Whipped soap that looks more like cotton candy mousse, sugar lip scrub packed into delightfully shaped and fragrant French macaroons, a mocha body scrub you could very easily mistake for ground coffee and add it to your morning milk.
Over the past few years, the line between aesthetically designed and packaged cosmetics and what we consider good enough to eat has gotten ever so slim. Bringing it to the point of erasure is Gabby Caster and her line of skincare products under the banner The Dessert Bar. If you're salivating as much as I am at this point, we’re just getting started.
Like with many entrepreneurship endeavours, this one too owes its delectable origin to the lockdown. A marketing professional at a law firm, it was the time she was shut in at home that she decided to deep dive and figure out what hobbies she could be interested in.
A couple of online classes later, she realised she was pretty good with whipping up cosmetics right at the comfort of her home. This made way to several more online classes but, eventually, it was the foodie in her that brought her to the light.
"I wanted to make a dessert-inspired skincare line, being a foodie. It's popular in the West but it has just reached India. There are only one or two brands that are completely dessert-inspired," points out the 27-year-old.
All things yummy
But, she was not aware of this competition when she hit upon her Eureka! moment. Putting naivety aside, she decided to put her wishful thinking to good use and do what she can. And inspiration came from everywhere, and all kinds of food, it seems.
So, her product line has gummy bear soaps, doughnut soaps, Hershey's chocolate bar soap and more. Bubble Gum Pop whipped soap has reigned as the best seller for quite a while. If you're wondering why it's all soap, it is by design.
Having realised a special talent for them - not to mention the ease of work - Gabby has pledged it all in soaps to create a name for her brand. Adding heft to this mainline are toners, body mist, bath salts and undereye masks.
While creating a visual likeness to food can be easily managed, the trick is in nailing the fragrance, says Gabby. Sure, some of the fragrances are readily available if you know where to look for them. But, for others, she has had to experiment and rely on the careful calibration of multiple extracts to hit the right note.
"I have to imagine what the food smells like and try to recreate that. If you take the Cotton Candy whipped soap, it has this sweet, sugary smell as well as that of slightly burnt sugar. I had to mix a couple of fragrances to get that combination. There has been a lot of food tasting happening at the same time, just to get this right," she admits.
Smells so good!
If customer reviews are anything to go by - and they very much are everything to go by - Gabby's line has been a hit, especially in terms of how edible the products seem to be.
"I was at Stella Maris College for an event for alumni; I had a stall. There I had a three-layer Theobrama scrub; it looked like Theobrama and smelled like it. And people kept asking if I was sure they couldn't eat it!" she recounts.
She was only sorry to send them off with the 'Not suitable for consumption' warning. To make up for it, she did give away her soap jellies for 10 bucks apiece.
With the orders pouring in, she had to recruit her parents to help her tide through the avalanche. No surprise there, they had proved to be early testers - her father turned out to be particularly useful for trying out her yet-to-be-released shaving cream. The growth, and the immense potential it signals, has already brought in investors.
Gabby hopes to develop her venture out of the house and into a full-fledged brand; all in good time. Until then, she is looking forward to the release of a line of body oils, all with the fragrance of every dessert inspiration currently available with her label.
Find her delicious merchandise on Instagram: @thedessertbar_skincare