The Vasana Standard
What a brand has to put on the record before it gets to be here.
Most of this industry works on adjectives.
Eco-friendly. Conscious. Ethically made. Words with no test behind them, printed by whoever wants to print them. You have no way to check, so you either believe it or you don't — and either way you're guessing.
We didn't want to be one more voice asking you to guess.
Six pillars. Before anything goes live.
Before a brand can list a single product on Vasana, it answers for how it makes what it makes — across six things we don't let anyone skip:
- Raw materials — what it's actually made of, and where that came from.
- Labour — who made it, under what conditions, for what.
- Packaging — what it arrives in, and what happens to that.
- End-of-life — what happens when you're done with it.
- Supply chain — who else touched it before you did.
- Product safety — whether it's safe, and who says so.
That's not a form we file away. It's the record that everything else here is built on.
Saying it is the start. Showing it is the standard.
Anyone can say a thing. So a declaration doesn't get a brand very far here — it gets them in the door, and it starts a clock.
Aarambh — the beginning. The brand has declared, across all six pillars, and it's on the record. We haven't seen the paperwork yet. Every brand starts here. It doesn't matter what certificates they already hold — everyone begins at the beginning.
Jiva — shown. Every claim the brand made now has manufacturer documentation behind it. Not a promise: a document, for each claim.
Bodhi — checked by someone who isn't us. An independent auditor has verified the brand's practices across most of the six pillars. Not the brand's word. Not ours. A third party's, with their name on it.
Brands have 180 days to move from declaration to documentation. As their evidence deepens, their terms with us get better — they keep more of what they sell. We pay brands to prove things. That is the whole mechanism, and it is the only part of this we're proud of.
Tiers can go down
A certificate expires and isn't renewed, the tier drops. Automatically, on the day, without anyone here deciding to be strict about it. Renew it and it comes back the same day.
A standard that only ever moves in one direction isn't a standard. It's a badge.
What we're not going to tell you
We're not going to tell you the products here are perfect, or that shopping fixes anything on its own.
We're going to tell you what each brand has put on the record, how far they've got in proving it, and what we haven't checked. Then it's yours to decide.
Sustainably yours.