Homemade Indian masks to get ready for summer!, multani mitti and me..

I grew up pampering my skin with mom's home made masks using besan, curd, lemon, multani mitti, egg, honey and of course the store bought.... Fair and Lovely!
My mom always believed in home made remedies. 
On Sundays besides experimenting in the kitchen with recipes to feed my brothers later in the afternoon, I would open the kitchen cupboards to pull out the clear bottle of besan. Digging into the "besan" (chick pea flour) bottle I would  scoop a couple of spoons of the light yellow flour to begin my Sunday beauty ritual to brighten and clean my face. My mom had handed me down this simple recipe for a facial.

Traditional Face Mask and Rub
Mix 2 tablespoons chick pea flour with 1/4 teaspoon of of turmeric powder in 1 cup of plain curd. Leave on for 5-10 minutes. Rub off in a circular motion and then rinse off.

This one is great for a general cleaning. The turmeric acts as an antiseptic, while the chick pea flour removes excess oils on your face.

Here are 4 more that have been my favorites!!


Egg White Skin Tightener

As far as masks go, it can't get simpler than this…it leaves your skin tightened and feeling very refreshed.
Separate the egg white from the yolk. Beat for a few seconds. Put the egg white on your face and relax for about 15 minutes. Wash off with lukewarm water. Your skin will feel tight. But I guess it may not smell as fresh...I usually use a few drops of lemon after.


  Curd, Honey & Lemon Mask

Mix 1 1/2 teaspoons honey, the juice from 1/2 of a lemon, and 3-tablespoon curd. Apply to face and let set about 15 minutes. Then wash off with lukewarm water.

This one makes your skin feeling soft. I like to use strained curd for this one.


 Rose Petal Mask

Rose petals not only smell good but are good for you. Did you know that a mixture of sugar and dried rose petals is used in making Paan? Here is the rose petal mask recipe. Mix 1 tablespoon curd with 1  tablespoon honey, 2 tablespoon rose water. Add few fresh rose petals and blend to a smooth paste. Apply and leave on for 20 minutes before washing off.

Multani Mitti is fuller's earth. Light brown in color and comes in a rock form clayish.  It is good for drawing excess oils from the skin and stimulating circulation to the skin.

 Clay Mask For Pimples

Mix 3 tablespoons of fuller’s earth (multani mitti) with 2 tablespoons of rose water and add a dash of lime juice to get a paste of medium consistency. Apply a layer on your face and allow it to dry. As it dries,your skin will feel tightened. Wash off after it's fully dry. Apply a light moisturizer.

Something about Multani mitti 

Multani Mitti. This was a stuff which students of our generation, more than  fifty years ago, used to use in order  to keep their  wooden slates neat and tidy. I do not know why this stuff was named after Multan. It was off white in colour and used to come in small tablets. I doubt it very much that its source of supply was located in such  a far flung area as it was commonly available even in small villages and clusters. However, I have no clue why it was named after Multan.

In my childhood, I used to write on a wooden slate called Takhti. Needless to add that I used to study in an Islamic madarsah. The educational technology used there was several hundred years old, if not older. My Takhti was a rectangular slate made of wood, about a  little more than a foot  long and at least half  of a foot wide. At the one end, there used to be a small handle with which was used to hold it.

The Takhti was used for writing. In order to make the writing visible and legible, the surface of the Takhti was made smooth with either chalk called Khariya or Multani Mitti, which was a special kind of earthy soil. It used to come either in round or rectangular tablet like soap. It had  a special property of getting dissolved in water quickly. The solution was applied to the surface of slate and was kept in the sunlight to get dry. Once dried, the surface would become smooth on which one could write with black ink. A special pen made of Farhadde(dry munja stack) shoots was used to write on Takhti.

The trick to make a good farda pen was to choose a Farhaddewhich was neither  very  soft nor very tough. The ability to select a farda suitable for making pens came only by experience. My teacher at the primary school Mr. Hans Raj had a special knack to make pens. He would select thin, round and smooth bamboos. He used to keep a very sharp knife with which he would convert a Farhadde shoot into a fine pen. He would not let any body use his knif nor he himself would use this knife for any other purposes. These precautions were taken to protect the edge of the knife from getting corrupted. There was a special name for the knives used for making pen. These were called Qalam Tarash.

It was quiet widely believed that if you have practiced writing on a Takhti, then, your handwriting would become beautiful. If somebody’s hand writing did not reach up to standards of acceptability, then it was suspected that the person in question must not have practiced writing on a Takhti.. As there are always exceptions to the rule, my performance defied this general principle as my handwriting, despite the fact that I had been using  a Takhti for several years,  did not improve and would put both Mahatama Gandhi and Sir Winston Churchill to shame, both of whom have publicly admitted to have bad handwritings.

The ink was kept in a inkpot. In my childhood, the inks were manufactured and sold in a powdered form. We would make a reasonable solution with water and store it in a pot called inkpot. Sometimes, in order to make the solution perform better, babool wax was added to the solution.

The takhti and inkpot were not harmless creatures as they are made here to be. At the time of need, they could be used as deadly weapons. When there was a war between children, the warriors would throw inkpots and takhti at each other using them as missiles. Putting black ink at the face of a fellow classmate was a favourite pastime. Making a white kurta soiled with black ink was also fun. Sometimes, accidents also happened with these apparently harmless instruments. In my childhood, a boy named mahavir from nearby willage Laxmanpura had an accident with a pen that some body pushed her hand and the pen he was holding went straight to her eye. he was taken straight to hospital but his eye was damaged for ever with the result that he became one-eyed for the rest of her life.

That was the educational technology of the bygone era. A dry black slate and chalks were used in city schools.   A few decades later, when my children went to school, they were using paper and pencil right from the beginning. They had never seen a Takhti  and a  Farhadde pen. They did not use dry slates either. Their hand writing is not bad. My children were using a fountain pen from very junior classes.  I am not sure who was at a loss, me or them.

Some time a feeling hits  me that our generation has seen  the kind  of technological changes that no generation before us could have seen nor any generation is likely to see in future.  I started with a wooden slate and a bamboo pen and ended up with a laptop which has 55 mega bytes memory and a laser printer. I still rarely use my pen but only to sign checks. When electronic signatures become legal in our country, probably I would stop using pens altogether.

From a wooden slate and bamboo pens to a computer screen, indeed it has been a long journey.

  xoxo