TheGlitz Earth Warrior 2026 Subham Virmani, Director, Esskay Beauty Resources

The future of beauty will not be defined solely by innovation, trends, or performance. It will be defined by responsibility. Few leaders understand this shift better than Subham Virmani, Director of Esskay Beauty Resources, who is helping reshape India’s professional beauty industry through a powerful combination of sustainability, ethical business practices, and a bold commitment to vegan beauty.

As one of India’s most influential beauty distribution companies, Esskay Beauty Resources serves over 20,000 salons across more than 300 cities, working with a vast network of professionals, distributors, and premium global brands. Under the leadership of Subham Virmani and his brother Ankit Virmani, Esskay has evolved into a trusted force within the professional beauty ecosystem. Yet what truly distinguishes Subham is his conviction that the future of beauty must be cruelty-free, transparent, and environmentally conscious.

For Subham, veganism is not simply a marketing trend or a lifestyle choice, it is a structural shift that is transforming the global beauty industry. Through Esskay’s portfolio of brands, including Rica Wax, Rica Hair, Skinora, and Waxxo Beauty, he is actively championing products that align with conscious beauty values and responsible consumption.

TheGlitz has nominated Subham Virmani for TheGlitz Earth Warrior 2026 because he is driving sustainability at scale within an industry that has often struggled with transparency and accountability. His efforts go beyond introducing vegan products; he is helping institutionalise sustainability as a business philosophy.

A landmark example of this commitment is Esskay’s decision to appoint renowned hairstylist and sustainability advocate Sapna Bhavnani as Chief Vegan Officer—making it one of the very few beauty companies in India to create a dedicated leadership role focused on ensuring vegan principles are embedded into sourcing, product development, and business decisions. This move reflects Subham’s belief that sustainability must move beyond promises and become part of a company’s operating structure.

For championing vegan beauty, promoting ethical business practices, empowering industry stakeholders, and driving a sustainability-first transformation across India’s professional beauty landscape, Subham Virmani stands as a deserving recipient of TheGlitz Earth Warrior 2026 recognition. Through leadership, action, and purpose, he is proving that beauty can be a force for both personal transformation and planetary good.

Over To TheGlitz Earth Warrior 2026 Subham Virmani, Director, Esskay Beauty Resources

You’ve spoken about veganism as the future of beauty. What’s driving that conviction?

The information asymmetry that the beauty industry relied on for decades, where a brand could make almost any claim without scrutiny, is collapsing. Consumer trust is moving, and they are reading ingredient labels first before making a decision. They’re researching brands on social media & reading reviews before they walk into a salon. When trust becomes a scarce resource, the players who built genuine ethical infrastructure early become disproportionately valuable.

Veganism in beauty isn’t a value conversation for me. It’s a market structure conversation. The question isn’t whether conscious beauty wins. It’s who’s positioned when it does.

As someone operating across 25,000 salons, how do you think about balancing growth with environmental responsibility?

Scale without sustainability isn’t transformation; it’s just amplification. As we work to take the Indian hair and beauty industry to the next level, growth is simply the vehicle, and that vehicle must be built right from day one. Every salon we onboard and every distributor we partner with is a node in our network. If those nodes are fragile, you aren’t transforming an industry; you’re just scaling a problem.

The salons thriving today are the ones whose identity goes far beyond a service menu. This is what responsible growth looks like in practice. Not slower, not compromised, but growth that elevates the entire ecosystem. That is what real transformation means.

What role can salon professionals play in driving a greener beauty industry?

They are the most underestimated force in this conversation. We talk endlessly about what brands must do, what regulators must mandate, and what consumers must demand. But the professionals sitting at the intersection of all three are often forgotten. 

A recommendation from a trusted stylist shifts purchasing behaviour more durably than any campaign. A salon that visibly commits to conscious sourcing signals something to its entire client community every single day.

Esskay has appointed Sapna Bhavnani as Chief Vegan Officer. Why does that matter structurally?

Most companies in the beauty industry use sustainability as a buzzword. They make big claims on their websites or in their annual reports to look good. However, they usually ignore these promises when it is time to make real business decisions like choosing where to buy raw materials or checking if a product claim is actually true. By creating the role of Chief Vegan Officer, Esskay changes this completely. The moment you create a dedicated role like this, the internal dynamic of the company shifts.

With this role, we attempt to ensure vegan is not just a marketing slogan; it has to be earned through every single sourcing and business decision. For an industry with a major greenwashing problem, this structural accountability is incredibly important. It does not just change how the company runs internally; it sends a clear signal of honesty and commitment to salon owners, distributors, and the entire market.

What has actually shifted through the Green Revolution in Salons initiative?

A few years ago, the conversation with a distributor was: ” Here’s a vegan product;

it costs slightly more. Here’s why it’s worth it. Today, that conversation has inverted. Distributors are coming to us asking what’s being certified, what’s in the pipeline, and what they can bring to salons that positions them ahead of where client expectations are heading.

That’s a meaningful market signal. When the distribution layer starts pulling rather than being pushed, the infrastructure for scale is in place, and adoption accelerates in ways that top-down mandates never achieve.

If you could drive one fundamental shift in the global beauty industry over the next decade, what would it be?

Honest labelling to be enforced at the professional supply chain level, not just retail.

The reason greenwashing persists is that the professional channel, which moves enormous volume, operates with far less scrutiny than retail. Claims that wouldn’t survive on a consumer shelf go unchallenged in the professional market. Salon owners, largely dependent on their distributors, have little choice but to take those claims at face value.

If the professional supply chain were held to the same ingredient transparency and certification standards as consumer retail, and enforced rather than voluntary, the market would reprice almost overnight. Brands that built a genuine vegan infrastructure would gain an immediate competitive advantage. 

That’s the structural shift that accelerates everything else. Not a cultural movement, not a consumer campaign. A supply chain accountability standard that simply makes the truth visible.