Nature's parlour :
NOTICE HOW there is now a beauty parlour at every street corner and all their names are prefixed with "herbal"? This points to two things: that beautification is good business and that beautification the natural way is even better business. Never mind if the bleach cream they use in these parlours is loaded with nothing but Hydrogen Peroxide.
Ambika Manchanda, who has been writing articles on beauty for a long time, believes that people better mean "herbal" when they say it. Her latest book, Naturally Beautiful, The Complete Beauty Book, (Rupa & Co., Rs. 395) offers "the perfect home solution to looking naturally beautiful".
Doing it yourself :
Starting with toe nails and going all the way up to hair, she tells you how you can manicure, pedicure, moisturise, exfoliate, tone... generally do to yourself all the things you trust your beautician with. And using stuff you can find in your own kitchen — provided you have a particularly well-stocked kitchen. You can't exactly stretch your hand and reach for avocadoes and watercress salad leaves in an average kitchen, can you? But she also offers several beauty potions and recipes you can mix and brew with humbler ingredients such as cucumbers, onions, eggs, and the like.
Functional style :
The book is written in a functional style without too much time and effort spent on flourishes. Some of the advises are, as Ambika says, not particularly more difficult than picking up a tube off the shelf. For instance, it may be much easier to treat a superficial burn by rubbing a slice of onion on it than go looking for that tube of medicine, which has a tendency to disappear when you need it most. Naturally Beautiful, in fact, offers some useful home remedies for common accidents at home, skin and hair problems, and so on.
