On Feb. 6, the Rowan Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship hosted “Catch Up with a Startup”, highlighting the business Lushious Beauty and founder and CEO Shaila Saini.
Saini is an international student from Canada who majors in both marketing and entrepreneurship at Rowan. She started her business long before she came to the States, beginning her inclusive, sustainable beauty company at just 16 years old. Lushious Beauty currently makes false eyelashes, liquid eyeliners, water-activated liners, and application accessories. They are in the works of launching products such as foundation and blush later this year.
Saini emphasized the importance of clean makeup that will not cause harm to the skin long term. She spoke about the harmful effects and ingredients of big-name makeup brands, noting the toxins that are in many products.
“Lushious Beauty is a makeup company built by someone of color for people of color. Now this doesn’t mean that not everybody can use it. In fact, that’s our entire vision to be able to make products that are versatile for everybody and that are also high quality. So we want to bridge the gap between sustainability and between diversity to create good products that are not going to cause cancer long term that could be used by everyone,” Saini said.
Saini, who is ethnically Indian, has made it her mission to create high-quality, clean makeup for a wide range of skin tones. During “Catch Up with a Startup”, she talked to the audience about the difficulty of making beauty products for darker skin tones, hence why most companies do not have a diverse shade range.
“You can be the one that paves this path. So no other little girl has to look up and say ‘I can’t have the dream.’ Because no one like me is there and there’s no representation, so I can start that representation,” Saini said.
In addition to the story of her business, Saini answered questions from the audience about what it takes to be an entrepreneur.
“Once you start your entrepreneurial journey, there’s a lot of inner work that you need to do that comes with it because you will hit a threshold. Your inner growth is really a reflection of how well your business will do. So you need to make yourself a better person to have your business be a reflection of that,” Saini said.
As a student and CEO, Saini credited her ability to time block and designate specific places for specific work in order to accomplish everything she needs to do day to day. She also stressed the importance of having mentors in various aspects of life.
One of Saini’s biggest pieces of advice was to detach yourself from numbers and focus on putting the time in to truly grow your business.
“I started actually like attaching the sales and the revenue and the orders that were coming in with me being able to make it and was one of the worst things of me telling myself that okay if I get 10 orders today, I have made it. No, you literally have not made it because tomorrow you’ll get two orders and then you will cry. And that’s exactly what happened. And I couldn’t keep doing that, couldn’t keep doing that to myself because, at the end of the day, I was still making an impact. I was still growing. There was still an upward trajectory with the business,” Saini said.
Radio, Television, and Film major Nyje Broughton said as an aspiring entrepreneur, she learned a lot from Saini’s talk.
“So it was like having her experience and her sharing her story kind of helped me. I thought that it was interesting because I am someone who does wear makeup so it was just perfect,” said Broughton.
Josh de Guzman, a biomedical engineering major, connected with Saini last semester and attended the event to learn more about Lushious Beauty.
“Saying that having mentors for different spaces was like such a good way to see it. I think that’s something I would take to heart,” de Guzman said.
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