Look, Ma, no water! IIM-Calcutta alumnus comes up with waterless bathing products

Personal hygiene is essential for human beings, but there are many who reside in areas with water scarcity, in extreme weather conditions, or are unable to bathe because of old age. Thanks to an IIM alumnus, there may be a way out for such people.

It was while working closely with soldiers on a project that the idea of a waterless body bath and shampoo popped up in Puneet Gupta’s mind, and that’s how Clensta was launched.

Clensta, formed by joining two words — cleaning and instant — is a start-up that helps people bathe without water. Currently, it caters to the personal hygiene needs of soldiers deployed in areas where there is a lack of water or the weather is extreme, such as Siachen, Jammu and Kashmir and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.

The body wash is very easy to use. A user just has to take 25 ml and massage it gently all over the body. And then wipe dry with a towel.

“Not only does it take away dirt, dust and odour, it also maintains the Ph of the skin and keeps it moisturised,” says Gupta. “My previous project gave me an opportunity to work with soldiers in the para-military forces. I saw soldiers not being able to move from their positions for two-four days. It was then that I realised that the personal hygiene was a major concern for them,” Gupta, an IIM-Calcutta alumnus, who is also the founder and CEO of Clensta, told BusinessLine.

Among those who helped Gupta in this endeavour is Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, which assisted the project, and is a research partner and shareholder with Clensta.

“When the team came up to us, they had a rough idea of what they wanted. We assisted them in choosing stable and safe ingredients for the products,” said Anurag S Rathore, Professor, IIT-Delhi, and Scientific Advisor to Clensta. Rathore is also working on getting the products to comply with global standards.

Clensta products, which were launched in August 2017, can also be used by hospital staff for patients, home healthcare, frequent travellers, and adventure enthusiasts.

“We keep taking our clients on treks. I think the product is of maximum utility for trekkers as they cannot bathe for 3-4 days,” says Alankar Chandra, CEO of Wild Voyager, a wildlife tourism company.

Says Dr Praveen Tripathi, a Delhi-based psychiatrist: “I have patients suffering from dementia and this helps in maintaining their personal hygiene, which earlier was a daunting task for family.”

Clensta plans to sell around one lakh bottles each of waterless shampoo and waterless body bath by this fiscal year-end. Currently, the products are available only in the B2B market at ₹499 and ₹549 per 100 ml, respectively.

Though priced on the higher side, Gupta claims that 100 ml of the body wash will help save 350 litres, adding that an average human being spends 70 litres on a bath with conventional soap. “We will be entering the business-to-customer market in a year.”