BSC's Shantanu Deshpande on betting big on "Make in India" for sustainable grooming's future
Shantanu Deshpande, founder and CEO of Bombay Shaving Company explains the story behind Eco Sensi 3 and how the product reflects India's design thinking.
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Bombay Shaving Company is making a deliberate pivot toward sustainable grooming with the launch of Eco Sensi 3, a razor with a biodegradable body made from coconut husk and rice husk, designed in India to reduce plastic waste. The product is the company’s first step toward reducing plastic waste in a category known for disposables. While the blades are still sourced from South Korea, Shantanu Deshpande, founder and CEO of Bombay Shaving Company, says the body, which forms the bulk of the razor, is fully compostable, with plans to eventually localize the entire product.
Deshpande believes Eco Sensi 3 will resonate most with younger consumers. “Younger consumers are easier to convert. They don’t have deeply ingrained shaving habits,” he says. “Older men have been using the same razor for 20 years. It’s sharp metal on your face. Changing that is hard. People don’t like to change their razors.”
The product comes at a time when Bombay Shaving Company is seeing strong momentum in the market. “If you look at quick commerce, we’re at roughly 20 to 22 percent market share,” Deshpande says. “From April last year to this year, we’ve grown nearly 80 percent. We typically spend about 15 to 18 percent of our revenue on marketing.”
In a conversation with Storyboard18, Deshpande shares the story behind Eco Sensi 3, how the product reflects India’s design thinking, and why, even though the industry has mastered plastic design for safety and precision, true innovation in sustainable materials is still a work in progress.
Edited excerpts:
Tell us the story behind Eco Sensi 3. Also, why now?
Between 12 to 15 billion razors are thrown away every year. They are made of plastic and metal. Many end up in oceans or landfills, and some are eaten by animals. Cows get their mouths hurt, fish ingest the blades. It’s a mess.
We wanted to create something easier to dispose of, something biodegradable. That’s where EcoSensitive 3 comes in. It’s our first step. Definitely not enough, but a direction we strongly believe in.
We use coconut husk and rice husk to make the body of the razor. These are materials that often get burned as waste, so we thought — why not repurpose them? The blade still comes from South Korea, but we hope to move that to India over time. The bulk of the product is the body, and at least that part is biodegradable and made here.
How does this product reflect India's design thinking?
Coconut and rice are both deeply local to India. Parali, for instance, is a specific issue in North India that causes significant pollution. Farmers often burn it because they don’t have a better use for it; burning is just the most efficient option right now. If we can meaningfully repurpose that waste, even in small ways, we can help reduce the need for burning.
Coconut typically comes from the South, while rice husk is more common in the North. We also thought carefully about design and ergonomics. The Indian hand is slightly larger than the Southeast Asian hand, so we intentionally made the razor a bit bulkier. Unlike the thinner handles often found in products from China or Vietnam, ours is shaped for comfort and grip suited to Indian consumers.
These material and design choices together helped us arrive at a product that feels distinctly Indian. And this is just the beginning; we plan to keep improving it with every iteration.
How does this product compare to conventional razors in your portfolio? And would you say that purpose still translates to profit in a category largely dominated by margin play?
At Rs 49, we don’t make more than a 5 to 5.5 percent margin. Yes, it’s profitable, but only just. At this scale, we haven’t been able to commercialize manufacturing, it’s still mostly manual, almost like how clothes are made. So even if we produce 50 lakh razors, the variable margin won’t scale meaningfully.
That said, over time, we believe we’ll figure out how to industrialize the process. When we do, the profit margin can move from 5 to 15 percent. That gives us more flexibility to improve the product, introduce multiple tiers, and offer better value to customers.
Whenever we launch a new product especially one driven by purpose, I don’t look at sales targets in the first year. I know my team, especially my CFO and COO, won’t love that approach. But I’m more interested in how much the product is loved. I’d rather have a small group of passionate, loyal users than a large group of lukewarm ones.
We truly believe there’s a growing segment of people who care deeply about the environment. They want to make better choices wherever they can. For those consumers, we want Eco Sensi 3 to be the razor they choose without hesitation.
Where does this product stand in the Make in India story?
Make in India is very real for us. We’re actively investing and working with government departments that are facilitating this effort. We're bringing in global talent whether it's tooling, precision industrial design, or procurement to build manufacturing capability here. We want to be at the forefront of this shift. We truly believe this is the decade to make in India and sell to the world.
If we can make products that work for Indian skin which tends to be tougher to shave than most, those same products will work anywhere. Whether it's blonde hair on Caucasian skin, curly hair on Black skin, or the softer skin typical in Southeast Asia, Indian skin is a strong benchmark. So, in a way, India gives us the perfect testing ground.
This is a long-term journey. We don’t have all the answers yet. But we’re committed to investing both our time and capital to make it happen.
