Oil baths of by gone eras

During the olden days, ladies used to take bath at the rivers or ponds and it used to be their favorite place to catch up on the latest gossip and trends. Their hair and skin were well taken care of.

Kerala women were known for their long hair. We still use coconut oil boiled and cooled with various natural ingredients like pepper, curry leaf, tulasi, dried gooseberry, rice and some even add shallots.

Recipe for one hair application.
Take a thick heavy vessel. Add 3 tbsp coconut oil, 4 peppercorns, tulsi / basil (as in photo), 3 curry leaves and one pinch white rice. Start heating this. Once rice turns golden turn off flame. Cool and use.
Pepper is supposed to absorb any water from the oil, thus preventing cold. Tulsi has medicinal properties including prevention of lice (not that you would have any), Curry leaf is great for long black hair. Rice is just an indicator if the oil is done. Try this. If this suits you, you can make it again.

But once you do your Champi with this oil, how did the women of old wash it off? There was no Procter and Gamble or Uni lever with shampoos.

My grandmother was known for her long hair. Before she shifted back to India after Partition, she was known as the 'gol gol baal wali ladki' in Karachi. Her hair used to be so long that she had to pin her plaits with her saree pallu while serving food!

They used a natural shampoo made with Shikkakai, methi seeds and Hibiscus leaves.

I have started making this shampoo now and pray for lovely tresses like hers!!

I do not know how many of you can make this shampoo given that these ingredients are very local. But I still share it here for those who can.

Recipe for Natural shampoo for 1 person with shoulder length hair:

Soak 6 pods of shikkakkai (Acacia concinna) with 1 tsp methi seeds in water overnight.
In the morning, collect about 10 to 15 hibiscus leaves and maybe a flower or two (preferably from the indigenous red colour chembaruthy plant).
Grind the shikkakkai + methi first.
Then add the leaves and flower and grind well.
Resulting mixture will be gooey and it froths well.

Things to remember:
1. This 'shampoo'  needs loads of water to wash off the leaves from hair.
Remember that these ladies of yore took bath in ponds / rivers. It was easy for them to wash it off. You can always shake it out of your hair, once your hair dries.

2. If you wish you can add Besan / kadala maav 2-3 tsp to the gooey paste, but this will make your hair very dry.

3. Use this 'shampoo' minimum 2 times on your hair during the bath and froth well to remove all the oil. Your triceps / biceps will have a thorough workout for sure, but it is worth the effort.

4. Close your eyes tightly, as shikkakkai stings the eye.

This is the Shampoo for your hair. What would they use on their body? 

They used to apply plain coconut oil vigorously over their body. They used to say - "Peratti theykyanum". Meaning; A little oil should be spread over a large body surface. This way the muscles used to be massaged and stretched.

Coconut oil is great for the skin. It is a sun tan remover cum anti bacterial / fungal.

A mixture of Besan / kadalamaav and Turmeric was used to remove the coconut oil spread on the body.

Their bath plate would look like this...Large bowl contains the shikkakkai shampoo, on it's right the besan with turmeric for the body,  below this is the hair oil and the plain coconut oil for the body.

Post bath - 'Rasanadi choornam' used to be applied on the nerum thala (this is the soft spot in a baby's skull, where the bones fuses once they grow). Rasanadi is a medicine available in Ayurvedic shops. It is supposed to prevent water from entering our head and thus preventing cold.

As a kid, I hated these oil baths. They were time consuming and fatiguing. Post this oil bath, we were fed curd rice, supposedly to cool down our body after the heavy work out. This was a great tranquilizer; we could be knocked out for hours!

Tuesdays and Fridays were the days relegated for this bath. And going to school on those days was a tough task. Teachers used to get so angry as we would doze off! Thus these long baths were shifted to Sundays.

How I miss those days when time moved slowly. It was a time when we lived harmoniously with nature.