Sravya Adusumilli, the founder of Mango People, never thought she would become a makeup brand founder. But, after spending her academic career in a chemistry lab, she found she preferred being an entrepreneur.
Mango People is Sephora’s first Ayurvedic-inspired makeup brand, selling via Sephora.com. Mango People products include a bronzer stick, a highlighter stick and a multi-stick for cheek, lip and eye application. After becoming unsatisfied with the lipsticks she used, Adusumilli developed the brand around 2017 while she was a college student studying chemical engineering. After a series of experimentations, which included accidentally dying her mother’s kitchen pink, Adusumilli finally created the Multi-Stick, which sells for $27.
“Being a broke college student, I could barely afford to like get one makeup product, let alone several,” said Adusumilli. “That's how the idea of the Multi-Stick came to be; I focused on having safe ingredients on your eyes, cheeks and lips. And all you need is five minutes to look put together, which is all I had at the time.”
The hero ingredient, mango butter, helped inspire the name, as did the popularity of South Asian countries, many of which practice Ayurveda. Ayurveda is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. Popular therapies include yoga and therapeutic oils and ingredients like ashwagandha, ginger and turmeric.
Adusumilli joined the Glossy Beauty podcast to discuss how she created the brand, how her chemical engineering background is a boon to entrepreneurship and what it means to be the first Ayurvedic makeup brand at Sephora.