In previous times, menstruation was considered taboo but with time and development, India slowly but surely moved away and did not make a fuss about the myth of menstruation as a taboo and started understanding the importance of proper hygiene and sanitation environment for women. The idea of providing safe and chemical-free menstruation hygiene led the husband-wife duo, Sujata Parwar and Apurv Agarwal came up with the idea of AVNI with the aim of providing innovative and eco-friendly menstrual care products for women.
Sujata and Apurv, both of them did their Bachelor’s in Pharmacy and MBA in Marketing. After working with various Pharma brands, the duo launched their own brand. It all started with an uncomfortable personal experience Sujata had by using commercially available sanitary pads which led to rashes. After this, Sujata had thorough research regarding this issue and observed that the only reason behind this issue was the use of chemical-based pads and to her surprise, it was not just her facing these skin issues but mostly every woman who go through this that leads to health issues in women. These chemical-based pads even have a bad impact on the environment and sanitation workers. As she looked for a sustainable alternative product to these chemical-based pads, she found that there were no alternative and viable products to it. And this is how Sujata along with her husband decided to launch AVNI, a menstrual healthcare startup that is eco-friendly in the year 2020. Sanitary napkin commercially available are made of plastic and contains chemicals, no doubt they are clinically tested and verified but using these products frequently can cause skin issues and infection especially for those women who have sensitive skin. After some time, the duo Sujata and Apurv realized that sanitary napkins can’t just complete one’s menstrual needs as most women use different menstrual healthcare products that cause them harm. So, keeping this in mind the brand came out with Avni Ezeepad and Avni cups.
“We launched Avni with our first core product being antimicrobial reusable and organic cotton sanitary pads, Avni Safepad. It has been designed with three layers of high-performance fabrics and antimicrobial technology to keep women safe from infections. The product is not only safe for women, but also for the environment as is organic and reusable for up to three years,” Sujata says.
The startup brand, named Avni means Earth as a symbol of womanly personification of the mother of all life came out in the market with eco-friendly, organic menstrual healthcare products as well as cotton disposable sanitary napkins. Recently, the brand raised a funding of $75,000 that was invested by We Founder Circle(WFC) and in the same funding round, there was participation from angel investors, Amit Tyagi and Srikanth Iyengar. As most of the women were in a habit to use disposable sanitary napkins, Avni came out with cotton disposable pads called the Avni Ezeepad which are chemical-free and purely made of cotton. Besides this, the brand offer well-designed menstrual cups with top-quality medical grade silicon. In an urgent need to encourage and make awareness among women to use eco-friendly menstrual healthcare products, Avni serves its customers with ‘Green Period Kit’ as a combo offer.
“Apart from this, the products are available in around 27 retail stores across India, especially in Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad. Avni claims to have served around 5,000 women to date,” she adds.
Avni mainly targets three categories of women that includes new mothers, women, and sensitive skin. Seeing the rapid growth in people realising the importance and need of eco-friendly menstrual healthcare products, several other eco-friendly brands came out in the market such as Nua, Plush, Stonesoup and many more.
By Gitika Mandhana
