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The unlikely origin of a skincare venture
Most businesses begin with market gaps or boardroom brainstorms. This one began with cracked lips.
Mythreyee Venkatesh, a pilot, didn’t set out with a plan to build Vriksha Essentials, a skincare brand. For over 15 years, she soared 35,000 feet above sea level as a commercial pilot, a career most would envy, but few would understand in its physical toll. Long flights, erratic schedules, and relentless time zone shifts left her body exhausted and her skin distressed. Then came the lockdown. With planes grounded and time finally abundant, she did what many didn’t: she turned discomfort into a lab.
What began as a homegrown balm for her husband’s persistent lip allergy became the seed of a slow but purposeful business. “He was my guinea pig,” she jokes, “and the lip balm changed everything. He hasn’t had an allergy since.” That single product, perfected over trial-and-error evenings and fragrant kitchen experiments, turned into a full skincare line built on aromatherapy, essential oils, and deeply personal conviction.
The founder isn’t a marketer. Not yet a mogul. But she is obsessed. With purity. With consistency. And above all, with the idea that products should do more than work, they should heal without harm.
It’s not glamour, it’s hard work
Pilot. Formulator. Vendor negotiator. Inventory planner. Label designer. At one point, she was even the only manufacturer.
This isn’t a typical founder story polished for pitch decks. The operations are small. The stress is real. The chaos, frequent. When she ran out of a crucial ingredient once, orders had to pause, a blow not just to business, but to pride. So she redesigned her process. Stock checks. Batch tracking. Label archiving. Everything got better, not bigger.
Even her pop-up stalls have a strategy hidden behind the homemade warmth. “When people hear I made the product myself, they come closer. They listen. They ask questions,” she says. And somewhere between that honesty and handcrafted charm, the sales begin.
What makes Vriksha Essentials stand out? Not the absence of chemicals, that’s table stakes in this niche. It’s the rejection of synthetics, even those disguised under “natural fragrance” labels. “A lot of brands cut corners with fragrance. Mine don’t. The scent is real. And it’s the hook. Once someone smells my soap or lotion, they don’t go back.”
| What sets her apart? | Industry norm |
| Small-batch formulations | Mass-produced batches |
| 100% essential oil blends | Synthetic fragrance compounds |
| Organic-certified preservatives | Unspecified chemical stabilisers |
| Founder-led product development | Outsourced or templated formulas |
The quiet confidence of a founder in flow
She doesn’t describe herself as a visionary, but there’s something undeniably founder-like in her perspective. The sharpness isn’t in the jargon, it’s in the self-awareness. “I thought if I made great products, people would find them. But that’s not how this works.” Her biggest challenge? Not a product. Not fulfilment. Not even margins. It’s marketing.
And what keeps her up at night? It’s not failure, she’s tasted that in patches and shrugged it off. It’s the nagging feeling of not doing justice to the product. Of not reaching the people it could help.
Her leadership philosophy is instinctive: “I want them to feel like this is our venture. That we’re building something together.” Her metric isn’t revenue, but rows of packages on the dispatch table. Every morning, she waits for a video clip from her team, a single pan shot of orders ready to go. That’s her dopamine.
Closing thought
Most people confuse scale with seriousness. But every serious business doesn’t scream. Some grow in kitchens, with formulas passed down from grandmothers. Some find product-market fit not in spreadsheets, but in the quiet gratitude of repeat customers.
In a world where “natural” is a buzzword and fragrance is fabricated, this founder’s formula is unexpectedly radical for her brand:
No shortcuts. No synthetics. No noise.
If I’m brave enough to use it on my husband and parents, you can trust it too.
And trust, after all, is the rarest ingredient in business.
Invest in her and she’ll use it not for machines or stock, but to find the right storyteller. Someone to spread the word. Someone who can translate her passion into performance.
In the podcast below, Mythreyee shares her unique journey from being a commercial pilot to launching her own natural skincare brand – Vriksha Essentials. Her story highlights the passion and dedication required to succeed as an entrepreneur in the beauty sector.
Vriksha Essentials is featured in The First Brick series. The series highlights promising early-stage companies.
What are your thoughts on Vriksha Essentials by Mythreyee? Tell us in the comments below.
Did you read our last week’s article on Meeple Syrup, a board gaming community by Akhil Premraj? Read it here.
