Adverse experiences - specifically with respect to my cultural duality - intimidated me so much, that by the time I graduated from college, I was proud of how much I’d disassociated from my roots. I stopped eating with my fingers as soon as my turmeric-stained fingernails were deemed ‘disgusting’ in my 4th grade classroom. By high school, the beauty rituals my mother recreated for us in Michigan felt crude and unrefined. My grandmother’s hair recipes felt too sticky and greasy to bear anymore.
I got my business degree, moved to New York and started a career in finance - where, as luck would have it - there was no room for my culture anyway. I abandoned my Indian identity altogether, only occasionally experiencing that hint of guilt and longing for what I was leaving behind.
This began to change when, after stress and non-natural beauty products had started taking their toll on my skin, I re-visited my grandmother’s recipes. The natural ingredients had an incredible effect - and the added benefit of re-connecting me with my heritage.
AAVRANI is my way to share the secrets of Indian beauty rituals with you. To combine the two parts that make me whole. But it’s also my journey back to my roots; to re-discover and appreciate their intricacies. My vision is for all women who struggle with their dualities to embrace them instead. To celebrate their conflicted, immense, breathtakingly unique identities that make them who they are.
And to look in the mirror every day, and feel the way I felt as a child when my grandmother combed through my thick, glowing hair - beautiful.
