These days, Moorjani’s festivities look a lot different. We’re Zooming as she gets ready to host a Diwali party at Baar Baar in downtown Los Angeles with Fable & Mane, the Ayurveda-inspired hair brand which is a Sephora darling. Moorjani’s taken her time to prep with the whole Fable & Mane line (pre-wash oil, shampoo and conditioner, leave-in conditioner and finishing oil) and her hair now seems to have the refraction index of a sheet of metal: i.e. ultra, mega shiny. Hairstylist Joseph Chase puts a bit of bend into a swatch for a half-up half-down style. Lilly Keys Westbrook just put the finishing touches on her makeup: a neutral lip to offset the smoked-out metallic eye with tones of rose gold shadow. It’s a modern take on the classic smoky eye that’s beloved of any girlie with even a speck of South Asian DNA. The gold tones are mirrored in her almond-shaped chrome manicure, which “look like diyas,” she says. The metallic tones are all designed to vibe with her custom two-piece gold fishtail lehenga and diaphanous dupatta by Papa Don’t Preach.
Moorjani feels a true kinship with Fable & Mane. Both the brand and actor debuted in April 2020, share a common South Asian heritage (the founders are siblings Akash and Nikita Mehta), and they’re all intensely invested in animal welfare and wildlife conservation. And the products are working great too, she says, and her color treated hair’s been healthier and more lustrous ever since she started weekly scalp massages with the HoliRoots Hair Oil.
“These big Diwali parties and events didn’t really exist even four or five years ago,” she says, referring to the glitzy, celebrity-filled scenes that are now a feature on the New York and L.A. social circuit. “It’s the one type of event that I go to where I feel like I truly belong, people look like me and I don’t feel weird for asking the DJ to play Bollywood music. For me, Diwali is the hot new fashion week, everyone looks forward to the Instagram posts.”
Moorjani’s first was comedian Lilly Singh’s debut Diwali rager in 2021, featuring bhangra bangers and good vibes. She was hooked after that. “I had never met Lilly before that party, but she made it a point to reach out to me and everyone in the community that she could possibly think of to ensure everyone felt included, and that, to me, is the spirit of Diwali. And now we’re such good friends!”
