French beauty retailer, Sephora, conjures up images of meticulously stacked palettes, rows of vibrant nail polishes and an array of gorgeous eyeliners; a makeup junkie’s veritable heaven. Pakistan now has its own representative at the beauty platform in the form of Luscious Cosmetics, which has recently been picked up by stores in Australia and is set to roll out to other locations in 2016. Luscious Cosmetics secured a spot on Sephora’s shelves after the latter acquired the online platform, Luxola, where it has been in high demand for two years. Luscious is now the only South Asian beauty brand on the massive platform.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Mehrbano Sethi, CEO of Luscious, shared that this is only the beginning of the venture. “We have also signed up with fast growing UK cosmetics retailer Beauty Bay for a spring 2016 release and with Glambox.me in the UAE,” she says.
Sethi always wanted Luscious to be a class apart from other beauty brands. Nine years ago when she started, there were only a handful of local beauty brands that were operating in a sporadic manner. “My vision was to create a beauty brand that was dynamic, fun, affordable and suited Asian skin tones, preferences and climate,” she adds.
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Her vision is perhaps the reason behind the brand’s worldwide recognition and successful retailing in Singapore, Myanmar, Malaysia and Australia. “The global expansion of Luscious Cosmetics has been taking place in a steady and organic way due to the appeal of our brand DNA and product quality,” she states.
Luscious boasts a variety of colours for Asian and Middle Eastern ladies, a sector that’s been underserved in the past. Sethi shares that her company does not use animal ingredients, not even beeswax, which helps in catering to vegetarian, and vegan folks. These attributes were a result of an extensive market research conducted four years prior to starting the brand.
Furthermore, Luscious Cosmetics is also the first beauty brand to have extensively collaborated with the fashion industry, for a ‘designer nail polish collection’ and a makeup palette inspired by Ather Shahzad, which Sethi says did extremely well. “We are working on adding further dimensions to this collaborative spirit,” she mentions. The savvy Sethi who likes to keep the brand abreast with latest trends is enthusiastic about launching the Camera Stick Foundation, which she feels is created for the age of Instagram and social media.
She is also looking forward to the re-launch of their Lip Couture line, which comprises a range of matte and glossy liquid lipsticks that are the lipsticks du jour for makeup aficionados worldwide. “We are also pioneering new beauty marketing concepts in 2016 including a PRO initiative, beauty blogger recognition and appreciation platforms and mentorship opportunities”, she shares.
Luscious Cosmetics has also set up an office in New York which is currently in its research phase. The company is also ranked as one of the fastest-growing brands in the world in the Arabia500 index part of the Allworld Network in 2011 and 2012.