Most brands that call themselves Ayurvedic found Ayurveda. They read the texts, hired the formulators, chose the positioning. There is nothing wrong with that. But it is a different thing entirely from being born into it.
SADHEV is the second kind.
Our family’s relationship with Ayurveda does not begin with a business plan. It begins with Brahmasree Cholayil Kunju Maami Vaidyar — an Ayurvedic healer from Vallapad whose formulations were not written in commercial recipes but lived in practice, in observation, and in the quiet knowledge of what the body needs to heal. That lineage is now 200 years old. And it is the reason SADHEV exists.
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“Ayurveda was not something I discovered. It was something I was trusted to carry forward.” — Lasakan Cholayil, Co-Founder |
The Afternoon That Changed Everything
Co-founder Lasakan Cholayil grew up knowing what his family carried. The knowledge was present — in the conversations, in the ingredients, in the way his elders understood the relationship between the body and nature. But for a long time, he did not know how to bring it into the world in a way that was worthy of it.
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It was a eureka moment when I got the spark of SADHEV. I realised that I can distil my ancestral wisdom into a tangible portfolio that benefits the world the way I has benefited me. I was clear that I wanted to make SADHEV a reality. |
What he understood in that moment was that the world he was living in — saturated with noise, with chemicals, with products that promised transformation and delivered confusion — needed exactly what his family had been preserving. Not a version of it. Not an approximation. The real thing.
That is what SADHEV set out to build.
Two Founders. One Purpose. Different Roads to Get Here.
SADHEV is co-founded by Lasakan Cholayil and Akshara Sitaraman, his wife. They arrived at this brand from different directions — and that difference is one of the brand’s greatest strengths.
Lasakan carries the lineage. Akshara carries the discipline of making that lineage uncompromisingly relevant to how people live today.
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As a discerning consumer, I was always resorting to buying my personal care products abroad. I always wished if an Indian brand could just spare of the pain of stocking up whenever I travelled abroad. Its just a moment of reckoning for me to give shape to Lasakan’s vision while keeping in mind the interests of consumers like me. |
Her role has been to take something deeply traditional and make it work on its own terms in the contemporary world. Better textures. Higher standards. Formulations that question even what has been inherited, and rebuild where needed. And a company where women are not just present — but leading.
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“This is not Ayurveda preserved in time. This is Ayurveda, made to work now.” — Akshara Sitaraman, Co-Founder |
The Farm That Came Before the First Product
Before SADHEV launched a single product, we built a farm.
Sadhevana is our 80-acre certified organic sanctuary on the outskirts of Chennai. It is where the majority of SADHEV’s key ingredients begin their journey — in soil that has never been touched by a chemical fertiliser.
Our farmers nourish Sadhevana using Panchakavya — an ancient Ayurvedic bio-fertiliser made from five sacred cow-derived elements: dung, urine, milk, curd and ghee, combined with coconut water, banana and jaggery, fermented and returned to the earth. This is not an organic certification we acquired. It is an agricultural practice as old as Ayurveda itself.
Ingredients that do not grow at Sadhevana are sourced from where they are of true origin. Saffron from Pulwama in Kashmir, harvested within 24 hours of picking to preserve full potency. Argan oil from Morocco. Roses from Bulgaria. The standard is always the same: if it does not meet ours, it does not enter a SADHEV product.
We call this farm-to-skin. It is not a marketing phrase. It is the only way we know how to work.
What SADHEV Is — and What It Is Not
SADHEV is not a wellness brand that discovered Ayurveda.
It is not a heritage brand that performs tradition for aesthetics.
It is not a luxury brand that uses Ayurveda as a positioning device.
SADHEV is what happens when a 200-year Ayurvedic lineage meets the standards, conscience and ambitions of the contemporary world.
Every product we make is free of sulphates, parabens and phthalates. Not because clean beauty is fashionable — but because our family does not practice the use of harmful ingredients and we have no intention of starting now. We follow green chemistry principles. We are certified Plastic Positive by The Disposal Company, recycling more plastic than we consume every month. We plant a tree with every purchase.
These are not brand initiatives. They are consequences of who we are.
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“When you choose SADHEV, you are not choosing a product. You are choosing a practice that has been refined across two centuries.” |
The Healing at the Heart of Everything
There is a word that comes up again and again when SADHEV customers describe what happens when they use these products. Not ‘transformation.’ Not ‘results.’
Restoration.
Skin that feels returned to itself. Hair that breathes again. A body that feels cared for rather than processed.
This is not a coincidence. It is the intention behind every formulation. SADHEV does not promise to change you. We offer something older and quieter than that — the chance to restore what was always there.
Ayurveda has known this for five thousand years. Our family has known it for two hundred. We are simply the generation that decided the world needed to know it too.
SADHEV. Luxury Ayurvedic Care. Ayurveda in our bloodline.
Explore the SADHEV range — formulations rooted in 200 years of Ayurvedic wisdom.
— Written by SADHEV Ayurvedic Experts, rooted in a 200-year vaidyar lineage.
