“I needed the job, not just for the money, but to feel like I mattered again,” says Saraniya, a production assistant at Bare Necessities.

After a decade-long break from work, during which she cared for her ill mother and raised her young son, she found herself uncertain about the future. “My son has speech difficulties, and our family has been through a lot. I was not sure I would ever get another chance. But the brand gave me one, and it changed everything.”

Her story is strongly connected with the vision of another woman, one who, too, was searching for meaning and impact. Growing up in Bengaluru, Sahar Mansoor was always passionate about environmental issues. Even as a child, she was obsessed with waste and looked for ways to manage it in the best way possible. “I was always that child who wanted to recycle, reuse, and reduce,” she laughs.

Later, her passion took her across the world to the University of Cambridge, where she completed her studies in environmental law and environmental economics, graduating in 2014. She went on to work with global institutions like the United Nations and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva. Despite the important work she did in these roles, she began to feel disconnected. “I wanted to do something that had a more tangible impact,” she explains. “I was working on policies, but I wanted to see and feel the change on the ground.”

The reality of India’s waste pickers

Her desire to create direct impact brought her back home to Bengaluru in 2015, where she joined the SELCO Foundation, focusing on decentralised solar energy solutions for underserved communities. During this time, she began to shadow waste picker communities across the city, an experience that proved to be life-altering for her.

“I was horrified by what I saw,” she recalls. “Waste pickers were sorting through broken glass, soiled sanitary pads, and syringes with their bare hands. Some had lost their thumbs to cuts from sharp objects. These were people with no gloves, no protection, and no support. Meanwhile, we were going about our personal hygiene routines, tossing waste without a second thought,” she tells The Better India.

This powerful contradiction, between cleanliness and filth, privilege and vulnerability, struck Sahar deeply. “I don’t want to be part of the problem anymore,” she says. “I wanted to opt for a lifestyle that was kind, both to the planet and to people.”

She turned to her roots. In conversations with her grandmother, she explored what life looked like before plastics and chemical-filled toiletries. “I asked her what she used before shampoo came in a bottle, and she told me about traditional ingredients like shikakai, neem, and coconut oil. That’s where the idea began.”

While continuing her work at........

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