Here’s a question to all my MBA friends “How do you sell a small piece of Papaya for Rs. 200?” (For those who are blissfully unaware of how much a papaya costs – you could buy a fairly decent sized papaya for Rs. 20). Well if you are still working out your marketing strategy to sell the piece of the Papaya for Rs. 200, then here’s the answer: Crush the piece of papaya and put it in a small plastic bottle, fill the bottle with some liquid soap and then write on the bottle ‘Facewash with Papaya Extracts’ - :) Yup, now this damn thing could easily fetch you 200 bucks or more. With minor alterations in packaging, shape of the bottle, pictures on the bottle etc, you could pass on this soapy solution as a shampoo, bodywash, handwash, or even as shaving gel. But make sure you have the words ‘With Papaya Extracts’ and a picture of the papaya on the bottle.

Strange, but somehow the humble ‘Papaya’ has made it big in the cosmetic business. Although the papaya has been into existence for many years now, until recently I never realized its true potential. I never considered it anything more than a fruit that I didn’t enjoy eating much. The papaya for me was a poor man’s fruit - nature’s gift to those who couldn’t afford the mango. Papaya juice with a lot of saccharine was traditionally used as filler to dilute mango juice (like pumpkin was used in tomato ketchup). I never knew that the papaya had any other potential, until it somehow found a break in the cosmetic industry. I should say I am really happy for the Papaya.

But the Papaya isn’t alone. If you happen to be an ardent viewer of advertisements on TV (like I am), or walk down the soap/shampoo aisle at a retail store, you will be amazed to see the amount of ‘food’ that goes into these beauty products. It’s strange, but the ad for the beauty soap with strawberry and cream looks yummier than a Baskin Robbins. These days there’s plenty of edible stuff in your beauty products right from the papaya, strawberry, peach, orange, banana, wheat, milk cream, chocolate, avocado, tea tree, green apple, almond, apricot, cucumber, watermelon, jojoba (I have no idea what the jojoba is, but whatever it is, it sound pretty exotic), to my all time favorite the ‘Aloe Vera’. And if for some reason your shampoo manufacturers decide not to add food to your shampoo, they would at least make sure it comes ‘with added vitamins A, B, D & E’, so that you don’t miss out on your daily dose of vitamins.

Well I have a lot more to write on these cosmetic foods, but the talk of food invariably makes me hungry. So I will be back after a quick ‘food’ break (and no. I don’t mean a shower and shave here. I mean a real food break). Ciao.