Now, you can eat your lipstick too!

What if you could turn back the clock on your skin with cosmetics created out of someone’s backyard? It’s true, according to Bharti Malani, whose home-run project, Waterline, helps women cleanse their skin of harmful carcinogens while keeping them all made-up. “I was a swimmer and my skin was in
terrible shape,” says the NID-trained graphic designer who quit her daytime job because she realised that “women needed help.” Malani’s line features organic kajal, cheek stains and lip tints, and contain no minerals as she believes those “are carcinogenic and bad for the body.”

“For the colour red, I use the seeds of the annatto tree which grows in my garden,” Malani reveals, adding, “Pinkish-red hues are obtained from the bark of ratan jyoti, which grows wild, and my browns are extracted from pure organic chocolate.”

If the delicious origins of these products seem to enticing, don’t worry. “They’re all completely edible,” Malani insists. The organic movement has picked up steam even in women’s cosmetics, with small-time companies putting their money into healthy beauty aids. Sarang Khirke, who met his wife Priti when he was researching on cosmetic products for his family-run pharmaceutical unit, decided to expand his line based on the principles of a clarified butter lipstick that his mother-in-law had patented. “We use clarified butter bought from Rajasthan in all our products,” he explains, adding, “We currently have lipsticks and concealers as part of Young, our cosmetic line, and will be launching kajal by January next year.”

Khirke uses beeswax, household ghee and mineral colours to create skin-friendly products, but admits that they’ve also included FDA approved non-organic colours in their lipsticks since “women aren’t satisfied with limited variety.” However, he adds that they monitor the lead content and their products use them far below the permissible limit. “Our concealers are 100 per cent natural.”