Behind The Beauty with Kiku Chaudhari

As one half of the brains behind haircare brand Shaz & Kiks, Kiku Chaudhari doesn’t just understand hair wellness, she has lived it. In a childhood spent in her family home in the Himalayas and through the hands of her and her co-founder and sister Shaz’s beloved grandma, who taught them how to harness natural Ayurvedic botanicals to create scalp-first, nutrient-rich formulations that target hair health at the root.

“Hair is one of the most visible expressions of who we are — it’s how we show up in the world,” Chaudhari says. “How we care for it is a way to connect to ourselves. I have my grandmother’s hair, a mix of thick waves and curls, and at one point, I had styled it so much that I barely recognized it. I felt like I was erasing parts of myself. That’s when I realized I needed to embrace my natural hair, focus on its health and wellness, and build its beauty from within.”

Chaudhari is part of a growing cohort of founders in North America that is reimagining Indian rituals and ingredients for a new generation of customers that views beauty through the lens of wellness, sustainability and cultural authenticity. That, coupled with the rising demand for Ayurvedic ingredients across beauty and food means that brands like hers are perfectly positioned at the intersection of culture and commerce — bridging ancestral knowledge with modern science and heritage with global resonance.

But beyond it all, Shaz & Kiks is a love letter to the co-founders’ beloved grandma — the woman who introduced them to the power of Ayurvedic botanicals and taught them that beauty, at its best, isn’t about erasing who you are or where you come from, it is about honoring it with grace, love and intention.

What does a typical day in your life look like?

That’s a hard one! We’re a small team and my days can look very different since I do multiple things! We do travel a lot for work where we’re going to events and meetings (which is mostly in NYC, SF and LA). On a normal work day, however, I am focused on leading our marketing and the DTC side of our business, so it’s a lot of working with our creative and marketing team on ideation, strategy and content creation across all of our digital touch points. I am also in charge of our website, so I’m always looking at daily performance and analytic and constantly optiziming the site to make sure it’s aligned with our marketing calendar and design updates. Shaz and I are both very involved in product development, and I live close to our lab so I’m usually there at least weekly, working with our chemist on new formulas, testing, ideating, and beyond.

Outside of work, I’ve worked hard at starting and ending the day with unplugging from work (this was hard for me), spending time with my husband and dogs and doing all the things that bring me joy — reading, cooking, going for walks and taking baths.

What prompted you to start Shaz & Kiks?

My sister and I spent all of our childhood summers visiting our family in India. We’re from the foothills of the Himalaya and our grandma was a big practitioner of Ayurveda, teaching her grandkids how to harness the power of natural ingredients to take care of their bodies, including beauty care. She would massage different herbal oil blends into our scalps, with every ingredient holding a purpose and story behind it.

When I became an adult, I had less access to my grandma and these ingredients, and I also saw my hair slowly become unhealthy with all the styling and treatments. I really started seeing this opportunity to bring these formulas and practices to a more global stage and make them accessible and more fun. Core to our mission, we built a conscious supply chain, where we directly source our raw ingredients from smaller Indian farmers and suppliers and make sure we share their stories in everything that we do.

What’s your top favorite Shaz & Kiks product?

Our Essential Prewash! It’s the product that started it all and represents our philosophy so well — balance, strengthen and nourish the entire hair ecosystem. It completely transformed my own hair and scalp health, and I can’t imagine my wash routine without it now. If I skip a week or two of using it, I can actually feel the difference.

What does your haircare routine look like?

Every Sunday is my wash day, so that’s when I apply our Prewash and spend the day with it in my hair. Then for my in-shower ritual, I swap between our Ultra Hydrating Turmeric Shampoo and Balancing Clay Cleanser, depending on what my scalp needs and sometimes I actually use them both one after another in the same wash, as a double cleanse. I use our Naram Conditioner every other week, not on every wash. I mostly only use it when my hair needs extra moisture.

I usually always air-dry my hair, and I’ll use our Moringa Peptide Serum on damp hair when it’s frizz season (for me, that’s humid Texas summers). I’ve also been testing our upcoming styling product, so I’ve been putting that in as part of my air-dry routine. I will wash my hair sometimes mid-week, or as needed; on average I do about one to two washes per week. I also love using the Prewash if I want to do a slick-back bun, which I do often — I literally use it as a styling product.

A Shaz & Kiks product that you think everyone should try.

The Ultra Hydrating Turmeric Shampoo! It’s our top-seller across the board, a shampoo that does so much more than cleanse. It calms inflammation at the root, which is often the hidden cause of many scalp and hair problems. It’s also just a great go-to shampoo that all scalp and hair types can benefit from.

How do you envision Shaz & Kiks contributing to the broader conversation around inclusivity and representation in beauty?

For us, inclusivity means more than showing diverse faces — it’s about honoring the knowledge, practices and wisdom of cultures that have often been overlooked or appropriated. By sharing Ayurveda in an authentic way, we’re creating space for South Asian representation in beauty, while also making these rituals accessible and relatable to a global audience.

A beauty ritual that you inherited that you still practice today.

Drinking warm water soaked in ajwain, fennel and ginger, depending on the season. Some of the best natural digestion ingredients and a favorite tradition of mine that I learnt from my grandma.

A tip that you would have for founders trying to build culturally rooted brands for the global consumer.

Make sure to really create your own space that’s unique and true to you, but also translate your story in a way that resonates universally. People are drawn to heritage, but they also need to understand how it fits into their lives today.

Beauty brands in the US and India that you think are doing really well right now.

I love Eadem and how they bring global rituals to life through their visual branding. Also love Kulfi Beauty — founded by another South Asian founder Priyanka Ganjoo — and how they make makeup so fun! I’m also in awe of Thrive Causemetics and how they’ve built a long-term business primarily on a DTC model — I love their mascara. I’m also really excited to see how a brand like Inde Wild is shaping modern beauty in India.