism. I’m seeing that in many countries with evolved consumers, they do not want to use chemical-based products, but they want those natural products to deliver their promises. This is a global trend, both in wellness and in beauty. And Ayurveda is a subset of the systems that consumers are adopting, the demand is for Ayurvedic products are really is really increasing from 22 to 25 as per a syndicated study. It’s doubled in three years. There’s been articles written on Ayurveda in L, in Time, in the New York Post, so there is really a lot of thinking going into why I should adopt natural products in my regimen, be it in food or be it in skincare. But you know, there is also this feeling, and rightly so, that natural products are not as effective as chemical base based products. So, if I have a product which has hyaluronic acid, that is a better product for hydration. If I have a product which contains retinol, it’s good for my skin. But they are not as necessarily as safe as their natural counterparts. So, what we decided was to match the efficacy of a skincare formulation, which contained ingredients like retinol or hyaluronic acid, or there is an ingredient which blocks the light and improves the skin barrier function. So these ingredients are all there in the chemical world. So we wanted to replicate those by having having natural ingredients in our formulation doing the same job. So, for instance, we use an ingredient called Biden’s pillowsa, which is called Himalayan Ladakhi Tea, which works as bioretinol. It has it works exactly like bioretinol, but it’s not photosensitive. So you can apply the product, go out during the day, and your face will not turn red. Tamarind seed, which is another ingredient that we use, and we use an extractive process by which we extract filigree, which is in tamarind seed. That works exactly like hyaluronic acid, but it’s biohyaluronic acid. It is not the chemical, the synthesized hyaluronic acid. There is, we have a product which we’ll be launching soon for reducing dark spots or age spots in the skin. Now we use rainbow algae for that. We use a particular rainbow algae we extract in a particular way. We source the rainbow algae from Brittany. What it does is it interferes with the pathway of melanin from where it is produced, and it then moves up to the receptors of melanin, which is there on the surface of the skin. This blocks the pathway and reduces the amount of melanin that goes and collects on the receptor, hence reducing the intensity of the dark spot over time, and you start seeing the results fairly early on. In about a week, 10 days, you start seeing the results. So we are using interventions which are all based on natural ingredients and modern science to do what a chemical does for you in about the same with about the same efficacy, but definitely with much more gentleness and safety.

Kara Goldin 14:28
So the philosophy of maximum results with minimum number of ingredients. Why was this so important for you?

Ravi Prasad 14:37
You know, there is. I we wanted to reduce the bio burden on the skin. There’s so much happening on the skin. You know, we apply the products and we go out, and there’s a lot of things going on on our skin. A, we wanted to reduce the bio burden on the skin. One, two is we also wanted to ensure that the products are gentle for the most sensitive skin, and that could. Only happen by having fewer ingredients, and the challenge was to get the same level of efficacy as a product with many ingredients, which almost has a cocktail therapy in their formulation list with lots of ingredients. But here, I’d like to give an example. You know, a lot depends on the ingredients that go into the skin, into the product, and for ah, for us, we are absolutely fanatical about the ingredients we choose. We have filters for the ingredients. One, no heavy metals: lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury, cobalt, zero tolerance. So we choose farms where the soils have been tested by Soil Association of UK to ensure that there’s no heavy metal contamination. Two, no microbial contamination, E. coli Salmonella. Three, no fungal contamination. Four, no microplastic contamination. So the farms were then chosen based on these filters, and then we also ensured that the crop was harvested at the right time, which we do through what is called a thin layer chromatography, which maps the fingerprints of the active principles in the herb against a reference standard. That’s how we chose our farms, and then of course the entire value chain of extraction and manufacturing was all approved by Cosmos, which is this third-party certifying agency and an extremely stringent certifying agency. So once they approve the extraction units and the factories, we started manufacturing in those factories. One factory is in France, and the other factory now, which we’ll start working with soon, is going to be in the U.S. We don’t manufacture in India, so a lot depends on the ingredients. You know, an example I’d like to give here, Kara, is if you eat a dish in a restaurant, it would be good, but if you eat the same dish in a Michelin star restaurant, it might be better. What is the difference? The recipe is the same, more or less. The difference is the ingredients. So a lot goes into the ingredients. So my focus on the ingredients is is very very strong. We strongly be focused on the ingredients, and then of course the processing comes in, and all that comes in. So it’s the purity of the ingredients. Few ingredients. How do we ensure that few ingredients will do the job of a formulation that contains many ingredients by pairing ingredients with adaptogens, other Ayurvedic ingredients, to ensure that they work synergistically? So that takes a bit of time, but thankfully the Ayurvedic texts that are the old compendiums of Ayurveda have listed the properties of Ayurvedic ingredients. Then it’s up to us to match which ingredient should go which other ingredient. So that’s how we ensure the efficacy is attained with few ingredients. And finally, with those ingredients, one could undergo stem cell culture. The other could undergo fermentation. The third could undergo water extraction. The fourth could undergo supercritical extraction. So, which is the best process to use to bring out the goodness of the herb without compromising the safety becomes the processing part of it. So, all this comes together in formulating products, it’s fewer ingredients that deliver the results and are gentle and safe on the skin.

Kara Goldin 18:29
Love it. So, can you talk about the products in the Almora Botanica collection and what you launched with, and and what you’re so excited about?

Ravi Prasad 18:41
So we we have 12 products currently. We don’t have a very big portfolio, so we have a product which starts with the cleansers. So we have a purifying gel cleanser and we have a makeup remover. The gel cleanser we have post biotics in it, where we source marine algae from France again, and we process it so it ensures that good bacteria stays on the skin, because that’s also very important for the integrity of the skin. So we have two cleansing products. Then we have face oils, we have day oils, and we have night oils. So there there are two day oils that are meant for younger skin, which are not as concentrated as the oils that are meant for mature skin. The more, the heavier with in the ingredients, but the texture of the of all the oils is as light as water. It’s just 5x of water, 5x viscosity of water, and then we have serums. The serums are problem-solving products. So we have a serum for fine lines. We have a under-eye serum. We have a serum for dark spots, which we are going to introduce once again. Now we’re changing a few things in that, and we have a hand cream that we have lodged as well. So. These are the current products that we have, but what I’m very excited about are two products. We are launching some more. There’s face cream coming out, but we are launching an SPF 50 product, which is going to be very special because it’s 100% natural. It’s coral reef friendly, and the texture is almost going to be as light as water again.

Kara Goldin 20:23
That’s incredible.

Ravi Prasad 20:24
So it just spreads without yeah, and without leaving any trace, any white trace on the skin. So that’s one. The second is a segment that we are working on for which we are currently doing the clinical studies in through a CRO through a contract research organization in Spain. It’s a product for perimenopause. So there are going to be three topical products, three products for the skin for menopause. There’s a estrogen serum. There is a phytoestrogen serum. There is a vitamin D booster cream. There is a facial mist, and there is a supplement that we are working on, and we are getting. I mean, the results have just started coming in. They’ll be the raw data will now be tabulated, and then we’ll be able to get the results. But some of the things that we are getting in terms of the results, the snippets, are very promising, and that is extremely exciting for me, Kara, because that really is. I mean, these are high science products. They have to deliver what they are supposed to do. And I should also add here that my hero products in different geographies. We are in Harrods in London. We are in John Belcroyden in London. We are in Pranthom at Number One Wall Street in New York. We are now in Dubai in several stores. We should be getting into France very soon. My top sellers in different geographies are my problem-solving products, and they are my most expensive products in the portfolio. And they are the hero products. And that can only happen if the consumer sees results, she’s coming back and buying them again, and that to me is really the evidence of the science working in the products.

Kara Goldin 22:11
Yeah, definitely. What is? Do you think is there one hero product in particular that seems to really be standing out?

Ravi Prasad 22:19
Serum for fine lines. Serum for fine lines is cutting across geographies as my hero product. Yes,

Kara Goldin 22:26
it’s absolutely terrific. And is that very difficult to actually build a global brand right out of the gate versus just focusing on one country? Because I know that there’s different regulations and that you need to follow within different countries. I’m just curious: is that is that difficult for an entrepreneur?

Ravi Prasad 22:49
No, it’s it’s it’s a very good question, and we felt you know that we should formulate the products, keeping in mind the most difficult regulations that exist globally, because if we met those, we could get into any country. So we kept the European regulations in mind and Cosmos as our filter, because Cosmos is a very stringent filter for safety and for ingredient safety, for product safety, and and also they evaluate your clinical results. So those were the standards we kept in mind and the filters we kept in mind, but it also happened, you know, organically. I was presenting to Arids and their beauty team tried the product and they felt that the oils in the serums were super light. They said we don’t have a product like this, so we got into Harrods when we just about launched.

Kara Goldin 23:48
Wow!

Ravi Prasad 23:48
Yeah, same story in Prontom. Just a year ago, 12th of June last year, we were in the U.S. My daughter was graduating in from California, and we had gone for her graduation ceremony, so just before that, I went to Prom Thom for an event. It’s one Wall Street, and if you’re in New York, please go see the store. It’s it’s it’s absolutely amazing, and we had an event, and we also promote face yoga. Face yoga is a way of massaging the facial muscles because the products are so light, they disperse the water that collects under the skin, and you can see the before after very evidently, very clearly. So we did that, and the products did well in Pratham. And Ratham said, “Why don’t we onboard the band brand? And that’s what happened with New York. So Dubai, the same thing. We were presenting, and they felt the textures were very different from what they had, particularly some of the natural products they had, which are usually heavy and oily, and they smell a lot. We have no fragrance, added fragrance in our products because fragrances can also produce allergies. So. We got into the products, but we are also now in online fairly strong online with our own website at Amazon in the US. So organically, we got into all the stores. Not that you know we really tried to push, but it was good as well because when we were presenting the COAs, the certificates of analysis for each product that we were talking about. I mean, we could show this, you know, the the details for safety that we were going into to ensure that the products were safe. It takes long to see the efficacy, but the texture and the safety you see immediately. I mean, we do a test, which is a patch test, which ensures that the people who have very sensitive skin should not develop redness or itchiness with the product. And we do that on Fitzpatrick one and two type skin, which is very fair skin. The lower the level of melanin in the skin, the less resilient is the skin, the more sensitive it is. So we do it on Fitzpatrick one and two, which is very pale skin, to ensure that the products are safe on them. And if it’s safe on them, it’s safe on everyone. You can extrapolate that to the universe of consumers. So we presented all this to the people who we spoke to and stores were taking us, and I just came back from Paris, and we are expecting to get into two of the leading one department store and one chain of stores, which are really the top stores in France. We should be getting into them fairly soon.

Kara Goldin 26:38
I love it. Well, Almora Botanica is such a smart example of what happens when you have high standards for actually developing products and everything that you were just saying about sensitive skin. I I definitely I wasn’t an official test case, but I will attest, it’s such a it’s such an incredible incredible product, and I’m sensitive to a lot. So I am very very excited to continue using it, and I am hopeful that everything that you’re doing at Almora Botanica is going to expand. So best of luck with everything, and Ravi, you are just so inspiring. So thank you for doing all that you’re doing, and thank you for joining me today. Everyone needs to go and get some of the Almora Botanica products. 12 now, many more coming. I understand, and very excited for all of it, so thank you again, and thank you everyone for listening. And until next time on the Kara Goldin Show,

Ravi Prasad 27:47
thank you, Kara. You you stay well.

Kara Goldin 27:50
Thank you. Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin Show. If you would, please give us a review, and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal best-selling book *Undaunted* where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint: We are here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now.

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