Roots to Radiance
Page 9
Dip the tea bags or leaves in hot water for half an hour and keep it aside till it cools off.
Remove the tea bags or tea leaves and add castile soap, glycerine, few drops of cedar wood oil.
Store the mixture in a bottle.
Cedar wood stimulates the scalp and smells incredible. Leaving this shampoo on for a few minutes before rinsing will improve scalp condition and make your hair smell amazing.
Natural Conditioner
This is a one-ingredient recipe! After shampooing, apply non-synthetic vinegar to your hair and leave it for 5 minutes and rinse. This process will give you the silkiest hair without any drama!
You have gorgeous hair, it’s safe to say you have all the powers in the world to get you closer to your goals. Keeping your head and scalp fresh add super-powers to your day.
So no matter how lazy your are, get that scalp cleanse out of the way and your difficulties will clear your way organically. You have now found a way to unleash your inner Supergirl everyday. You’re welcome!
6
Body
As they rightly say, ‘In a society that profits from your self-doubt, loving yourself is a rebellious act.’ Be that rebel and turn it all around. Make sure you love you and everything about you. Be #HeadOverHeels about yourself.
None of the ancient practices in Indian context exist without a reason. In ancient times, scholars and rishi munis (seers) used to light fires and chant mantras for mental and emotional well-being. Those fires are called hawans1 and they too had a scientific importance. Those fires were practised to fight neuro diseases. The vapours of the volatile oils used for a yagna had a way of entering the central nervous system via the nasal route and calming it.
Something as usual as wearing a bindi2 on your forehead has a scientific backing. Pressing the point between your brows improves blood circulation, opens the nerves and regulates proper functioning of the central nervous system. It also helps you to enhance your concentration abilities.
Indian and Bohemian cultures boast of fabulous henna designs that also have another great purpose to serve besides aesthetic appeal. Mehndi is a great medicinal herb that can banish pre-wedding jitters. This medicinal herb has a cooling and calming effect on the body that keeps nerves from getting tense and fever from catching on. And that is not all—it is antiseptic and, of course, anti-inflammatory. So it shields the bride from negative energies with a legit justification.
Did you know that the echoing sound of the conch (shankh) can kill malaria mosquitoes and germs in the surroundings? Yes, there’s a reason to leave your footwear outside before entering a temple.
The more you’ll question why a certain activity or tradition is practised in a certain way, you’ll have very logical answers to why our ancestors had our best interests in mind.
Roots to Radiance is so millennial, but the purpose of this book is also to respect tradition. Not necessarily supporting orthodox beliefs or dogmatism—that’s what most people get wrong about tradition.
By respecting tradition and rituals, this is my tribute to different practices—to respect the origins of these healing aids that don’t get their due.
In this chapter, I would like to pick some useful ingredients from nature and help you incorporate them in your lives by making it as fun and easy as possible. Nature is calling out to you to make use of its many components.
These recipes will teach you how to treat your body beauty issues. Without hurting your pocket or leaving the house, there’s so much you can work upon. From questioning the backing of traditions comes understanding, from understanding comes knowledge to put nature’s offerings to good use, from using them comes the treatment of your concerns, and from being able to treat them comes empowerment and gratitude.
And when gratitude and empowerment is with you, nothing can defeat you. When you own up to your shortcomings and decide to work on them, it’s the only approach you need to transform lives. Not just in terms of beauty—when ‘roots to victory’ becomes your way of life, you’ll get the hang of applying basic formulas to solve complex situations. Let me say it again, I want this to be your way of life! So many ways to take control of your beauty routine with cruelty-free, sulphate/paraben- and toxin-free recipes, I really hope this book transforms your idea of beauty as it has for me.
Most of our health, skin and hair concerns are caused by an imbalance that occurs due to dryness in our veins. Keeping these oils on your bedside table and using over three drops in and around your belly button (navel) before sleeping can solve several problems. Your navel detects the veins that have dried up and unclogs them so that these oils reach them.
Neem oil treats acne, itching and rashes; almond oil enhances internal and external radiance; olive oil improves fertility, insomnia, constipation, liver functions and blood pressure; mustard oil boosts hair growth, hydrates dry/chapped lips; coconut oil prevents premature graying and dandruff; lemon oil improves pigmentation; pumpkin oil treats dry skin and cracked heels; castor oil helps promote lash growth; and grapeseed oil balances your navel.
1. Body Polishing and De-tanning
Tanning, sunburn, dull skin, ingrown hair—there’s so much life and lifestyle will throw at you and your body. Little do the odds ever know that you’re capable of fighting it all.
Pollution, physical/mental stress, questionable eating habits and sleep pattern—you need to give your body more credit than you usually do for sustaining you with so much grace. And when you’ve made it this far so gracefully, when you’ve not been so disciplined, imagine what you’d do if you added some healthy rules to your routine.
For instance, this amazing body scrub is a multitasker like you . . . it helps get rid of ingrown hair and eliminates dead skin and polishes your body. Using it twice a week will change the way your skin feels by giving it a silky smooth texture and lightening any scars.
SCRUB 1
½ cup watermelon juice
½ cup cucumber juice
½ cup tomato juice
¾ cup lemon juice
½ cup papaya juice
½ cup cucumber extract
½ cup carrot juice
½ cup red lentil (masoor dal)
½ cup rice
15 dried neem leaves
15 dried pink and white desi gulab petals
2 tablespoons powdered orange peel
2 tablespoons powdered lemon peel
2 tablespoons nutmeg (jaifal) powder
Extract the juice of watermelon, cucumber, tomato, lemon, papaya and carrot and mix together.
Soak the rice and red lentil in the juice mixture and leave it overnight. Next day, prepare to be amazed at how the rice and lentils have soaked in the juice.
Let the juice-soaked rice and lentils dry in sunlight for a day or two.
Once it’s dried, mix it with dried neem leaves, lemon and orange peel powder (grind dried orange/lemon peel to make this), dried pink and white desi gulab petals and grated nutmeg (preferably 3).
Then put all ingredients in a mixer grinder and grind to a fine powder.
Your powder scrub is ready!
For oily skin: Mix the powdered scrub with curd and apply on your whole body. Let it dry for 10 mins and start taking it off like ubtan. Rinse your body with lukewarm water.
For normal/dry skin: Add cream (malai) and almond oil along with curd to the powdered scrub and follow the same procedure as above.
You can also use this as a face scrub by adding honey with the same ingredients. But scrub your face very, very gently.
SCRUB 2
½ cup cinnamon powder
1 cup dried blueberries
2 tablespoons brown sugar
¼ cup virgin coconut oil
Blueberries are packed with plenty of antioxidants and Vitamin C. Hence, they act as a rich moisturizer for your face as well as body. Cinnamon too has antioxidants and antibacterial properties that eliminate acne-causing bacteria. With the mix of these two, this moisturizing scrub mask can reduce rednes
s and retain skin’s hydration level.
Dry the fresh blueberries and freeze them overnight.
Next day, crush them and mix with cinnamon powder or ground cinnamon, brown sugar, and virgin coconut oil.
Mix thoroughly and store in a jar.
Use this moisturizing scrub mask to exfoliate and hydrate the skin on your face or body.
SCRUB 3
4–5 strawberries
2 tablespoons powdered lemon peel
2 tablespoons honey
This mask has brightening, exfoliating and anti-ageing goodness. Apart from Vitamin C and powerful exfoliation, this has antibacterial and smoothening ingredients—honey.
Blend the strawberries and add lemon peel powder and honey to it. Mix well and apply to body to remove unwanted impurities, dirt, germs—and smell amazing!
2. Ubtans
Haldi ubtan is applied to the bride’s body before the wedding for an unmatched glow. Apart from anti-inflammatory, antiseptic properties found in turmeric, the other elements of ubtan help calm the body, release stress, detoxify the skin cells and get the body ready for the bride to go through all the never-ending celebrations.
In this section, I am covering a few very efficient ubtans that are a must in a busy girl’s life, whether she is a to-be-bride or not. Stress is a factor in everyone’s life. And there’s nothing like a good old body-energizing, sense-calming ubtan every once in a while to reverse the damages of a busy and stressful environment.
a. Ubtan 1
1 peeled cucumber
7–8 slices of peeled papaya
7 full tablespoons chickpea flour
1 teaspoon turmeric
Juice of 1 lemon
2–3 slice of bread
10 drops of almond oil
1 full cup cream
Grind cucumber and papaya.
Add chickpea flour, turmeric, lemon juice, malai, and almond oil to it.
Mix well and add the slices of bread and mix it with your hands. Make sure this mixture isn’t too liquidy. In fact, it should be thick.
Apply this ubtan to full arms, legs, chest, belly and back and wait for 10–12 minutes.
When the ubtan begins to dry, start removing it by rubbing it to and fro, section by section of the whole body, till it has fully rolled off your skin.
Yeast found in bread is an antioxidant that helps reduce redness and irritation. It smoothens the texture of your body like nothing else and contributes majorly to the regeneration of new skin cells. And the other ingredients of the ubtan soothe, smoothen, and add a glow and radiance to the texture of your skin. This ubtan will make your skin feel smoother than ever for a good full week.
b. Ubtan 2
2 tablespoons powdered orange peel
2 tablespoons powdered lemon peel
2 tablespoons nutmeg powder
2 tablespoons sandalwood powder
2 tablespoons red lentil powder
A little less than 1 cup milk cream
1 teaspoon turmeric
2 teaspoons saffron
The quality and texture of this ubtan also needs to be thick and a little coarse.
Mix powdered lemon peel, orange peel, nutmeg, sandalwood, red lentil and turmeric with cream and saffron.
Add coconut oil just enough to mix the ingredients well.
Apply this to your full body and leave it for 10 minutes.
After 10 minutes, start removing it by rubbing it back and forth, section by section of your whole body till it’s fully rolled off your skin.
This ubtan has very easily available ingredients. This will not only help brighten and refresh your skin but also help lighten scars. Without leaving the house or buying anything extra, this ubtan is a fabulous way for all skin types to detoxify and hit the reboot button for your body on weekends.
3. Stretch Marks and Cellulite
Whether you’ve had a baby, lost a lot of weight or just find no legit reasons to have stretch marks but you have them, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Every girl has them in some area or the other. One artist from Barcelona, Cinta Tort Cartró, even went #InstaFamous for rendering the cellulite marks with glitter paints to make art. And let’s agree how amazing the digital world is to give us the courage to own up to what we are and motivate us to help us become what we want to become. We are so lucky to be alive in times when there’s acceptance for every emotion, thought and habit that we may have. The Internet is often hated for its toxicity. People either OD on it or go for a social media detox . . . like working in extremes is any healthy.
No one talks about striking a balance where we manage how much to indulge in something and how to restrict ourselves. And no matter how many times you fail to meet your set standards, eventually getting to a point of balance will always benefit you far better than living in extremes.
In a way, I would like to relate that to cellulite and stretch marks. It is something that we can manage and control, and if we put in just the right amount of effort, we can control it if not fade its existence altogether.
Light or intense, improving stretch marks/cellulite with natural remedy is not that hard. Applying coconut oil immediately after a hot bath and brushing the areas that have cellulite stimulates your body’s lymphatic system. Another technique is ‘dry brushing’.
Let alone cellulite, dry brushing is the best way to cleanse, detox, unclog pores, and exfoliate your body. To complete this method, all you’ll need is a firm yet soft bristled body brush.
After you take a bath, pat your body dry and slather coconut oil all over you body and start massaging it with a brush from toe towards your chest area. Be gentle and massage in circular motion from bottom to the top. Since you’re massaging an oil into your body with this brush, make extra efforts to keep your brush clean as an oily brush will attract dirt and bacteria faster . . . this is one of the non-traditional methods to shoo off those marks.
Here are some DIY masks, oils and mixtures to help these marks lighten over time.
Cellulite-Fading Coffee Mask 1
½ cup coffee powder (coffee grounds)
¼ cup coconut oil
½ cup white sugar crystals
This is a very simple mask but highly effective. Coconut oil alone reduces the appearance of stretch marks and cellulite. Caffeine has antioxidants and has an ability to dilate blood vessels and tighten skin.
Mix coffee grounds, coconut oil and sugar to form a thick paste.
Apply to the parts of the body that may have cellulite, like your lower belly, bikini line, breasts, butt, etc., and massage gently.
Leave on for 10–15 minutes and rinse with lukewarm water.
Repeat every alternate day if you can to reduce the appearance of those marks over time.
Stretch Marks Banishing Oil-In-Mask 2
3 green tea bags
4 tablespoons crushed chia seeds
2 tablespoons grapefruit oil (optional)
2 tablespoons lemongrass oil
2 tablespoons rosemary oil
Chia seeds have antioxidants and vitamins that help tone the body. Grapefruit, lemongrass and rosemary oils are the kings of cellulite-reducing oils. This mask is sure going to smell delicious and effective!
Dip the tea bags in hot water and take them out.
Cut up the bags and take out the freshly soaked leaves.
Add the oils and chia seeds to those leaves and mix well.
Apply the mask to the areas where you have stretch marks.
Repeat twice or thrice a week to lighten the appearance of those marks.
You can minus the chia seeds and green tea leaves and can apply these oils individually to affected areas for when you’re too busy.
Stretch Marks Banishing Gentle Mask 3
½ cup aloe vera extract
¼ cup cucumber juice
¼ cup lemon juice
3 apricots
1 tablespoon nutmeg powder
2 tablespoon almond oil
A few drops of juniper oil (optional)
Aloe vera makes skin heal and regenerate new cells. Cucumber, lemon and nutmeg help reduce the appearance of scars and marks. Almond oil hydrates the skin and apricots have rejuvenational tendencies.
Deseed the apricots and grind them to make a paste.
Add cucumber juice, lemon juice, aloe vera extract, nutmeg powder and almond oil.
Make a paste and apply to affected area.
Repeat thrice, weekly.
Juniper oil decreases fluid retention and relaxes tissues that further helps eliminate cellulite. Using this oil alone can do the job well in this case, but if it isn’t available, you can totally skip using it in the recipe.
Stretch Marks Eliminating Body Balm 4
¼ cup coconut oil
2 tablespoons beeswax
3 tablespoons grapefruit oil/juniper oil/lemongrass oil/rosemary oil
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
8–10 drops of lemon oil
How can I let you break your cellulite-fighting routine if you are a girl who’s always on the move?
In this fight to fade stretch marks, you can carry this body balm even when you’re travelling, to make sure your skincare routine doesn’t suffer.
Melt coconut and beeswax together, mix well and keep aside.
In another pan, mix apple cider vinegar, lemon essential oil and grapefruit oil (or juniper/rosemary/lemongrass oil, or a few drops of all if you have them, but not more than 20 drops in total).
Heat the pan till the oils blend fully.
Then mix it with previously heated mixture of beeswax and coconut oil.
Mix all ingredients together and pour into a jar you wish to store this balm in.
Apply twice a day.
Post Pregnancy Easy-to-Make Belly Oil 5
New mom? You’ve got enough on your plate. What most moms complain about post their pregnancy is that they didn’t have enough time to take care of their ‘mom bod’. Enters this two-ingredient belly oil that’ll help fade the stretch marks as fast as it gets. It’s best to start using this oil and incorporate it into your routine from your fifth or sixth month. Now I know I haven’t birthed children, but my mom lost around 15 kilos and went back to her original weight after a couple of months when I was born, and this oil was her fastest method to fade stretch marks.