Ancient wisdom for beautiful skin

Blending powerful botanicals and age-old meditative rituals, Almora Botanica’s Ayurvedic skincare is the restorative beauty routine we all need.

Spirituality and wellness are quite the buzzwords in today’s fast-paced society. However, you don’t need to be a yoga expert or a sworn acai bowl connoisseur to know that your mental wellbeing can have a direct impact on your body, or even your skin. Whether it’s breakouts and dry skin conditions like eczema caused by stress, or under-eye bags resulting from a lack of sleep, the underlying causes of our skincare woes are just as important as the visible symptoms — which calls for a truly holistic beauty routine that goes beyond skin-deep treatments. That is the principle behind Ayurveda, an ancient wellness philosophy that stems from over 5,000 years of tried-and-tested practice. 

 

The system — built around natural ingredients and calming, restorative rituals — strives to balance mind, body and soul to remedy physical conditions and make us feel brand new, inside and out. And as skin is our largest and most important organ, it’s only natural that Ayurveda based skincare should be a thing. Enter Almora Botanica: an holistic skincare brand that locks all those ancient benefits into a neat, step-by-step system that’s the equivalent of a week-long meditation retreat for your skin (except you get to keep your mobile phone). Where do we sign up?

What is the Ayurveda philosophy?

In a nutshell, Ayurveda believes that our bodies and minds are made up of a unique blueprint of three energies, or ‘doshas’: vata, pitta and kapha. Each dosha corresponds to a specific physical, emotional, mental or social characteristic — or, in the case of skincare, your own unique skin type — that are linked to the five universal elements of fire, water, earth, air and space. You can easily work out the natural makeup of your individual skin dosha through understanding its corresponding elements: the vata skin type, defined by air, tends to be dry, rough and shows signs of ageing easily, so benefits from regular nourishment and hydration. Pitta skin (fire) is prone to warmth and redness, so responds to cooling, anti-inflammatory ingredients. Meanwhile the oily kapha skin (you guessed it: water and earth) calls for purifying remedies and ingredients. Ayurvedic beauty routines not only use a set of potent, natural ingredients that balance each individual dosha, bringing it back to its perfect state of zen. They also incorporate an holistic set of rituals to heal skin concerns by way of calming your soul and body too. It’s a double win.

How do I bring Ayurveda to my skin routine?

At the heart of Ayurveda is the notion that a naturally healthy body and mind equals happy skin. So, what makes an Ayurveda skincare routine different? First, Ayurveda believes in restoring your dosha’s natural balance through using high potency, adaptogenic ingredients that maintain skin homeostasis — or in other words, work with, and not against the skin.

The Almora Botanica Radiance Day Face Oil — part of their Travel Essentials Must-have Kit — is conceived with a proprietary
Sapta Complex, a blend of seven natural oils which includes carrot root extract which naturally strengthens the skin barrier, as well as molecularly distilled phyto-concentrates from organic sunflower oil that enhance lipids to increase moisture levels from within. In Ayurvedic beauty, meditative rituals like ‘abhangya’ (self-massage with warm, dosha-specific oils) are important too; and this travel-ready kit comes with a pair of jade Gua Sha Massage Mushrooms and a downloadable Almora Botanica Face Yoga Fitness Class you can take anywhere — even during your flight. It’s an Ayurvedic-approved way to lower your stress hormone levels while delivering nourishing oils deep into the skin’s dermis at the same time.

The best thing about Ayurvedic skincare? It’s clearly more than just a passing fad. If anything, the natural take on beauty and wellbeing transcends cultures and generations, and new skincare brands like Almora Botanica might be exactly what we need to bring troubled and stressed skin back to its organic roots. So why not wind down with a restorative face massage and say ‘Namaste’ to soothed and supple skin? We say om-men to that.

Discover the full range of Almora Botanica here.