FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
nationthailand

The cosmetics venture that is a natural choice

The cosmetics venture that is a natural choice

NATURAL ingredients are the foundation of the success enjoyed by Wilasinee Kositchaiwat, who has built up her cosmetics brand Vowda into an enterprise generating sales of more than Bt10 million a year.

Wilasinee, 33, sources the main ingredients - Thai cereal, rice, coconut shell, lotus seed and coffee – from Prachuap Khiri Khan, the province she now calls home.
“We established our own business five years ago when I married my husband. We started with registered capital of Bt1 million and conducted research and development for a cosmetics line derived from natural raw materials, especially those found in our province,” she said.
Wilasinee said that, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from King Mongkut’s University of Technology North Bangkok in 2008, she worked at a cosmetics manufacturing company. She went to Prachuap Khiri Khan when her husband moved back home to look after the family business. Wilasinee then began to explore ways to start her own business.
That opportunity came in 2012, when she began the research into making use of the natural ingredients for the cosmetics venture.
Wilasinee also received a boost with funding from the National Innovation Agency of the Science and Technology Ministry to develop a powder from Thai rice, which was hailed as an innovative product. The sales reached up to Bt1 million in the first year as an online operation.
Encouraged by this response, Wilasinee then did research on more types of local natural products, such as rice, coconut, lotus seed, coconut oil and rice oil. That led to the development of a product line, under Vowda, that notches more than Bt10 million a year in sales.
The company offers 21 cosmetics products, with up to 70 per cent of sales made through its outlets that are located in Tokyu MBK, Robinson Megabangna and Robinson Sri Samarn, as well as at 10 Lemon Farm shops, and four branches of All About You shop. The remainder of the sales comes from the company’s website.
Wilasinee said the company is negotiating with a partner in Malaysia and Africa for exports to those markets. It has also struck an arrangement for an agency to import its products into shops in Poland, Romania and Germany.
 “The key to our success is that our products came about after extensive research and development by us,” she said.
 “We also help local farmers by using their products, such as rice, coconut shell and the like by creating value-added products. 
This is part of a wider drive to boost the country’s agricultural sector and increase the value of products under the concept of innovation.”
Wilasinee said that as the she and her husband did their own research and development, that made it more difficult for competitors to copy the products. This made the products unique, Wilasinee said, boosting the confidence of consumers in their quality.
“Although the cosmetics market has more and producers, the uniqueness of our products comes from the fact that the ingredients are sourced from nature,” Wilasinee said.
“As they are organic, this fits with the trend of people being increasingly concerned about the environment and their own well-being.”
 

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