Nyrrvana – Beating Covid through nurture, care & sustainability

“Hygiene is a mindset and the right mind set. Be it pre-COVID, COVID or even post-COVID, I think if we could avoid getting sick, we SHOULD. The new normal is good and it is only doing us good. It’s no shame to be healthy and clean, and it is high time people understand in-depth about their hygiene products and use the right products,” shares 29-year-old Thanneru Sushi Krishna, a Hyderabad based entrepreneur and the Founder of Nyrrvana.

The Lifestyle Portal in an online conversation with Thanneru Sushi Krishna, an alumnus of Yale School of Management, St Gallen University, Singapore Management University, Instituto Marangoni London, Lancaster University. She also holds a Masters degree in Wealth Management, Masters in Luxury Brand Management, Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

We talk about her being a student, a new mum, beating the pandemic and bouncing back stronger as the Founder of Nyrrvana, a hygiene brand that’s committed to providing safe, healthy options to keep us sanitised during the ‘new normal’.

How did it all begin?

As Sushi shares, Nyrrvana wasn’t planned. Nyrrvana was her plan to beat a COVID hit career. She thought to herself, what is better than hitting back COVID with products that minimise the spread of this dangerous disease!

“I finished my masters in Singapore while I was pregnant with my daughter. I went for interviews pregnant, I wanted to definitely work after having a baby. I took three months break after delivery and went back to Singapore to give more interviews and grab a job. As soon as I left the country, the most unfortunate pandemic hit the world, both Singapore and India went on a lockdown and I lost out on two job opportunities that I was hoping to get.

Sushi was extremely shattered; here, she had a three-month baby with her, amidst a pandemic, without a job and absolutely no clarity on whether or not the situation would get any better. Soon she realised that it was time for a back-up and a back-up that is pandemic proof and that’s when Sushi decided to get into the hygiene market in India. A market that we all shouldn’t have probably ignored.

How you prepared to bounce back

Despite of not having much formal training in the field of hygiene products, Sushi was armed with as a Head in marketing services and products previously, but she admits, this was an extremely different space.

She completed an online formulation course during the lockdown and self-taught as much as she could about the market and the kind of products that exist in the market currently.

Challenges faced

No business comes with its share of challenges, and Sushi shares, “I wanted to tap into the biggest booming sector in the country, Tanya. It was quite obvious for something like this to be monopolised with heavy branding and marketing budgets. Though I have formulated a better product, a product that not just protects you from 99.9% germs, it also is gentle on hands and has great plant-based extracts such as neem and aloe vera extracts for the gel based and lemongrass extract for liquid based and essential oils like coffee, lavender, citrus, cherry etc ; the major competition has been in this space for a very long time and has spent massive amount on marketing and giving out products for lowest possible costs to their distributors and sales representative.”

Being a start-up in this area, launched on November 19, 2020, Sushi truly believed in her product, concentrated only on her product development and product line and has even got her products approved by the Ministry of Ayurveda.

Today, Nyrrvana has added therapeutic fragrances, reduced chemicals, used optimal amount of chemicals needed for germ protection and are constantly doing research and development to give their customers the best products in the sector. “Our pricing is similar to Lifebuoy and Dettol, which are currently the best-selling products and we do not charge our consumers for all the extra added benefits we are providing through our formulation,” adds Sushi.

Various products available at Nyrrvana

Nyrrvana currently offers hand sanitizers made with 75 percent alcohol, plant-based extracts and essential oils in eight different therapeutic fragrances. They have also launched hand washes that are made with essential oils to keep our hands soft, germ-free and reduce the damage from excessive scrubbing and sanitizing.

Not only that, Nyrrvana has floor cleaners that are zero chemical and are launching their N95 masks and anti-bacterial 6-layer cloth masks soon. Nyrrvana is also in the process of developing natural immune boosting teas and snacks, so their customers can develop a system naturally to fight various disease-causing germs.

How Nyrrvana tries to be sustainable

Sushi admits, “Unfortunately, plastic is a stable container for most of our products. But we try to educate our customers to refill old plastic containers lying at home. We offer a 10 % percent discount to those who opt out of refill bottles and buy 5 litres cans to refill old plastic sprays and containers.”

Apart from this, Sushi explains how Nyrrvana collects Amazon and other e-commerce packaging boxes and newspapers from various communities and reuse them to ship their products to customers. The Nyrrvana team are also researching towards using glass and aluminium containers for their sanitizers. Currently, their soaps have zero packaging, and they hope to induce similar environmentally friendly values to all their products.

Nyrrvana’s USP

Nyrrvana’s products are extremely well researched, made with plant-based extracts, essential oils that give therapeutic fragrances and are made keeping in mind every hygiene product rule described by WHO. “We offer higher quality products at a competitive price with regular brands and solely concentrate on innovating in this field. For us, hygiene products aren’t just another product in our range, but our entire company. Hence, I am very confident that we are one of the very few brands that are constantly evolving according to people’s hygiene needs,” explains Sushi.

Customising sanitizers for special occasions

“Yes, at Nyrrvana, we have started customising hand sanitizers for corporates and various events. We have done marigold and chamomile aromas with customized labelling for a wedding, lavender and hibiscus for another wedding and cherry for a child’s first birthday party,” smiles Sushi.

She further adds, “While it’s extremely important to socially distance, there are few life changing events that we as Indians cannot avoid celebrating and Nyrrvana is giving them a chance to keep their guests safe. We customize both hand sanitizers and hand washes for the guests and give them pocket size bottles that keep our clients’ and their guests safe.”

What’s interesting to note is that Nyrrvana also encourages corporates to give out customized hand sanitizers with their branding to their clients, distributor and supplier networks. This definitely is one of the best mediums to advertise for movies, shows, or any another brand in the market and Nyrrvana as a company are also giving an end-to-end solution for that.

What happens post Covid?

As we discuss what happens next, Sushi shares, “Let’s ponder over what the WHO’s recent statement was. The WHO had released a statement saying “if” there would be another pandemic isn’t a question, “when” is the right question to ask?”

Before signing off Sushi adds, “I believe if we stop social distancing, if we stop masks and sanitizing and scrubbing all of a sudden just because we have a vaccine for one disease, we would be inviting 100 more such diseases.”

“Every government and health care organization have put in many efforts to induce a hygiene routine in our lives and this applies to diseases from common flu to dysentery. We, at Nyrrvana, hope to educate our customers and potential customers further in this aspect and hope to provide them with solutions that can make hygiene routine easy and hassle-free,” smiles Sushi.

Contributor: Tanya Munshi

Founder, Editor and Writing Mentor/ Coach at The Lifestyle Portal.