From Amazon Launchpad to Storefront: India’s iORA expands online presence to drive sales of new prebiotic skin care

Founder of Anita’s Aromatics and iORA, Anita Golani established iORA in 2020 to create luxury self-care products for users amid the pandemic. The parent company manufactures essential oils and operates spas and salons across India.

“It was during the period when people were refraining from entering salons and spas​,” she told CosmeticsDesign-Asia​.

So, she came up with an elbow and knee balm as well as nail kit for users to pamper themselves at home.

Most recently, it launched a prebiotic skin care range consisting of six SKUs including a day cream, face wash, masks, and serums.

All the products are now available on iORA’s online store, Amazon, and the brand recently signed with Smytten, a product trial platform that lets users try make-up, skin care, hair care, wellness and gourmet foods before they buy.

Offline, the products are also available throughout Anita’s Aromatics spas and salons in India.

According to Golani, “When we first started off on Amazon, we were featured on the Amazon Launchpad​.”

Amazon Launchpad is a program that makes it easy for start-ups to launch, market, and distribute their innovative products to consumers.

This gave iORA the confidence to set up its storefront on Amazon. Amazon Storefront serves as a miniature e-commerce website that allow brands to showcase all of their products, similar to a flagship store.

Outside of India, the brand is keen to explore export opportunities in Europe, US and Middle East.

Prebiotic skin care​

Although prebiotic skin care has been around in the European and North American markets over the past three years or so, iORA is currently the only brand in India curating a full-fledged prebiotic range.

“We have worked on a new revolutionary skincare product range called the prebiotic skin care range which represents a holistic, healthy and natural approach towards the world of luxury skin care products. This range promises a balanced microbiome and a reversal of the experienced skin damage​” said Golani.

Prebiotics are fuel for good bacteria on our skin such as lactobacillus and helps keep the pathogenic bacteria in check.

Typically, when there is an imbalance between the good and bad bacteria on the skin, the skin barrier is weakened which result in acne, oiliness, dryness, and infections.

The skin microbiome is also highly influenced by external environment like pollution, hormonal changes and stress, Golani pointed out.

“Our skin does not behave the same way every day. In summer our skin can feel oily, in winter, it may be drier.”​

Adding prebiotics can help to rebalance the skin microbiome and strengthen the skin barrier.

In iORA’s products, it uses the prebiotic alpha glucan oligosaccharide manufactured by French biotech company Solabia Group.

The prebiotic is obtained by enzymatic synthesis from natural sucrose and maltose derived from vegetables.

iORA’s prebiotic skin care range also contains freshwater algae extract to provide blue light protection and aloe vera extract for anti-inflammatory, moisturising and healing properties, among other ingredients.

According to Golani, the prebiotic skin care is suitable for all skin types including acne prone, dry, oily and sensitive.

“We feel that skin care should be minimalistic and fuss free, instead of using 10 products on your face, if we can give you two products that do the same job, it reduces your cost, time and energy in maintaining your skin​.”