Our story

In the 1960s, an allopathic doctor in Chennai was working for the Indian Railways. Amongst his patients were also conservancy workers, who are labourers engaged in manually cleaning the tracks, working without sufficient protective gear back then. These workers were plagued with an array of skin ailments. The doctor, though trained in modern medicine, came from an illustrious and respectable lineage of Ayurvedic practitioners in Thrissur, Kerala. He offered Ayurvedic oils to the conservancy workers to help deal with their skin troubles. Eventually, he decided to incorporate these oil blends in a bar of soap, making them easy to use for everyone. This Indian Railways employee was Dr. VP Sidhan, and the Ayurvedic soap he produced in his house is what people know today as ‘Medimix’ which became a flagship brand of the company - Cholayil.