‘There’s no beauty without wellness:’ U of T alumna’s startup embraces rituals in hair care

In retrospect, Sumera Nabi states she is grateful for a wellness scare that forced her to revaluate her life last calendar year.

“These forms of predicaments can have a silver lining – it can truly help you get clarity on what’s vital to you,” suggests Nabi, an alumna of the College of Toronto Scarborough and the founder of Glow Ritual, a organic hair care firm that bridges health, beauty and wellness.  

As she navigated the overall health-care process, Nabi states grew to become far more aware of the products and solutions she was putting on her human body. Investigating elements on allegedly “clean” and “natural” hair solutions discovered perhaps damaging chemical compounds. 

“It was disappointing just to see how hair care items are mislabelled, and the gross total of miscommunication all around some of them,” states Nabi, who was a short while ago nominated for an RBC Canadian Ladies Entrepreneur Award.

At the similar time, she observed an inequity in how folks ended up recovering from the tension of the pandemic. For the duration of lockdowns, for case in point, some escaped to cottages or second attributes, but other individuals – specially essential personnel – lacked a equivalent luxury.

She requested herself what a fulsome break could search like for individuals not able to get absent or choose extended time for by themselves.

“In the absence of solutions that centered on genuine wellness, I began to dig into my personal experience.”

To make alternatives for practical, restful breaks – which she terms “micro-recoveries” – Nabi questioned how her ancestors could have observed odds to rest and relax. She landed on the scalp therapeutic massage, which her mother did for her as a boy or girl. Scalp massages, well-known in quite a few South Asian homes, are significant moments for link and recovery.  

“I preferred to revive some of those beautiful traditions and honour some of the ancestral wisdom my very own relatives passed along to me,” she says. “The scalp massage is a recovery ritual that does not need you to physically take away you from a area or get on a aircraft. It just seems so ideal for the occasions we’re in.” 

The inspirations culminated in a line of hair care goods made of normal, botanical components and a brand name that emphasizes self-care rituals these kinds of as scalp massages. By eradicating chemical substances that can accumulate in hair and lead to harm, these as silicones and synthetic fragrances, Nabi states Glow Ritual is having a “long-time period strategy to hair care.” The corporation also delivers a no cost workbook with ideas and a weekly template for shoppers to design and style their have hair rituals.

“It’s people very little micro-investments that remind you of your self-really worth and give you that balanced glow from the inside out,” she says. “There’s no natural beauty with out wellness and wellness is a system.” 

Even though beginning a enterprise for the duration of a pandemic hasn’t been effortless, Nabi’s journey is one of silver linings. Skyrocketing worldwide shipping and delivery prices and disruptions in international provide chains pushed her to supply sustainable elements near to the Increased Toronto Spot. At the exact time, the lack of ability to community at area markets or events pressured her to achieve out internationally by practically attending conferences and connecting with persons who she may perhaps never ever have arrived at in-human being. 

Nabi appreciates she is up towards giants in a discipline dominated by conglomerates and enterprise-backed corporations, but she’s not fussed. She states her practical experience in public plan, advising senior determination-makers and creating general public programs prepared her for entrepreneurship given that equally fields rely on approach, diligence and a persons-very first mentality.

Glow Ritual is previously making constructive a response. The company not too long ago bought an Instagram shout-out from Rick Caroto, hair stylist for stars such as Mindy Kaling. Nabi states that proves there is a require for her products that existing companies are not assembly.

Her information for aspiring business people is to “start tiny, start off fearful, start someplace. Begin not being aware of all the responses.” 

“Don’t overthink it, just go in advance and get started and you may get started pivoting, you may get started evolving, you’ll go in the path your neighborhood needs you to go,” she suggests.