Organiko, A Boon to Donkey Community
In India, a donkey is an animal that is considered a liability instead of an asset. Here people often use donkeys to describe persons who are unproductive and witless. A company called Organiko is making soaps that can help rejuvenate the skin of thousands of people. Along with the benefits of donkey milk these soaps are filled with ayurvedic properties. They even include the essence of Egyptian oils that can add texture to people’s skin with good fragrance.
Donkey milk has Vitamin C four times more than cow’s milk. Vitamin C is the best exfoliator and can make your skin glow more. Donkey milk has compounds that are antibacterial and anti-inflammatory. They can help in reducing skin irritation and redness. The lactic acid present in the donkey milk can help in shedding old cells to reveal the new ones. This lactic acid can fade scars and discoloration, making the skin even-toned and also fight against acne and wrinkles.
The fatty acids present in this golden milk can help in healing and reducing all signs of aging. You will get a better texture and appearance because of Vitamin E and retinol that are hidden in this milk. Retinol is a natural form of Vitamin A. It helps in reducing wrinkles, curing acne, tightening pores, and can fade age spots. Donkey milk is a perfect moisturizer that can make wrinkles less visible.
According to the livestock census of 2019, there is a decline in the total donkey population by 61.23% when compared to 2012. Currently, there are 1.12 lakh donkeys in India which are very few. No one in India knows the usefulness of donkey milk which made the donkeys suffer along with their owners. Buying soaps that are made from donkey milk can provide their owners with a better alternative livelihood. This can in turn help in increasing the reducing population of donkeys in India.
Using donkey milk daily as your cleanser can even help in keeping the skin healthy, hydrated, and soft. Soaps made from this milk can even be used for sensitive skin or acne-prone skin because of their anti-inflammatory properties. It can also be useful in the cure of psoriasis or eczema and many other skin diseases.
Pooja Kaul, the founder of Organiko, was pursuing her master’s in Tata Institute of Social Science a few years back. She was writing a thesis on Diary products as part of her project. She heard about the untapped resource of donkey’s milk and its advantages during her research process. Most of the donkey owners have no idea about these benefits in India. They thought that their donkeys are a liability. At that stage, she approached the donkey owners of Solapur to make them understand the importance of their own donkey’s milk.
After three years of extensive research and continuous encouragement, finally, in October 2017, she collaborated with 15 donkey owners from Solapur’s Lashkar community. They prepared around 200 soaps using donkeys’ milk under the guidance of TISS Professor Neelam Yadava. Within two months all those 200 soaps were sold. Seeing the positive response, Pooja decided to continue her passion for commercializing Donkey’s milk. She even left her government job in order to do this. The best thing that came out of this is that the donkey’s owners who used to earn hardly 150 to 200 rupees per day are now earning between 2500 to 3000 rupees daily.
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For Egyptians, donkey milk is a common ingredient in skincare. It is a natural medicine for anti-aging, healing, and skin rejuvenating. Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt is known as the goddess of beauty. The main secret of her beauty and youth is that she used to take bath daily with donkey milk. She maintained a herd of 700 donkeys for this sole purpose. According to history, donkey milk helped Cleopatra in reducing her wrinkles and made her skin glow for ages.
Pooja Kaul thought that it is a better idea to implement Egyptian beauty secrets in Indian skincare, where people treat donkeys as unproductive liabilities. She thought that it is important that the donkey owners have to understand the significance of the product they are delivering to society. What makes Organiko unique is that they are trying to bring a structure to the donkey milk industry as Donkey milk is not less than Cow or Buffalo milk in any manner. With the exposure of all the key benefits of donkey milk, Pooja is trying to encourage thousands of donkey owners to come forward and form a huge market that can benefit both the owners and the beauty industry.
Organiko also encouraged and started involving the women from those donkey communities and gave them the skill training necessary to make skincare products. Once people came to know the main agenda of our organization, many youngsters showed interest and started seeing donkeys as an asset instead of an animal of pity.
The donkey milk that they buy from the owners will stay fresh for 9 hours. So immediately after collecting the milk, Pooja and her team pasteurize it and turn them into soaps by adding a few ayurvedic ingredients like neem, turmeric, Chandan, Aloe vera along with the essence of Egyptian essential oils like tea tree oil or cinnamon oil within 5 hours to keep the product quality intact.
Organiko launched first The Donkey Milk Natural Ingredient Soap and The Donkey milk Charcoal and Honey Soap. The abundant amounts of nutrients and antioxidants present in donkey milk along with amazing characteristics of ayurvedic ingredients like charcoal and honey made wonders. With the benefits and results, those soaps got they increased their production using a variety of ingredients like Aloe Vera, Licorice, Hibiscus, and essential oils like tea tree oil and cinnamon oil.
Even though donkey milk is popular in many European countries, this is an entirely new concept to India. Pooja launched products made out of Donkey milk for the first time in India in 2018. Organiko is mainly based on Indian customers with more than 10000 plus happy customers. They deliver soaps to customers from Nepal, Bangladesh, UAE as well. They are currently seeking opportunities in countries like Australia and US. You can find their products in their own e-commerce platform or platforms like Amazon and Flipkart.
Organiko is trying to commercialize the selling of donkey milk and improve the lives of those who take care of donkeys along the way. Everyone here knows the importance of cow milk and it is already an industry. Similarly, Organiko is proceeding towards industrializing Donkey milk which is way more useful and beneficial than cow’s milk in skincare, Organiko believes in their motto “beauty that can change lives”. Each rupee they earn will improve the life of a donkey family which in turn can feed the donkey more.
To know more about this golden revolution and be a part of this life-changing beautiful experience you can visit their website, www.organiko.in and you can even connect with Pooja using her LinkedIn and Instagram accounts.
