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The ‘Tattva by Shabia Walia’ Story

My husband travels a lot courtesy of his cinematography profession. He got me a wonderful body scrub from Fiji which I ran out of in December last year. After hunting a lot for it or something similar, I came across one by a popular brand which was ridiculously expensive. I thought to myself, ‘A Sugar Scrub can’t cost so much! Everybody should able to afford this pampering if she chooses to.’ That’s when I decided to try to make my own body scrub.

TATTVAEgged on by my husband and father in law, over the next few days in January 2014 I read, researched, experimented and made my first ‘Cocoa Almond Body scrub’ for myself. It smelt divine, I didn’t need to use a moisturiser after using it in the shower and best of all, it had no chemicals. Now I have always been concerned about the enormous amount of chemicals we put on our body everyday thanks to the body products we use. I told myself, “If I could do this as a business venture I would be killing two birds with one stone. I could stay close to my 5-year old daughter Sia and do this at my own pace and time. Most importantly I could do my bit to reducing harsh chemicals from my family’s lives and those of others who would choose to try my products since I was planning to make them with absolute natural and organic ingredients”

I told a few of the other mothers that I would give them some testers to try and asked them if they could give me feedback but they said, “If you are making them, we will buy a full jar”. And that was it! On 12th January 2014, armed with a few jars and ingredients worth a thousand rupees, ‘Tattva by Shabia Walia’ was born. We debated on a lot of English names for the company but the name ‘Tattva’ (meaning essence and truth) came to me while I was asleep, re-instilling my faith that this indeed was fate!

This became a family affair! My father in law and I discussed the pricing. My husband became the guinea pig to try all that I made and the first day of making an announcement about the ‘Cocoa Almond body scrub’ on Facebook, we sold scrubs worth 3000/- rupees.

Today we have more than 10 categories of products ranging from Body Scrubs, Face Scrubs, Lip Balms, Body Wash, Face Wash, Baby Care, Foot Scrubs, Body lotions, Face Creams, Cold Process Soaps and lots more.

Over the past three months our client base has grown to over 200 families. All our customers are repeat customers who keep coming back to us for our quality products. We deliver all over the country now and are available online through Facebook, Twitter, our  own website www.tattvabyshabiawalia.com and will soon be available on www.naturalmantra.com, an organically certified site which stocks only natural products.

Support has come in all forms with people wanting to tie-up, people offering us space to start a manufacturing unit, investors who want to fund us but despite all this we are taking slow but sure steps lest reckless growth hampers our quality. As an entrepreneur my joy comes from my products and nothing should or can take me away from the very reason why I started ‘Tattva’.

After the birth of my baby Sia, ‘Tattva’ is my second baby. It’s fulfilling, it keeps me awake yet I sleep peacefully knowing that I have made a good product that day.  And at the end of a hard day in the television world which has been my career for the last 20 years, ‘Tattva’ is what serves as my stressbuster and restores the spring in my step each day.

My dream is to someday own an organic farm where all that goes into ‘Tattva’ products is grown by me on my own land. So that the chain is complete from beginning to end. What grows on my soil reaches my end consumer, that’s my ultimate goal and I will achieve it soon, God willing.

A little bit about myself

Shabia and Sia

Shabia Ravi Walia has been a media professional for the past 20 years. Dabbling in production, creative direction and writing, she has equal experience in both genres of fiction and non-fiction.

Over the Shabia she has worked on various reputed non-fiction shows including Surabhi and The Good Food Guide for Siddharth Kak, Movers and Shakers on Sony TV and well-known fiction shows like Siddhanth, Kumkum, Ek thi Rajkumari, Mile Jab Hum Tum, Saraswati Chandra etc. She was amongst the core team who launched Sahara Samay in Mumbai for Sahara Television.

Her list of organisations include Star Plus, Cinema Vision India, Bag Films Ltd., Endemol, In House Productions, Sahara Television, BIG Reliance and various others.

However Shabia’s biggest achievement till date as considered by her, is the birth of her baby Sia and penning down the experiences associated with it in the form of ‘Mamma Mania’, her bestselling book. When Shabia is not rustling up stories or making body products, she loves to whip up a storm in the kitchen or put on her dancing shoes and burn the dance floor.

 

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