Beauty and Budget??

‘A budget tells us what we can't afford, but it doesn't keep us from buying it.’ Thus said Mr. William Feather.
                 
We hate the word budget don’t we? But at times we are forced to adopt one and stick to it, no matter what. I prefer to stick to a budget most of the times, so that I don’t need to tell myself one fine day, looking at a necessary, upcoming expense, or my depleted account ― Okay, I must stick to a budget now onwards!

I was reading an interesting article some weeks back, where

useful natural products can be used instead of the regular cosmetics. Though I agree to some portions of this article, however, I believe essential cosmetics like a sunscreen cannot be totally replaced. Instead, you can use a natural product to nourish your skin when you are at home.

Let me explain clearly with the help of the following table.  

No.	Beauty Needs	Natural/Herbal Products	Advice
1.	Face Wash	a. Besan, Milk and Honey b. Multani mitti, lemon juice and cold water	Depending on your skin type, you will need to alter the ingredients. For Oily skin add acidic elements like lemon juice and for Dry skin, add moisturising elements like milk and honey.
2.	Cleansing Milk/Cleanser	Olive Oil, Raw milk, Baby oil	Oil can be used for dry skin. Don’t add oil if you have oily skin.
3.	Skin nourisher or moisturiser	Aloe Vera, Honey, Cucumber juice	Use either of the two. Just a put a layer of these on your face and sleep for the night.
4.	De-tanner/Tan Remover	a. Besan, Haldi and Yoghurt b. Multani Mitti and cold Rose water and pinch of camphor	Put a thick layer of any of these packs over the tanned area and see the results. Do this regularly to remove the tan completely.
5.	Glow Treatment	a. Orange Peels extract or powder, Multani Mitti b. Yoghurt and haldi or olive oil
6.	Scrub	Coarse rice powder, besan, haldi and cold water	This can double up as soap as well.
7.	Natural Body wash or Soap	Multani mitti and coarse masoor dal powder
8.	Conditioner for shiny hair	4 tbsp. of honey in a litre of water	Pour as a last rinse and do not wash.
9.	Natural shampoo	a. Reetha, amla and shikakai b. Multani mitti and water paste
10	Under eye nourisher for wrinkles and dark circles	Sweet almond oil
11.	Skin tightener facial or face pack	Egg white

How do you ensure that you stay on a beauty care budget? What's your strategy and take on this? Please share.

Love

N

Deep Conditioning Treatment at Home

It's the DIY time again!

TGIF!    

Ha! At last it’s Friday which means the much wanted weekend is here. J Yeah weekends mean a lot of sleep, chatting and talking to the family, wandering in and around the city, cooking yummy food, but… weekends also mean DIY time for me.

It is on weekends that I get to pamper myself at home with fruit masks, hair spa and pedicure et al. After all pollution plays havoc with the skin and hair doesn’t it? This weekend my mission is to try the DIY hair spa I had posted earlier, along with henna conditioning, preceded by a deep condition treatment for hair. 

Today, I’ll share the deep conditioning treatment with you that I try to do at least once in a month, to smoothen my otherwise dry tresses.
Note that you can add other items like almond oil, neem oil or castor oil, if you have common problems like hairfall, dandruff or want your hair to shine.
I’ll give you two tips that will deep condition your hair, and add bounce and shine to your hair as well.

Option 1:
What you need?                                                                                   

·  Olive Oil

·  You could add other items like aloe vera gel, almond oil or mahabhringaraj oil for nourishment.

·  A shower cap

How to proceed?

·   Take enough olive oil - the quantity depends on how much oil you need to cover your entire hair in a bowl.

·  Add any other oil to the olive oil if you want to.

·   Double boil the oil by putting it in a vessel full of hot water.

·   Now apply the warm oil on your scalp and hair in generous amount.

·   When you are done with oiling, wear a shower cap and fasten the loose ends with clips.

·  Keep the oil for 1 hour and then shampoo.

Result - Your hair will be silky and soft and you’ll love to touch your hair all day long.

Option 2:

What you need?

·         Curd

·         Eggs (quantity will depend on the length of your hair. For short hair, you need 1)

 How to proceed?

·         Beat the egg well and add it to the curd.

·         Stir the mixture and apply all over the scalp and hair.

·         Keep this for 1 hour and shampoo off.

Result – Your hair will feel silky and shiny. Egg also adds volume to hair. 

Try these tips for yourselves and I'll be eager to know the results you saw! 

Also do not forget to share any tips that you follow as part of your beauty regime at home during weekends.

Love -

N

Top Tips: Skin

As I try to come out of the shock of Rajesh Khanna’s death, I could not help but wonder at how beautiful Dimple Kapadia and Twinkle Khanna look till date! Both seem to be ageing gracefully, but, you never know whether they took the plastic surgeon’s help. Anyways, more on that later when I’ll write about Rajesh Khanna’s leading ladies, both on screen and off it.

This post is about quick beauty tips for glowing skin. I’m not too fussy, so I prefer not to be elaborate with my beauty regime. I believe in religiously cleaning my face twice a day, followed by the application of natural or herbal things to nourish my skin.

Let’s compile a list of such skin nourishers that are handy for working women (like me) and mothers, who are always juggling between home and work. So, here we go and please take note of these tips.

·   For dull and lifeless skin, apply a thin film of honey on damp face and retire for the night. Next morning, wash off, Do this for a week to see the best results. Honey is good for dry to normal skin, and oily skinned ladies, can add few drops of lemon juice to it.

·   Aloe vera is a great gift. Pluck out a leaf and break it to take out the clear gel. Apply all over your face generously. Keep for 30 mins and wash off. Aloe vera is good for acne, dryness and for general use. You can use gels available in the stores.

·   Cucumber is great to combat dryness and clean your face. Dip a cotton woll in cucumber juice to clean your face or apply a thin layer of cucumber to de-tan yourself.

·   Raw milk is an excellent cleanser for dry skin. Dip a cotton wool and rub all over your face, for a squeaky clean face.

·   Tulsi mixed with neem can be used to combat acne and pimples.

·  Neem juice or extract is good for any type of skin eruption like pimples, and scalp infections. You can use neem extract with turmeric to keep off infections as well.

So what do you like? Do you love the elaborate beauty rituals or do you resort to quick tips like me? Please feel free to share. J

Love-
N

PS: Images sourced from Google.

Review: Patanjali Kesh Kanti Shampoo

I have always been a sucker for all things ‘natural’, and my mom and naani influenced me in this regard. Today I'll be reviewing one natural and herbal product that fired my inspiration to begin this blog. 

I had been experiencing hair loss for some time, as a result of changing loyalties to the glitzy shampoos available in the market today. Subsequently, I noticed that after washing my hair, a generous amount of hair fell off, making me semi-bald almost. 

So I took no time to switch loyalty again, but this time for the superb Patanjali Kesh Kanti Shampoo.

And if I had to describe this shampoo in one word, I would say – AWESOME!  This shampoo is composed mainly of: Reetha, amla, bhingaraj, henna, shikakai, neem, aloe vera etc. 

Let's see the other features of this product. 

Features:

1. The shampoo seems like a gel and you only require a pea sized amount to wash your hair.

2. The orange smell seems divine enough to invite you instantly.

3. After washing, your hair becomes super clean and seems bouncy and shiny.

4. Cleans your scalp and hair very very well.

5. It does not dry or roughen your hair at all. (My hair is extremely dry, frizzy and rough, so I can vouch for this benefit.)

6. Hair fall reduces to a great extent. After washing, I notice only 2-3 strands of hair falling off. And gradually, using it over a period of time, hair fall reduces completely. 

7. The overall health of your scalp and hair remains at an optimum level.

8. The bottle is travel friendly as well.

My Experience: 

A 400 ml bottle cost me INR 65 only and considering, you need only a pea sized amount, the shampoo easily lasts for 3 months, even if you wash your hair twice a week.

I have used this shampoo twice and thrice a week, without blinking an eye about hair becoming rough and extremely dry, which used to happen when I was using some of the famous branded shampoos earlier. I could not imagine shampooing my hair more than once a week earlier.

After loving it's effect on my frizzy hair, I recommended this to my colleagues too. And likewise, they could not stop raving about this product. The amazing results have provoked me to try other products like face wash, soap and face pack etc from the Patanjali brand now.


So a very ‘BIG’ Thank You to Swami Ramdev and his team for this wonderful shampoo that addresses all your hair problems at once. Ladies, then what are you waiting for? Go ahead and grab a bottle of this fab shampoo.

PS: Images have been sourced from Google.

Ayurvedic Hair Spa at Home - Feedback Post

A month ago I had chanced upon a wonderful blog, while looking for a DIY hair spa. And I found a great mask here which, I knew would work on my dry and frizzy hair. But sadly, I didn’t find dried hibiscus flower as directed in this blog, so edited the spa recipe a little bit for my benefit.

What you need?

• Reetha (Soap Nut) – 2-4 pieces

• Shikakai – 2-4 pieces

• Amla/Awla (Indian Gooseberry)– 2-4 pieces

• Methi (Fenugreek) – 2 tsp

• Olive Oil – 4-6 tbsp

• Aloe Vera – 1 leaf / 5 tbsp of gel

Olive Oil and Aloe Vera are meant for dry hair. If you have oily hair, add lemon juice and if you have normal hair, you can add aloe vera only. Non-vegetarians and eggetarians can add eggs too. I personally hate the smell of eggs, so excluded it altogether.

Here’s how I proceeded…

• Soak the methi seeds separately in a bowl of water the night before. Add enough water as methi soaks up water.
• Soak the reetha, amla and shikakai together in a glass of warm water. You could boil these together for 20-25 mins the previous night.
• The next morning when you are ready for hair spa, add the soaked reetha, amla and shikakai in the grinder and make a paste.
• Take out the pulp of aloe vera. You can use aloe vera gel too. Add enough gel to the mixture you have made.
• Now, put methi seeds and then add water carefully so that the consistency is paste-like and not too runny. Make a smooth paste out of the above items.
• Lastly add olive oil. If you have dry hair, you can massage your hair with olive oil first, and then apply the mixture. You can also add the olive oil to this mixture directly.

I kept the mixture for 1 hr 30 mins followed by a shampoo. The result was bouncy, shiny and smooth as silk hair.

The Pros:

• It’s dirt cheap and very healthy for your tresses.
• Requires very less time, unlike coloring your hair with henna.
• Your hair dances with joy literally.

• Didn't require much effort, as I had all the items at home.

The Cons:

• You need to make preparations in advance.
• Some ingredinets might not be handy and you may have to search for them.

Feedback:

This is a wonderful hair mask and it does show great results.

My hair felt fabulous and I'll continue to try this over and over again.

PS:

• Images have been sourced from Google.
• This is a feedback for the original post in the following blog. http://whenwitcheswrite.blogspot.in/2012/04/ayurvedic-hair-spa-nourish-your-roots.html

Is Beauty Skin Deep?

Well am not asking you any questions, so here's the answer for you. Yes, beauty is skin deep.
And when I say skin, I mean skin and not the color of your complexion, Ladies!

Why I’m saying this is because Indian women still love and pine for fair complexion. Now, where’s the problem? The problem lies in the tendency of women, in believing that a magic potion exists that can change your complexion overnight, which is an absurd thought.

Today we’ll do a reality check and then we’ll see the workarounds and the options you can adopt.

Facts: The ugly truth

1. The complexion you were born with, will not become fairer overnight, and make you a blonde like the American and English women.
A woman with a dark or wheatish complexion cannot become a blonde! I know this is a rude jolt but this is reality.

2. You may swear that a fairness cream you have been using, produced great results, but it did so at the cost of your own skin!
Bleaching agents present in the fairness cream have been making you look whiter than before, and damaging your skin in the process.

3. Bleach damages your skin by altering the color of your skin for a brief while and the chemicals in the bleach play havoc!

Workaround: What can you do?

1. Well, there’s still hope and your dreams of looking a la Aishwarya Rai is not completely dashed.

2. If you were not blessed with a fair complexion like her, you can still look like a diva, if you take proper care of your skin and pamper it regularly.
3. Shift the focus, to polishing your skin and help it to glow, without aiming to alter the color. Yes, that is possible and I have personally seen many Indian women achieve this!

Solution: How to do?
1. Replace the fairness cream with a natural bleaching agent like honey, turmeric, curd, besan (Bengal gram powder), aloe vera, multani mitti (Fuller’s earth), milk and lemons.

2. You can choose from orange peel, cucumber, almonds, sandalwood powder and rose water to clean your skin.

3. Choose the ingredient that suits your skin based on your skin type, and use it regularly to see the results. Regular exfoliation also leads to clear and glowing skin.

4. But with natural bleaching agents, you need patience, regularity and dedication. So follow a beauty regime regularly and sincerely. You'll see results surely.

Trust me ladies, if you pamper and love your skin, it will give you back compliments and admiration from everyone. And it’s not that difficult as it seems to be. I have used most of these and seen my skin glow like a 1000 watt bulb.

In the next post, I’ll write about masks you can make at home to rejuvenate your skin.

And before I forget, let me remind you that dusky women like Smita Patil, Nandita Das, Bipasha Basu, Kajol, Chitrangada Singh, Noyonika Chatterji, and Naomi Campbell look beautiful too. Don’t they?

So love your skin and complexion the way it is and don’t forget to put in your thoughts below.

Love –
N J

PS: All images have been sourced from Google.