Visiting Radico (India) – the only Certified Organic Hair Color Manufacturer

This will be a series of blog posts on Radico. This is PART 1: INTRODUCTION  *photos coming soon

Hair coloring is definitely something that is not uncommon anymore these days. If I remember correctly, I think I started coloring my hair when I was 16 years old, around the time I was in college (actually I wanted to do it in high school but my school was strict about that). But let me tell you–once you start coloring your hair, you can’t ever really stop. You will keep wanting to switch up your color, try the latest color trends (streaks, highlights, ombre–I’ve tried them all), go lighter, go darker…and one thing I’ve noticed once I started getting conscious is how unhealthy my hair was already. I resorted to chopping it all off and coloring it a single color. BUT AGAIN,  I could never really get the exact color I want anymore because different salons do coloring differently, one might give you semi-permanent and another might give you permanent, so most of the time you end up with uneven colored hair. Thank goodness I started learning about organic products and found that there is hope with my hair!

This week I had an opportunity to fly to India and visit the ONLY Certified 100% Organic Hair Color Manufacturer in the world, Radico. They are an Indian-based company focused on manufacturing natural and organic hair colors, founded by Mr. Sanjeev Bhatt who is a great man that I had the pleasure of meeting myself.

WHY INDIA?

As India being the land of “Ayurveda”, the 5,000 year-old system of natural healing, Indians have great knowledge of herbs and natural healthcare. Also, due to their environment and weather conditions, India is blessed to have different herbs grow in their country such as Henna, Indigo, Bringraj, Amla, Brahmi and so much more (881 to be exact).

HOW IT STARTED

Back in 1992, Japan took interest in natural hair color and called up Mr. Sanjeev. Because of the success of Ayurveda, India’s system of natural healing, he took an opportunity to develop something that no one (even himself) thought was possible–organic hair color. He spent his life doing research and tried different ways of mixing and matching different herbs. He already knew that certain herbs were capable of coloring, like Henna and Indigo, but as his experiment continued, he discovered that herbs have many different unknown active ingredients that when you mix certain herbs together, they react and produce different results. Finally, after 4 years, he came up with his first formulation and the Japanese, as strict and picky as they are, loved it. Fast forward to 25 years later, they are now distributing to 54 (soon 55) countries all over the world.

ORGANIC HAIR COLORING

First we must understand that we should never compare chemical hair colors to organic hair colors. Results will definitely vary depending on our hair condition, so one must be patient in order to achieve the color that you want. The beauty of organic hair coloring is that you can change your color as often as you want (they have 23 different colors available), and you also don’t need to worry about leaving your hair to color for a long time because there are 0 chemicals that will hurt your hair or scalp.

I will do a separate post on my experience using Radico organic hair colors, and show the step by step process of how it works. The exciting news is that I also vlogged my whole trip which will be up soon! 🙂