Vaishali Desai was born to Vidyut Desai and Priti Desai. Desai is the grandniece of legendary Gujarati filmmaker, Manmohan Desai. She has two sisters: Jaituni Desai and Hariyali Desai. Jaituni is also a model and was a contestant in the Miss India contest.

Vaishali was brought up in Bangalore. Vaishali did her schooling in Sophia High School, Bangalore. She finished her graduation in Psychology in Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. After her Miss India contest she shifted her base to Mumbai with her family for modeling and further studies.

Vaishali was doing ramp shows in Bangalore and was a top model. Her first show was when she was fourteen. Her major break and entry in the acting world was with her first commercial for Ponds Dreamflower Talc. She later was seen in ads like Tanishq, Compaq, Raymonds. Vaishali has, however, not changed her name to Vyshalee Desai as given in her debut film Kal Kissne Dekha.

She was seen in a Compaq laptop ad and in the very famous Raymond ad. She is now being seen in another Tanishq ad with Nafisa Ali. She has done ads for products like Swarnam Oil and Power detergent. Vaishali was seen in an ad with Shah Rukh Khan for Sunfeast, and in a Dabur Gulabari ad.

Vaishali did her first video for Kumar Sanu for the song 'Aisa na dekho Mujhe.' She did three videos for the band Euphoria.^[4] She did "Soneya" with them which was followed by "Mehfuz" which was directed by Pradeep Sarkar.

Vaishali had participated in the Elite Look of the Year contest and was the second runner-up. Vaishali participated in the Pond's Femina Miss India contest and was the third runner-up becoming the Miss India International even though she wasn't in the five finalists. Vaishali then left in the same year for the Miss International contest in Tokyo but failed to win due to her having conjunctivitus.

Vaishali has done ramp shows for top Indian designers. She has participated in the Lakme Fashion week, Dhaka Fashion, and Sri Lankan Fashion week and done shows for L'Oreal, moschino, etc. She has done a lot of print and editorial work.