A brainchild of beauty entrepreneur Aishwarya Biswas, School of Skin is a one-of-a-kind platform for women in the city where the ladies can share their innermost feelings and meet new people to build a strong network of like-minded souls. "SOS, the School of Skin is a very very dear concept to me. All my life I have been talking about skincare, health, wellness, and overall self-care. I have never really found an outlet to be able to communicate all of that physically or through social media constantly over a period of time. School of skin is made by people, who firmly believe in self-care and self-love," says an enthusiastic Aishwarya.
The agenda of the outfit is to learn and benefit from each other and can be as simple as learning self-love to eating right or getting to know the right fitness or diet regimens or even fun travel. Aishwarya is trying to build a large community and they already have about 300 people signing up and plan to take it to a thousand by this January.
We get chatty with Aishwarya and board members including former model and entrepreneur Tina Mukherjee, former beauty pageant winner Ushoshi Sengupta and fashion photographer Upahar Biswas to know more.
SOS is a first-of-its-kind platform. What will be the pull for women to join the movement?
Aishwarya: There's always something common to talk about and something new to learn from others and while I bring expertise in skincare I am really excited to learn so much more about so many things from the women who are in this community.
Ushoshi: It's a free-for-all community for all to participate and engage in dialogues related to self-care, mental health and fitness in general.
Tina: Our whole outfit has been focused on women, we are reaching out to women from all walks of life, to understand the problems, to come up with constructive solutions, and to build a platform that takes care of all their needs.
Upahar: A community of women is always a comfortable place to be in. The added highlight is that it brings together working, independent women who would have similar growth stories and therefore avenues and support to help one another grow further.
Will it be restricted to skin talks alone?
Aishwarya: So while we call it School of Skin since the skin is the largest organ of the body, we will also focus on anything that's considered self-love.
Tina: Well, skin talk will be a big part of it because we feel there are so many products in the market but such little knowledge about skin care as such. Blindly following trends when it comes to skincare is a big big problem. Through SOS we want to educate people to make their choices more knowledge-based than just blindly choosing products.
Ushoshi: It has many aspects of physical and mental support.
Upahar: The best part is that it won't be restricted to skin talks alone. Physical appearance is a part of who we are but our individual identity is of prime importance here.
Do you think the beauty industry bolsters or breaks down a woman's confidence?
Upahar: If we talk about the women in the spotlight then, yes it does. But the definition of beauty has changed over the years as I would like to add. And I'd like to thank social media for that. All gender types, all body types, and all imperfections are recognised as real things.
Aishwarya: You know, there's a group of people who are trying to do it in the right way, and then there are people who are following the commercial way of doing things.
So I think on some level there's good and bad in everything but you know the minute intelligent women come together and just start discussing the same beauty standards you would see that they empower each other.
Tina: The beauty industry definitely at some point worked on taking advantage of our insecurities, but things have changed a lot now, if we want to use an anti-ageing product now it's because we want to look and feel a certain way, not because we are being told that ageing Is a bad thing. Self-awareness is at its best now, I feel.
You all are achievers in your own professions, what's that one thing that unites women?
Aishwarya: Being in the same room with each other and drawing strength from each other's stories.
Upahar: I think our struggle stories.
Tina: What unites women is the fact that we at some level or the other are constantly fighting for very basic rights like the right to choose what we were, say, eat, or just how we lead our life.
Ushoshi: I think we all women across the globe are working to have more representation in every field. I think the struggle and the quest for equal opportunities unite us!
Pictures: Lim Gui Shen
Styling: Farakh Alim