With decomposable pads made from corn and bamboo, she is bringing a revolution in menstrual hygiene : Deepanjali Dalmia
With HeyDay care, the all-natural sanitary pads fashioned out of bamboo fibre that are as tender on women as they are on the environment, Deepanjali Dalmia is not only selling a product, she is ushering in a new way of life.
The Barnard College of Columbia University alum was working as a financial analyst at Ernst & Young in New York when she stumbled upon a disturbing trend. “I was appalled to find that harmful plastics, dioxin, antibacterial agents, bleaches, perfumes and a host of chemicals constitute 90% of a sanitary napkin, which can be absorbed into a woman’s bloodstream. It not only causes skin infections but also makes one vulnerable to UTIs and in extreme cases, cervical or ovarian cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, and other life-threatening ailments. I decided to take it upon myself to develop an all-new natural alternative for synthetic pads,” she narrates.
She moved back to India, partnered up with an organic raw material supplier in Quingdao, and fashioned HeyDay, an all-natural sanitary pad made from organic and biodegradable plant-based fibres of corn and bamboo using a highly specialised – and patented – ‘spunlace’ method. “We utilised corn fibre due to its softness and bamboo fibre due to its super water absorption and natural antibacterial properties. We use no chemicals in the raw material growth and processing,” she states.
The HeyDay pad safeguards a woman’s health, while also causing no harm to the environment, for it just between 6 months and 2 years to decompose, as opposed to its plastic counterparts, which take 450-500 years.
The top grossing markets for Heyday are Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bangalore, Jalandhar, Kochi, Telangana, Kolkata, and Guwahati, where they have over a hundred retail touchpoints, including chains like Spencer’s, Le Marche, Modern Bazaar. “Some retailers were averse to stock new products as they’re comfortable with the margins and volumes they get from existing brands. However, to our surprise, more than 50% of the retail chains we approached saw the potential of the product and pushed for placement,” she informs us.
Their online retail channels include Nykaa, Amazon, and their own website, www.heydaycare.com. “We are growing at 40% month on month, so our main focus remains to educate and empower users with the right knowledge. As of today, we have converted 3,50,000 women to use Heyday pads, and we aim to convert 8,00,000 women by the third quarter of 2019,” she informs us, adding, “I want to start a ‘Period Revolution’, and encourage women to make educated personal hygiene choices to be better to their bodies and the environment,” she says.
Heyday remains bootstrapped. They aim to enter more offline as well as online retail chains, and they will next introduce baby diapers and panty liners with the same virtues as her sanitary pads.
