Over the ages, people have been obsessed with the quest for beauty and eternal youth. It is said Cleopatra bathed in the milk of asses. And Mary Queen of Scots washed her face with white wine. And in India, Ayurvedic beauty company Forest Essentials buries dates and litchis under a banyan tree to ferment to make its Eternal Youth anti-ageing cream. Ancient Ayurvedic wisdom says that under the shade of the banyan tree, the fruit ferments at a certain pace. If there is too much sun, it will ferment too quickly; if it doesn’t have enough, it ferments slowly. And while workers at the Forest Essentials factory are mixing the ingredients for the cream—described as an ancient formulation from the early 17th century—they chant special mantras. “It’s for positive vibrations. I have been asked over the years, ‘Do they really do this chant?’ They really do. It imbibes the energy into the product,” Mira Kulkarni, chairman and managing director of Mountain Valley Springs, the parent company of Forest Essentials, tells me in an interview at her home in Panchsheel Park, an upscale New Delhi neighbourhood.

Sceptics might dismiss the chanting as nothing more than mumbo-jumbo. But the soft-spoken Kulkarni has clearly cracked the magic formula. The 63-year-old fine arts graduate started the company at the onset of the millennium with just some handmade soaps first given to family and friends. It was a small personally funded project that went back to the roots of Ayurveda with a manufacturing unit in a remote village called Lodsi in the Tehri Garhwal region of Uttarakhand. One of the first things she did was buy an old-fashioned oil press which, she says, no one knew how to use. All of the processes were driven by hand, including traditional pounding of herbs, pressing of oils, and rolling of incense sticks. In 2002, Forest Essentials received its first small institutional order from the Hyatt Regency, New Delhi.

Today, Kulkarni has a huge portfolio of carefully curated creams and lotions made from natural ingredients such as roses shipped from Kannauj, lemongrass from Ooty, and sandalwood from Mysuru. Her products, ranging from the date and litchi cream to a 24-carat-gold-based Soundarya Radiance cream, are sold across 70 stores in India. And her list of clients includes big hotel chains like Taj Hotels, The Oberoi Group, The Ritz Carlton, and The Four Seasons. A lime, tulsi, and narangi range is specially blended for The Oberoi Group; Taj Hotels has a special aloe vera and neem range; and the Marriott uses a bitter orange and cinnamon collection. Forest Essentials also supplies to the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Mountain Valley Springs posted total revenues of ₹177 crore in 2017-18, up from ₹137.4 crore the previous year, according to financial data from business intelligence platform Tofler. “Forest Essentials has an emotive appeal and an emotive quotient which is very distinctive, which is very related to the earth. Anything that has to do with the water, forest, earth, mud, green, organic, handmade has got fantastic potential,” says brand expert Harish Bijoor.

As it’s grown over the years, New Delhi-based Forest Essentials has been shipping its cosmetics to more than 120 countries. And now it is readying to go global by opening stores abroad and partnering with high-end department stores such as Harrods and Selfridges. It is in the process of getting EU and USFDA certification and sewing up partnerships for countries where it cannot open standalone stores. It plans to launch its global operations next year. Samrath Bedi, Kulkarni’s son and the company’s executive director, is confident the brand will work overseas. Bedi cites online sales as a vote of confidence in Forest Essentials: “There are lots of repeat customers. And it is not just the usual suspects like Japan, the U.S., and the U.K. We are getting orders from Nigeria and all kinds of places. There is a market out there. These are countries we haven’t marketed in.”

The fact that Forest Essentials already has a partnership with luxury giant Estée Lauder will help its global expansion plans. In 2007, Estée Lauder picked up a 20% stake in the Indian firm, its first investment in India. Daniel Rachmanis, president, Latin America, The Estée Lauder Companies, who sits on the Indian firm’s board, says his company has collaborated with Forest Essentials to ensure the brand equity, identity, and operations are on track for international expansion. “To help grow the brand and to propel it on the international stage, we are working together to ensure that the brand is prepared from a global regulatory perspective, and preparing plans for expansion into foreign markets. Forest Essentials’ Ayurvedic roots are aligned with global consumers’ preferences for health and wellness,” Rachmanis told Fortune India in an e-mail. “We have already identified potential distribution opportunities by leveraging our global network of partners in international markets... We believe that we can help in even more ways to leverage our global go-to-market capabilities, which have helped our brands such as Estée Lauder, Clinique, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, MAC, and Jo Malone London become global powerhouses.”

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