It’s that time of the year when you can get down and dirty and view life with rose-tinted glasses (okay we’ll stop with the terrible puns). If your Friday Holi-Day went from Holi-Hai to Holi-Cow (we really must stop), our detox & cleanse guide is exactly what you need to pin up on your board & bathroom mirror.
Sure, you religiously performed the holi(y) trinity of pre-Holi precautions of oiling your hair, double-layer nail polish, and triple-layer cold cream for your skin. But with a mud-bath here, excessive gujiyas there, and pakka rang scrubbed into your face, we have some tips to help beat the blues (get it?), get healthy skin, and get rid of that Holi hangover.
Body Detox
What’s Holi minus decadent desserts and lunches made of Chole Bhature? Answer: A regular waiting-for-weekend Friday. However, after an entire day of that whack diet (we do NOT mean THAT), a cleanse is in order to remove unhealthy toxins. Alongside scrubbing your ears clean, replenish your body with a nutrient-rich juice cleanse which is ideal to beat the summer heat and pump your body with much needed vitamins.
Our go-to cleanse includes drinking six glasses of fresh juice in two hour intervals throughout the day. Everything ranging from apple, orange, kale, and beetroot, throw in vegetables, herbs, and fruits you have, to spin up a glass chock full of nourishment. However, do not repeat the same juice every time as different vegetables and fruits contain different nutrients which are important for your body to replenish. Don’t worry about going hungry and get yourself a bowl of salad/soup/steamed protein for dinner (we never said a cleanse means no food).
Skin Cleanse
We are sure you have tried everything from oils to scrubs and the packs in between to get that pakka rang out of your face, only to continue looking like a work of abstract art. DSSC to the rescue, we have a special trick up our sleeves, one that our grandmothers taught and we kept a secret until now. Give up the stone scrubbing, your skin has faced enough for the day and rub off the colour with a gentle cotton cloth instead. Now, now, we know a cotton cloth can’t work magic, but wait for it, it’s a process. Take a lukewarm bath and switch the plethora of scrubs you bought beforehand, to curd with a squeeze of lemon. Unboiled milk also works wonders.
Yeah, we know, the colour still isn’t gone; yet. Take out the papaya you bought for next day’s cleanse eating, and rub on your face where you are particularly well painted. If you want to hit the hay, leave the papaya on as a pack and take a relaxing hour or two of rest. At night, switch papaya with a Multani Mitti (Fuller’s Earth) pack. Rinse with lukewarm water once dry, and wake up fresh with your skin glowing anew.
Hair Nourishment
As much as a mud mask helps your hair, Holi isn’t the kind of mud-spa your hair would have dreamt of. Though a post Holi spa is quite enticing, the meeting you have planned next day (we sure do), wouldn’t agree. So, use our simple tricks to get your hair nourished and shining, and more importantly – non-coloured! Rinse with lukewarm water and apply a round of conditioner, gently scrubbing the scalp. Our backward routine involves following the conditioner with a mild, sulphate-free shampoo, for possibly two, three rounds of intense cleansing.
Now that you are finally looking recognisable, let’s get to a little more nourishment. Mask your hair with a homemade remedy. A pack with one tablespoon olive oil, one tablespoon coconut oil, one teaspoon yoghurt, and one teaspoon honey. Apply and leave for 30 minutes, before rinsing off with lukewarm water. Gently massage with olive oil and cleanse with shampoo the next day. Voila, your hair is now nourished and ready for the meeting you are running late for (let’s be honest, waking up on time is gonna be impossible).
All set for the post Holi rejuvenation? Yup, go ahead and gloat (not to us though, we helped you out).
If you have some sure-shot ways to get over the Holi blues & reds, write to us at hello@theideaslab.com