ShikSona: beauty for real-life women

The saturation of beauty products in the retail market-place along with the copious supply of beauty experts and influencers on social media have not been lost on Sonali and Shikha Chaturvedi. As wives, mothers, and super-successful women of Wall Street and high-tech, the Chartuvedi sisters loved to look put together and polished, but they did not love the complex choices, elaborate routines, and superfluous products make-up companies and influencers insisted women needed to achieve an everyday look. Neither they, nor the women they associated with daily, had the time or desire to layer product upon product just to go outside.

So what do a Wall Street executive and an IT entrepreneur do when they want to look chic without the fuss? They become beauty bosses. Shikha and Sonali Chartuvedi created ShikSona because they wanted a make-up routine that was simple and straightforward without the need for expertise or excessive time consumption, without sacrificing quality, luxury or affordability. ShikSona has now become a cult favourite of women from all walks of life who love the brand’s core values of glamour and simplicity in easy-to-use products with clean ingredients and on-trend colours with a luxurious texture and look. We had the good fortune to speak in depth with Sonali Chartuvedi about ShikSona’s creation, formulations, and the secrets of a successful upstart brand.

Please tell us a little about you and your family and the values they instilled in you.

Our parents were both born and raised in New Delhi, India. My dad came to the US at age 21 and earned a master's and Ph.D. in mechanical engineering. He went back to India in 1976 to marry my mom, and they both returned to the United States, specifically Chicago. My parents came with only $10 in their pockets with the dream and hope of providing better opportunities for their family. We grew up in Virginia Beach where my dad was a professor at Old Dominion University.

Growing up, our parents were very strict, and our main focus was doing well in school and playing sports. We both graduated from high school with GPAs that were above 4·0 and both of us attended the University of Virginia. After graduating, my sister moved to New York City to work on Wall Street and I went on to work for Northrop Grumman and IBM as an IT consultant. After a couple of years, I decided to start my own IT company with two other partners, and we successfully grew our company from five to 130 people, prior to starting our beauty business.

What made you want to pivot from IT consulting to beauty?

My sister and I both worked 70–80 hours a week with the gruelling tasks of Wall Street and being an IT entrepreneur. Between school and our work schedules, we never really had time to learn or figure out our beauty routines. Growing up, our mom initially was a stay-at-home mom, who later started working for a health and beauty company. Our mom was always well put together, even if she didn’t feel well. She always encouraged the two of us to look our best for any occasion; nothing complicated, just a simple beauty routine. She always reminded us that if you look good, you feel good, and you can take anything that comes your way with confidence. Our mom’s words always resonated with us and inspired us to start this venture for busy super-women.  

Did you always have an interest in make-up and beauty?

No, we definitely did not. We realized that as busy women on the go, beauty routines can be complex in a world where choices are almost limitless. It can be extremely intimidating to sit in a beauty store and find the right shade or figure out which brand has the best ingredients, and we wanted to help remove some of that anxiety with choice overload by creating our own beauty brand.

What elements were important to when creating ShikSona?

We were very keen on offering versatility and healthy ingredients with our products. Beauty products and routines can be overwhelming and daunting for women who are not experts. The choices alone are way too much, and we already have to make so many critical decisions each day in our busy lives—beauty shouldn’t be added to the list. Our goal is not to compete with larger beauty brands, nor do we think that this brand is for beauty experts. We want to provide a brand that focuses on busy women who want to look their best and feel more confident as they hustle through life. 

Whose idea was it to start the brand?

We both came up with the idea while we were on a girls’ trip in 2018. We walked into a beauty store to buy a red lipstick and we were in a hurry, but there were so many brands and types of lip products, with so many different shades of red. It was very overwhelming to try and figure out the right brand, product, and colour. Then on top of that, determining which ones have clean ingredients. After that shopping experience, we were determined to find a way to simplify this process. We created ShikSona Beauty to provide beauty products that are affordable, multi-use, multi-purpose, are made with healthy ingredients and are made with universal colours.

Why was the initial brand focused on lip colour?

We started with lip products because it’s the easiest product to use and can quickly give you a pop of colour on your lips and cheeks, so you have the confidence to take on the day with little time commitment. We created two innovative bullets: our award-winning split bullet with two shades, and the halo bullet with a matte lip colour on the inside and a shimmer colour on the outside. The creamy matte formula of these lipsticks is designed for multitasking, doubling as a lipstick and blush for effortless touch-ups on the go.

Were you ever discouraged by the saturation of the beauty market? Did others discourage or encourage you?

We were not discouraged by the saturation of the beauty market, because we had a unique problem we were trying to solve for our unique customer base and created some innovative products that were not on the market. 

How did you set about developing each product?

We did a lot of market research initially and sent out questionnaires to thousands of women, and received feedback that the complexity in the beauty world was a pain point for many women. That was extremely encouraging when we first ramped up the business.

How did you market your brand in the beginning? What were your unique challenges?

Our biggest challenge was brand recognition. Initially, we started with hiring a couple of big marketing agencies and quickly realized, as a small business, it was too expensive and did not provide us with the brand exposure we needed. We pivoted and hired a great PR team that helped get our brand in major media outlets and they helped us to win the New You beauty award for the Perfect Pout category two years in a row (2023 and 2024). This really helped get our brand name out there with our competitors. We also hired a small specialized team that has helped with marketing our products on Amazon and internally hired our creative director who handles all of our social media content and all of our creative direction for photo shoots. All of our photo shoots include everyday superwomen, not professional models, so it feels more authentic to the brand.  

What advice do you have for other women who wish to start their brand or business?

We definitely think it’s important that you make sure your brand is different from other brands. It’s important for the customer to see why your brand is unique. Also, identify your customer and sell only to that customer. It’s important that you focus and stay true to marketing and selling to your core customer only and not try to sell to other customers. For example, it may not make sense to sell our beauty brand to women who love doing their own hair and make-up and who are make-up and hair experts or enthusiasts that enjoy trying a lot of different products.

Finally, slow and steady growth is key for a brand. It’s really important that you roll out a limited amount of products at a time and not take the big bang approach to ensure you can handle capacity and provide the best service and best quality products to customers. Also, we recommend doing a soft launch for friends and family a few months prior to really test the entire process end to end and fix any unexpected kinks prior to an official launch.

What is next for ShikSona? Will you be introducing new products?

Currently, we are focusing on the further development of our skin care line that contains multiple healthy ingredients in each product that are also multi-functional. We have released four skin care products already and we hope to include a few more that will contain everything needed for your skin care routine packed with healthy ingredients and are affordable to purchase. We are also excited to create more cosmetic products that will also be packed with healthy skin care ingredients as well! •

Jody Miller is a correspondent for Lucire and the co-founder of Lucire Rouge.

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