Monday, June 29, 2009

Installment 11 - Travel Beauty Log: India

There's no denying that the exotic beauty and charm of India is palpable. What's more, the people of India have some amazing remedies and tricks up their sleeves when it comes to beauty and health. In this episode, we shall be looking at a few of these tricks, as well as some recipes and recommendations.

We will start with hair, shall we? For oily hair, it is recommended that you boil a few tablespoons of mint leaves until you create a dark broth. You can either apply the water to your hair and let is soak for about 15 minutes before rinsing, or mix it in with your shampoo. For dry hair, apply coconut or neem oil directly to your scalp, then run your fingers through your hair. You can also mix either of these oils (or coconut, or gooseberry oils) with henna powder and wash your hair with it. Strangely enough, goosberry oil is thought to slow down the process of graying hair. As is mixing black pepper, or lemon juice with plain yogurt, and massaging it into your scalp. The same black pepper can be mixed with coconut milk and massaged into the scalp to encourage hair growth; while a Armica herbal rinse will help to ease, or cure dandruff.

As for the skin, there are a ridiculous amount of remedies, so we shall just touch on a few. Cucumber juice mixed with rose water can be mixed, applied to the face and left on overnight to help balance the complexion; lime juice, glycerin and rose water can cure acne on the face and body. To moisturize you can make a mixture of a tablespoon of soaked, crushed almonds with urad dal, and let sit on your skin for about a half hour. Careful with this one, though, as it also acts as a skin bleach. For blackheads you can massage a mixture of honey, lemon and salt; this will exfoliate your skin, and help to unclog pores. Finally, to help prevent wrinkles, mash up some fresh chickpeas and soya beans, apply to your face for 25 minutes, then rinse thoroughly with warm water.

As with the countries we have touched upon thus far, these are but a few pieces. However, there are thousands of remedies and practices to be found in India, and I encourage you to them up, as they are not only effective (hey, hundreds of years of use say a lot!), and often quite unique.

In our next episode... 'do ya think Draino would do the trick?'


Add to Technorati Favorites

No comments:

Post a Comment