What cookies are and how we use them

Cookies are small text files a website stores in your browser; kin like localStorage do similar work. We use them for exactly three jobs: keeping you signed in and your cart intact (essential), remembering harmless preferences like a dismissed banner (functional), and counting visits in aggregate so we know which pages help shoppers (analytics). We run no advertising cookies, no cross-site trackers, and no social-media pixels — closing this tab ends any interest the internet's ad machinery has in your visit here.

Because our cookies are dominated by the strictly-necessary kind, the site works without a consent circus; where consent is legally required for a category, the site asks and remembers your answer.

The inventory

Essential: an authentication token that keeps your session signed in (expires with the session or on sign-out); a cart identifier so your selections survive navigation; a security token protecting forms against forgery. Functional: your announcement-bar dismissal, remembered so we do not nag; recently-viewed product IDs, stored locally on your device so the rail on the home page can show them — this list never leaves your browser. Analytics: Cloudflare's privacy-respecting analytics beacon, which counts page views without fingerprinting or cross-site identifiers.

None of these carry your name, none are readable by other sites, and the local ones you can inspect and clear yourself in your browser's storage panel.

Managing cookies

Every modern browser lets you view, block and delete cookies per site: Settings → Privacy in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge all reach the same controls. Block our essential cookies and the site will still browse, but sign-in and cart cannot function — that is the nature of the mechanism, not a punishment. Clearing site data signs you out and empties the local recently-viewed list; your account, orders and saved addresses live safely on the server and return when you sign back in.

We do not respond to the defunct Do-Not-Track header because we do not track; the setting has nothing here to switch off.

Third-party cookies during checkout

When you pay, Razorpay's checkout runs inside the payment step and sets its own cookies under its own policy to prevent fraud and complete the transaction — that relationship is between you and Razorpay, governed by their privacy policy, and confined to payment. Courier tracking links open the courier's site with its own cookies likewise. We link to these policies from the relevant steps rather than pretending to govern them.

Questions about anything in this inventory: hello@nitarashankar.com. If we ever add a category of cookie, this page changes first and the date below changes with it.

Browser-by-browser instructions

Chrome (desktop and Android): Settings → Privacy and security → Third-party cookies and Site settings → View permissions and data stored across sites; search for our domain to inspect or clear just this site. Safari on iPhone and iPad: Settings → Safari → Advanced → Website Data lists every site's stored data with per-site deletion; the earlier 'Clear History and Website Data' wipes everything, signs you out of every site, and — as one of our customers memorably discovered — resets service workers too. Safari on Mac: Settings → Privacy → Manage Website Data. Firefox: Settings → Privacy & Security → Cookies and Site Data → Manage Data. Edge mirrors Chrome. In every browser, a private or incognito window accepts our essential cookies for the session and forgets them the moment it closes — a perfectly good way to browse a shared computer.

After clearing our data you will be signed out, the cart empties, the announcement bar returns, and the recently-viewed rail starts fresh; orders and addresses live on the server and reappear at sign-in.

What we deliberately do not do

No advertising or retargeting pixels — leaving this site, you will not be followed around the internet by the lehenga you viewed; if you see our products advertised elsewhere it is coincidence or our own paid placement, not your browsing data at work. No fingerprinting: we do not assemble device characteristics into identifiers. No cross-site tracking of any kind, no sale of browsing data, no 'trusted partners' receiving audience lists. No dark-pattern consent walls, because a site that only sets necessary cookies has nothing to extort consent for. We consider this restraint a feature of the store exactly as the fabric quality is, and any future change away from it would be announced as loudly as a price change.

Technical kin we do use: localStorage for your recently-viewed products (a list of product IDs that never leaves your device) and your saved wishlist when browsing as a guest; sessionStorage for transient checkout state. These are inspectable in your browser's developer tools under Application → Storage, and clearing them is harmless.

Versions and contact

This inventory is current as of 21 August 2026 and changes only when the site's actual behaviour changes — the page and the code ship together, so the list you read is the list that runs. Historical versions are available on request. Questions, or a cookie you observed that this page does not explain: hello@nitarashankar.com with a screenshot of the storage panel, and you will have an answer, and if you found a genuine discrepancy, our thanks and a fix.

Why so few cookies — a short design note

Most e-commerce cookie policies are long because the marketing stack behind them is long: a dozen advertising partners, each with pixels, each with lookalike audiences. Ours is short because we took the other path — we spend on fabric and photography instead of retargeting, and we believe a customer who leaves without buying is owed silence, not pursuit. The practical consequences are pleasant: this page fits in one read, our consent surface is minimal, the site is faster for carrying no tracker weight, and your browser's storage panel for our domain shows a handful of entries you can read and understand. We intend to keep it that way, and this page is the standing receipt for that intention.

One-line summary

Essential cookies keep you signed in and your cart alive; one privacy-respecting counter tallies visits; nothing follows you anywhere else on the internet, and nothing here is for sale. That is the whole policy — the sections above are the receipts, kept current with every release of the site, and the contact address stands ready for any question the receipts fail to answer.