The Journal
Notes on Ayurveda, written slowly.
Short essays on tradition, ritual, and plant ingredients. Every health claim is sourced. Nothing here is medical advice.
Ingredients
Multani mitti: what a clay mask actually does to your skin
Fuller's earth has been the subcontinent's face cleanser for centuries. Modern cosmetics science gives a modest but plausible account of why it works at all.
4 min readIngredients
Hair oiling, honestly: what oil can and cannot do for hair
Champi — the scalp massage and oiling tradition — is more than a feel-good ritual. One classic study gives it real, if narrow, scientific backing.
5 min readMaterials
Copper vessels and the old idea of stored water
Storing water in copper is a practice with centuries of history — and a narrow but real body of modern microbiology behind it.
5 min readRitual
Tongue scraping: an old habit with unusually good receipts
Jihwa prakshalana appears in the daily routine of classical Ayurveda — and it is one of the few practices with decent comparative research behind it.
4 min readFoundations
What is Ayurveda? A short, honest primer
A 5,000-year-old system of traditional medicine from the Indian subcontinent — what it actually is, and what it isn't.
4 min readRitual
Abhyanga: the daily practice of self-massage with warm oil
Why a slow, warm-oil massage is one of the oldest skincare rituals on record — and what modern research actually says.
5 min readFoundations
Vata, Pitta, Kapha: understanding the three doshas
The dosha framework is a way of describing individual constitution — not a personality test, and not a diagnosis.
6 min readIngredients
Why sesame oil keeps showing up in Ayurvedic skincare
Sesame is the default carrier oil in much of classical Ayurveda. Here's the traditional reasoning, and what modern dermatology research adds.
4 min read