Give importance to hygiene, beauty just follows you

To get rid of diseases and retain beauty and health, personal hygiene holds an important value. If it’s the story of ladies, what to say more! Here I suggest a few important points regarding this matter.

Hygiene is the first step towards health and beauty, and both these factors are mutually related too. For the same reason, personal hygiene plays a major role in personal care, beauty care and health care. If you give a little notice to your daily activities, you can get rid of many health related issues. Prevention is always better than care, and why can’t we give due importance to personal hygiene rather than finding treatment centres for diseases later?

Many misunderstand normal stages of a woman’s life as disease and consult doctor for treatments. It can lead to other diseases. Here I am to tell you, how to know these matters and how personal hygiene can provide you with both health and beauty. 

Personal hygiene in your secret parts

Leukorrhea is a common problem in adult ladies, which result in white discharge from vagina. It’s a myth that it is a disease condition. It’s quite natural in ladies with a healthy uterus and without reproductive issues. No treatment is needed for this condition. People may often follow unscientific methods for treatment and also intake antibiotics which may lead to issues later. Such antibiotics kill microorganisms which play an important role in defense mechanism of uterus and related organs. It may result in discharge of fluid with odour, and change the condition from normal to infected one.

It could be a symptom of sexually transmitted diseases, mainly urinary infections. But treatment is needed in this case. In normal colour-less discharge without any odour, no treatment is needed. Personal hygiene is important. Use normal water for this purpose, and mild soaps only. Though many products are available in market, they are not necessary. Avoid antiseptic lotions too.  

You can trim the hair of your secret parts using a pair of scissors. Waxing and hair removing creams can adversely affect the soft skin around vaginal areas. Shaving is also done by a few women. If not done with care, it can result in cuts and subsequently infections. During sexual intercourse, ladies should be a little aware of personal hygiene. They should clean their vaginal areas using water before and after intercourse, and should assure the hygiene of her partner also.

Synthetic clothes and inners are not good for health and don’t suit our climatic condition. During sweating, you should avoid such fabrics. In between thighs and under arms, sweat stay long, resulting in itching and other issues. Use clothes that can completely absorb sweat. Dry under inner wears under direct sun after wash. Some wash their clothes in antiseptic lotions. If used in excess, it results in other skin diseases.

During periods, sweating is more, and hence use only cotton lingerie during those days. Moisture content in sanitary pad can also contribute to infections. So exchange pads at least 3 or 4 times a day. It’s not a healthy habit to use pads just before periods while going on, fearing about stains. Pad increases heat and sweat of vaginal areas. Tights, leggings and jeans can also increase heat, resulting in allergy and itching in between thighs and areas around.

During periods, you should bath twice a day. Use only mild soap, and scrubber is also not needed. Use some mild soap with glycerin content or body wash of a good brand. Medicated and pH balanced soaps can also be used. If you use soap and scrub in excess, skin turns dry. Use face wash to clean face, but never use more than twice a day.

If beauty parlour is untidy

Ladies love to visit beauty parlour to improve their beauty. But they give less attention to the cleanliness of beauty parlours. Keep an eye on beautician’s hands, and check if she maintains personal hygiene. Brushes used for makeup and combs used for hair dressing should be well cleaned and neat. If you don’t take note on these important things, you may get makeup allergy.

Makeup brush, puffs, eye brow pencils and hair combs are used by many people. Try to use personal makeup kit, even while visiting a parlour. For emergency situations like bridal makeup, you can ask your beautician and purchase makeup kit of preferred brand. Assure that devices and accessories used in parlours are properly sterilized.

If possible, you can do some of the beauty treatments at your home itself. You can do pedicure and manicure at home itself, without going to parlours. Put a little crystal salt or a combination of turmeric and neem in warm water and immerse your feet in that water for a while. Using a scrubber you can clean your feet. Cut your nails in desired shapes and use a brush to clean nails and the areas around it. Make a habit to do it once in every 10 days.

Hygiene mantra during pregnancy period

Body’s immunity power reduces significantly gestation period. So, extra care should be given to personal hygiene during those 8-9 months. Drink plenty of water, bath twice a day and keep your hands and private parts clean always. If you follow these three habits, you stay healthy during gestation period. Water plays a magnificent role in personal hygiene. Drinking, cleaning and washing – the hygiene mantra should be followed by every woman at all stages of life, not just during pregnancy period.

Give extra care to your breast portions also, since the beginning phase of pregnancy. As soon as she turns pregnancy, her body prepares to become a mother and hence physical changes are noticed around her breast areas too. Breast may loss its good shape, and sweat may get deposited beneath the regions. If not cleaned properly, fungal infection is the after effect. After bath, moisture content should be fully removed and apply some talcum powder to reduce moisture. When she starts breast feeding, she should take some extra care. She should clean her nipples before feeding her baby.    

Ayurveda methods for personal hygiene

While boiling milk, a thin layer of milk membrane forms on its surface which includes all the nutrients of milk. As per Ayurveda, human skin also holds the same property. Human skin is a thin layer of 7 membranes formed from blood which includes all the properties of blood. In short, the purity of blood implies hygiene and health of skin. If you want a beautiful and glorifying skin, your blood should be clean. Also read: Ayurveda Discipline for healthy living.

Human body intakes toxins so many means, mainly through food and air, and a part of it dissolves in blood making it impure. Through proper exercises and other methods, you should detoxify your body. Otherwise they show as symptoms on skin, in the forms of scars, warts and many more. If you take chilli, salt and sour in excess, blood turns kafa-pitha-dosha, as per Ayurveda. There are a few vegetables which can help you to purify blood such as leafy vegetables, bitter gourd, snake gourd, pumpkin and cucumber.

How to protect and guard your skin like a flower?

Skin owns a magical power to stay fresh always. Once in every 28 days, our body sheds a layer of skin and produce new one, though we never notice. Natural cholesterol & lipids and sebum of sebaceous glands play a magnificent role to keep skin soft. To retain a glowing skin, you just need to properly maintain the levels of these three. You just need to follow a balanced diet to keep all these factors well balanced.

Skin is mainly of three types – dry, oil and normal. Skin may be of any type, but most significant is how you maintain it, and beauty reflects only in healthy skin. To get rid of extra oil nature of skin, use a combination of honey and lemon juice to clean the body. Oily skinned people can also try a mixture of green gram flour and milk membrane, or boiling green gram flour in milk, and use to clean the body. For normal skinned people, use green gram flour or Bengal gram flour to clean your body. To remove the dullness and marks of skin, if needed you can use ayurvedic balms. Apply a little oil on your body and apply any one of eladi choornam, trifala choornam, kulathdaathi choornam or mugdha choornam and wash it off later.

Oil massage before hair wash

We can’t avoid oil massage and hair wash, when we talk about hair care. It prevents hair from breaking and greying and also a quick remedy for end hair splits. Apply oil on your hair and after 15 minutes, use any one of hibiscus leaves (Chempirathi thali), vellilam thali, Cheevaykka Podi and Vaaka Podi to remove excess oil. Mix pepper powder or fenugreek seeds with rice starch and wash your hair the next day morning. Fenugreek helps to remove hair dandruff. To get rid of lice, place a few basil leaves in your hair or wash your hair with water, with a few basil leaves.

You can prepare herbal shampoo at home. Make a fine paste of hibiscus leaves and flowers, and add a small piece of aloe vera stem, black gram, fenugreek and egg to it and apply on hair. Wash off the hair after 5 minutes, to completely remove dust and dirt. Oil massage your hair at least once a week. 

Nalpamara powder to get rid of sweat

Apply nalpamaradi coconut oil, and use any one of nalpamara powder, trifala choornam or lavangadi choornam to get rid of sweat and bad adour.You can also apply body creams with any one of the contents – sandalwood, ramacham (vetiver) or camphor. To get rid of the bad adour of private parts, use mahathiktha kalepam or shathadaudagridham paste or wash using water adding Trifala or nalpamadari choornam.

As per rules of Ayurveda, you should clean your teeth and mouth after every meal. Use stem of erikk, neem or ung for this purpose. Cloves, pepper, mango leaf, stem of neem, dried ginger, nutmeg, cardamom etc can be used as alternatives. To get rid of bad smell, mix cloves thailam with water and use it as mouth wash.

Eye beauty, hygiene and health are equally important. Air pollution plays a magnificent role in increased rate of eye diseases nowadays. If you rub your eyes frequently without washing hands properly, it can give many eye diseases and infections, and may need to consult an eye specialist. You can apply Ilaneer Kuzhamb in your eyes once in every week to remove the dirt and impurities of eyes and make them clean. During early days, kohl was prepared at home itself and used for eyes to enhance beauty and health. Put some white Nandyarvattam flowers (crape jasmine/Indian rosebay) in clean water and wash your eyes later. It adds coolness to eyes and refreshes them too.

While washing clothes and dishes, detergent and soap get deposited in nails. Though everybody washes hands properly, only a few pay attention to dry them. Fungus stays where moisture exists. When it mixes with mild detergents or soaps, it affects the beauty and health of nails. That’s how agnails affect the beauty of your nails. Nails may grow in irregular shape, break easily and give bad adour too. If possible use glows while doing household activities. Wash your agnails in hot water and remove the moisture content and apply rasothamaadi lepam.

Black marks beneath nose and lips – is actually a derivative of dandruff. Do dandruff treatment and these black marks also disappear soon. Black heads and white heads can also kill the beauty of face. If in excess, consult a doctor for treatment.

Image source: Pixabay   

Also read a few more posts on skin care and beauty. Here is the page link. Click on the images in the gallery to read.