From Gujarati postpartum care and a Prato hillside
We spent our careers in fashion, strategy, and supply chain and ended up going back to our roots
Together
We met at Angora Group, a consulting firm in New York focused on luxury fashion, where Afsheen was working as a product developer and raw materials specialist and Samantha was a fashion technical designer.
Between us, we had spent our careers building products from scratch understanding raw materials, how fabric draped and why it draped the way it did, sourcing from the right partners, how to construct each seam or edit a pattern so the final garment sat exactly the way we wanted it to on the body. We’ve worked in luxury and mass market. We’ve seen it all. We know what determines worth. And we know when something is just marketing.
When we both became mothers, our identities shifted overnight and our skin changed in ways that no luxury skincare brand on the market had a solution for. We also travelled constantly as consultants and there is nothing more frustrating than travelling with heavy glass bottles or decanting products into lighter travel sizes, or having to switch your entire routine between climates. We had both, separately, arrived at the same conclusion: skincare was too complicated, and finding something that actually performed whether it cost $20 or $100+ was an exhausting trial and error. And a retinol-free formula that performed just as well, without the long-term inflammatory side effects? Unheard of.
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Covid was a time for reprieve and find radical self-acceptance of our identities as moms, as women who had learnt a new language both metaphorically and literally. We both moved out of New York and found some stillness to rediscover ourselves and our new homes. Samantha moved to Florence, Italy. Afsheen moved to Los Angeles.
Two languages. One name. One intention.
Cōpḍī was born from the convergence of our backgrounds, heritage and experiences. From our third culture. The name embodies two languages but one intention. In the same way when we moved to another city or country or married into another background, we adapt and create a new way of life.
We landed on our two key botanical ingredients through completely different paths. Nigella also known as Kalonji confirmed through a chance conversation at a pool in Playa Vista and Fico d’India recognized in the Prato hillside cactus after years of buying it from French pharmacies at a premium.
There’s a question that opens our brand film: “Who are you when no one’s watching?”
We built Cōpḍī for that moment. The quiet one, just you and your reflection, on your own terms. Built from everything you carry across countries, professions, languages, traditions, cultures and the harder lessons that remain stories for "another time".
We built for the person who has done the same.
Just the same way you edit and keep the essentials when you make your next move. You deserve only that which truly matters.
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Of course we had our share of setbacks.
We rebuilt our formulation process mid-way through. We rebranded entirely; including the name. We brought estheticians into testing before our process could support it, and spent significantly on third-party testing before we were truly ready.
We made the mistake of extending trust too quickly and too widely. But every time something fell apart, we came back to each other and moved forward anyway. That turned out to be the only partnership that mattered.
We're still learning the ropes in skincare. That's not a caveat — it's the whole point.
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We are proud of our 2-step routine, The Edit.
It doesn’t require a PhD in beauty to understand how to use our 2 steps and what it does. The first product preps your skin and the second plumps it! No serums needed. We decided to create two skus with active ingredients that work in synergy for healthy balanced skin with side of glow.
The duo is luxuriously weightless, cooling and fast absorbing that leaves your skin with that ‘glass-skin’ sheen. The plump is a velvety gel and deliberately made to give you a dewy glow so that your spf/make up glides on seamlessly without feeling heavy. With consistent use around 4 weeks, we’ve seen testing participants rave about their "luminous radiance from within". Together, the gentle duo is your retinol-free and vitamin C alternative pairing formulated for every chapter of skin.
We hope you love it as much as we do. It’s been an incredible journey so far and we can not wait to get everyone talking about their Cōpḍī transformation!
