{"id":4520,"date":"2022-09-10T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T04:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/?p=4520"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:37:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:07:12","slug":"alternatives-plastic-harish-natura","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2022\/09\/10\/alternatives-plastic-harish-natura\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternatives to Plastic: Harish from Natura"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to use plastic\u201d, says Harish, who is tackling the challenge of sustainable packaging for cosmetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Planted with banana trees and aloe vera shrubs, Natura\u2019s workshop in Auroville feels more like a tropical garden than a factory. Soap is Harish\u2019s passion, and he is always on the lookout for new ingredients: \u201cWe want to use only natural raw materials used in daily life. Our products are made of 90% edible stuff. Whatever we can eat, we can make soap out of\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Natura spun off from a big workshop of handloom textiles called Imagination, which used to span the present location and the neighbouring lot. Harish came from Nainital, Uttarakhand, in 1993. Growing up by his town\u2019s branch of the Sri Aurobindo ashram, he began participating in exchange programs which brought him to Pondicherry and Auroville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1999, two American tourists with a hobby for homemade soap taught the Imagination team their formula. At a time when only a single, red-coloured brand of soap was available, this was a delightful surprise. \u201cTheir soap was snow white\u201d, Harish recalls. \u201cWhen we used it, the whole bathroom smelled so good\u201d. After a period of intense experimentation, the Natura soap brand was born, which now comes in 20 different formulas, ranging from activated charcoal to turmeric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n