Essentially Mira: The Extraordinary Journey Behind Forest Essentials

An account of the extraordinary rise of India’s first Luxury Ayurveda Brand, Forest Essentials

“As usual, the answer suddenly came to me. Our products should also look and feel pleasurable, taste delicious and smell divine. They should be enjoyable in every way. I needed to conjure up both together—effectivity and pleasure.

Products which would be handmade to the most exacting specifications and could now be available off the shelf.

That was true opulence!

Had no one seen it before? Is it possible that only I could see it? Traditional formulations for beautiful, health-giving products were lying with us for centuries, waiting to be used. They just needed the elegance and purity that was missing.

Luxury Ayurveda was our answer.”

About the book
From making handmade soaps for family and friends to building India’s first luxury Ayurveda beauty empire, Mira Kulkarni proves that great success in business can grow from just one, tiny seed. The creative genius and driving spirit behind Forest Essentials’ range of natural beauty products, Kulkarni has been hailed an industry game-changer for her ability to translate Ayurvedic processes into new products and anticipate beauty trends. In just two decades, under her direction, Forest Essentials has grown into a billion dollar company. Through it all, Kulkarni has guarded her privacy—until now.

Essentially Mira is an extraordinary account of how a single mother of two rose above all odds to build a globally renowned brand from the ground up. Capturing Mira’s childhood days, her marriage at the age of nineteen, both her parents’ deaths that left her orphaned at twenty-eight, facing death threats and the many memorable encounters that changed a sensitive young girl into a consummate businesswoman, the book talks about the story behind Forest Essentials and how it grew into the iconic brand it is today.

Inspirational and incredibly relatable, Essentially Mira is a story of someone who never gave up.

About the author
Mira Kulkarni, founder and managing director of Forest Essentials, is considered a farsighted leader in the beauty industry for creating a revolutionary new segment in the market that did not exist earlier.

From handmade soaps to award-winning Indian Ayurvedic beauty products, nature-derived hair and skincare products have been a way of life for Kulkarni since childhood. Starting in 2000 and anticipating the need for enjoyable effective solutions in the skincare market, she has since curated a wide range of products, prepared according to ancient formulations with exacting standards, using fresh flowers, hand-pressed oils, medicinal roots, precious herbs and their infusions.

Kulkarni has been repeatedly honoured with several prestigious awards and commendations, including Fortune India’s Most Powerful Woman in Business for consecutive years from 2011 to 2021. She has also been awarded the prestigious ET Prime Women Leadership Award for Businesswoman of the Year, 2020.

For more information please write to sagiri.dixit@harpercollins.co.in
Non-fiction/Memoir | HB | Rs. 699