The seasonal baths of Kerala include specially prepared oils, medicines, herbs and flowers. This is now packaged as a convenient bath essential
The seasonal baths of Kerala include specially prepared oils, medicines, herbs and flowers. This is now packaged as a convenient bath essential
Come mid-July, the skies turn gray in Kerala, the temperatures drop and the rains fall without any respite. This marks the beginning of Karakkadakam, the last month of the Malayalam calendar. With farming shut down and people forced to move indoors, time has traditionally been used to rejuvenate the body and mind.
Many traditional customs are associated with this period, such as reading the Ramayana daily and following a strict diet. But Asha Devi Verma, a former agricultural officer and member of the Punjar royal family, is remembered with fond memories. Kadkadka porter Or a formal bath. “It was a big deal in the old days,” says Asha, of how women soaked themselves in herbal oils and scrubbed it with a homemade paste of wild turmeric in a pond at their maternal grandmother’s house in Thiruvalla.
Asha has been manufacturing and retailing these traditional oils and scrubs from her home in Tripunithura for the past six years, lest the recipes and customs be lost forever. “Our grandmothers gave birth to many children and in this month they gave their bodies to the healthy old, pampered. It rejuvenates bones, skin and hair,” she explains why she has introduced the Karkarkam Bathing Hamper (₹600) this year in contemporary packaging, which includes hair and body oils, shampoo and scrub.
The hurdle is a natural progression of what Asha is doing at home and on a smaller scale for her friends and family. She says she has loyal customers and sells them to women’s groups on social media. “Since it is a Karkarkam kit, it is bought by women of all age groups,” she says, adding that although she does not have a sales target yet, she has sold about 100 hampers this year. Asha Home delivers the hampers with a plan to market them professionally in the future.
for women, by women
Femlogics Enterprises Unit at Mullankoli, Wayanad, run by women
In Wayanad’s Mullankoli panchayat, Bindu Satyajit founded a women’s empowerment unit, Femlogics Enterprises, and this year launched Karkidakka Ayur Aarogya Beauty, primarily “to pass on traditional wellness wisdom to the next generation”.
The kit, ‘Karkidakka Ayur Arogya Saundarya’, costs ₹1399 and includes oil, scrub, herbal soap, herbal tea and coffee and medicated ghee to be taken an hour after bathing.
Bindu, whose great-grandfather was a well-known Ayurveda expert, says he is the fifth generation to carry on the tradition. She cultivates around 14 plants and herbs required for the oils and set up the unit during the pandemic when the farmers of the area were struggling for livelihood. Some of the plants grown by him are Cherula (mountain knotgrass), uzinja (balloon plant), Aruka (Barmukla grass), sapphire (golden grass), Vishnu gland (evolvulus), tiruthali (morning glory) and purvankurunthal (little iron weed)
Asha uses gingley oil for body and coconut oil for hair. The scrub is made of vetiver. Other products in her hamper are Organic Turmeric Powder, Virgin Coconut Oil Magistrate: (ivory wood), Coconut Milk Shampoo and Soap and Vetiver Roots Body Scrubber.
scented hair
Since it is difficult to dry hair in monsoon, wet hair was spread in an inverted basket under which Ashtagandha He got burnt and his hair dried up with smoke. Scented smoke treatments were also used for hair lice. Ashtagandha is a powder made from the leaves, roots and bark of eight aromatic plants.
Traditional scrub and oil pot
conventional wisdom
Dhanya Jathvedan started a women-only Nagarjuna Stree Ayurveda Center in Tripunithura in 2017 to spread the beauty and wellness of her 95-year-old grandmother, Haimavati Thampuran, to other women.
“Bathing is seen as a cleansing ritual. In the olden days, women used to take oil baths regularly on Tuesdays and Fridays, as they were said to be auspicious. scrub made from tree bark, inchand betel nut powder soap, waga Podi, was used instead of soap. , waga The podi was also for women who had bad body odor,” says Dhanya, adding that the shampoo of the time was Plate Podi (Hibiscus Leaf Powder) which lathers and rejuvenates the scalp. Lentil powder was also used as a body scrub. There was a special vessel for carrying oil and body scrub powder. “It had two compartments,” recalls Dhanya.
According to him, there were different types of body oils, “based on body composition”, but keuniam (False Daisy, Bhringraj oil) was common. Once the bath was complete, rasanadi churnam A powder made using several herbs like turmeric, black pepper, sandalwood and leaves will be applied over the head to prevent cold.
150 year old recipe
Bindu’s kit comes with a body scrub made from wild turmeric and payar podi or coarse lentil powder, a shoe flower organic soap, the bark of a tree loofah and crown Powder (Biophytum) made from the leaves and roots, which is applied to the forehead to relieve headaches. The body oil is a 150-year-old recipe that uses ghee, turmeric, virgin coconut oil and gingelly oil. She also offers herbal tea, coffee and trowel and a moisturizing cream made with wild turmeric and coconut oil. She says women should take ritual baths for seven, 14 or 21 days during the month.
Dr. Radha Unnikrishnan, a diabetologist who has been using Asha’s Bathing Hamper, finds it “very easy” and is confident of the purity of the ingredients used. .She reminds her mother to make oil at home but she doesn’t have time for the tedious process.
“This month is about taking care of our body and hair. The kit enables this easily,” she says.