In a nutshell—or make that a black cumin seed shell—Aneela Zaman’s story is one of passion, inspiration and plenty of research.
She launched a beauty brand in her twenties (‘Notorious Colors: For the international women of color’), then switched gears by moving to Los Angeles for the sake of her soon-to-be husband and starting a thriving career in real estate. One divorce and the sale of many multi-million dollar homes later, Zaman renewed her commitment to the beauty industry after looking for ways to retain the youthful radiance of her skin. Her epiphany came from her 83-year-old father, Sultan Khattak, who reminded her, thanks to his years of analysis at the laboratory Abbott, of a Pakistani beauty secret he had often studied: black cumin seed.
Black cumin seed oil, rich in vitamins A, B1 and B2, niacin, folic acid, essential fatty acids and minerals, is a chief ingredient in Zaman Skincare’s $80 Sleeping Beauty Serum, which is also augmented by vitamin C. Zaman Skincare’s $65 Rise & Shine Serum includes apple stem extract, jojoba, lavender, cucumber and camellia leaf extract.
In Beauty Independent’s Road to Dallas video, which anticipated Zaman Skincare’s appearance at Indie Beauty Expo Dallas 2018, Zaman shared details of her brand launch. She recalled how she lost the opportunity to exhibit at the Los Angeles show months earlier because the wrong-sized labels had been affixed to her products. “I had two thousand bottles over Thanksgiving that I had to sit and rip each label off myself,” she said. “I had to wait for new labels to be made to reapply them. So, that was six weeks that I had to wait [before launching].”
Zaman sat for the camera again midway through the Dallas show last month. In the Founder Story video produced by BI and Zaman Skincare, she sheds light on her brand strategy and business goals. Here is a sneak peek of Zaman’s insights from the video:
On the quest to keep her skin radiant
I’ve always had a passion for beauty and I was a makeup artist in my early twenties. I was all about colors. And then I moved out to Los Angeles for love and put it all away—got into real estate…I had this burning desire to come back. It became all about my skin because when I was living in Los Angeles I realized my skin was changing especially as I aged. I thought, how do you look young? It’s about having radiance in your skin.
I contacted my dad who has always been in research and development and I said you know Dad, I want something that makes my skin look great. He said, ‘You know, black cumin seed.’ He had been studying that seed for some time. So I contacted a lab in Los Angeles. I said, ‘Do you know what black cumin seed is?’ She said, ‘Of course I know what black cumin seed is!’ So I said I’m coming in to see you.
We started formulating it. When the product was finally done I was so happy with it. So I’m here now to launch Zaman Skincare and introduce black cumin seed to the world.
On building trust and loyalty
We’re starting off really small, we started off with two SKUs because I really wanted to keep it simple for women, for them to learn about my products, to realize the type of elements and ingredients that I’m using. Gain their trust and loyalty into the brand and then eventually build out the SKUs.
On the ideal partner
Given the branding of how we’ve come out and the messaging that we’re giving I think it would probably partner up really beautifully with a Neiman Marcus or a Nordstrom. You know we simplified it by doing two SKUs, a day and a night SKU, and so it would fit beautifully in spas because its something that after a treatment you can give to your clients. Actually, our first positioning was at the St. Regis Hotel in New York so now we can sort of see that [the spa channel] is a good partnership with us as well.
On exposure to buyers
Day 1 of the Indie Beauty Expo in Dallas [was] phenomenal. It gave us an opportunity to meet with buyers—having such a big panel from Credo to Revolve to to Neiman Marcus, even influencers that came in that ended up falling in love, or people who didn’t know who we were and putting us on their radar because of our hero products [and] Sleeping Beauty which has black cumin seed. That hasn’t been heard yet in the industry—I really feel that black cumin seed is going to start making some disruptive waves. I’m really excited that we’re one of the first to be using it.
On creation and innovation
BeautyX was amazing because it really allowed us to sit and hear buyers from retailers to come in and speak. But I have to say that as a brand, as an indie brand, I was a little nervous because, you know, you think…you want to be on their shelves. And then you think, ’Is there going to be judgement?’ or ‘How are they going to look at me?’ But when I sat there and listened to them speak I realized they’re just real people, too. And they, too, are on a mission to find the next creative, innovative product for their shelves. So that brought a lot of ease. That’s why today I’m so confident because I have a wonderful product and I feel like it’s just a matter of partnering up with the correct individual.
On the Zaman Skincare message
We’re a luxe product. We’re about simplicity, elegance, and delivering optimal results.
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