MODERN BEAUTY

With impeccable leadership, grit and tenacity – these women are changing the beauty narrative in the country – one product at a time

- SANJANA SALUNKHE

VINEETA SINGH, SUGAR COSMETICS

For Vineeta Singh, Co-founder & CEO of SUGAR Cosmetics, success didn't come overnight. She knew the pleasures and the pains of the business world. But it only motivated her to carve her own identity and make her presence felt. And she did.

Singh was only 17 years old when a career chat with her college professor on being an entrepreneur set the course for the rest of her life. That was it. She had found her calling. Singh decided to aim for the highest institutes and finished her graduation from IIT Madras and her MBA from IIM Ahmedabad. During placements, she was also offered a one-crore job offer from an investment company that she turned down. Instead, at 23, Singh moved to Bombay, lived in a tiny house and was on a mean budget. Her first venture didn't go as planned, filling her mind with self-doubt, but that failure, of sorts, reminded her of the 17-year-old girl who wanted to be an entrepreneur. She decided to give it a second try, and FabBag was born. “I always knew I wanted to do something for women, so I started Fab Bag, a subscription-based cosmetics company in 2012, which helps deliver products to women as per their preferences. It's now one of the largest beauty subscription services in the country, she says.

Although Singh had it all, it still didn't feel right. “When I was working on Fab Bag, it made me realise a huge gap in the market. Most women didn't have access to the right products suitable for their skin type. No one was addressing these concerns, and that is when my third venture, SUGAR Cosmetics, was born in 2015.