An Entrepreneur Burning The Shade Cards

Vikas Lachhwani is an entrepreneur passionate about changing how society understands and reacts to important issues. Lifestyle and personal care, he believes, are two things that are on top of the mind of people across social, cultural, linguistic and geographical divides. Everyone wants to live longer, stay healthy and feel taken care of, and yet, we as people, have not given ourselves enough options to make informed decisions.

Given his passion and his hunger to attack problems from newer perspectives, this IIT KGP and the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee graduate attacked the problems related to personal care by starting a personal care brand called MCaffeine that he co-founded with his colleagues.

“The placement of this product excited me. This seemed like a whole new way of looking at lifestyle brands. It involved everything that I love - science, lifestyle, entrepreneurship and breaking social stigmas. I am very excited to build a brand that gives people tangible options to do the right thing,” says Vikas.

Vikas himself is not someone who proactively designs his lifestyle based on the latest trends like organic food and Bikram Yoga. However, when something matters to him, he drills down into the fundamental concepts. People who know him would not be surprised to gather that he knows everything about the leather used in his sofa, including its place of origin, the process of tanning and route of delivery.

“It is not practical for people to fret over every single product they use in their life but personal care is a big part of things that people passionately care about and people must be able to use correct frameworks to decide for themselves. Once they have decided, there should be products that comply with their decisions so that they are empowered to exercise their choice,” he adds. 

Vikas and his team dream of starting a waterfall of personal care related discussions that don’t duck away from taboos, be it the obsession with fair skin or straight hair, or the hush-hush practiced around menstrual cycle. Brand MCaffeine aims to become the tool that will bring about a significant change in the way people take care of themselves. One of their initiatives is called Burn the Shade Card that works towards building awareness around the discrimination people face based on their skin shades. It is quite unfortunate the shade cards have actually been used by brands to actually build sales by exploiting such senseless discrimination. Vikas and his team believe that sensitizing people about the age-old biases that we may be carrying unknowingly is of paramount importance.

Vikas Lachhwani,

Co-Founder & Director, MCaffeine