THIS ONE IS FOR YOU, LADIES! ;)

I think my title says it all. Gentlemen, you might wanna move along, unless you're intrigued about how we ladies look so beautiful all the time :D

So, my pretty girls - I'm sure most of you've typed some or the other version of this into Google at some point of time during your life: "Home remedies for beautiful skin". It's alright to admit it, it's alright to want to look good. So, after a lot of "knowledge transfer sessions" with my girlfriends interspersed with a fair amount of Googling, I wanted to give you a quick, easy daily healthcare routine. It's the one I follow - I simply CANNOT spare half an hour every single day, say, to let a face pack dry. So here goes!

IMPORTANT: Please PLEASE EMBED these 2 points into your head:

• Do NOT follow everyyyy single remedy there is; you might end up canceling out their effects. For instance, if you've oily skin, using a multani mitti (fuller's earth) pack one day and moisturizing yourself with an intensive winter lotion post this, ain't gonna help. This also means no remedies involving milk cream, curd/yoghurt or milk.

• There isn't any point in taking up a routine that consumes like 1.5-2 hours of your day for a month or two, giving it up and going back to your general routine of, well, doing nothing to help your body :P see what works for your schedule time-wise, what works best for your skin type - experiment a little.

Let's begin! (This schedule works best if you have combination skin like mine. I'll mention the specifics for dry and oily skin as well)

GREEN TEA MORNINGS (I recommend "Tetley Green Leaf Tea Powder" or "Lipton Green Tea Powder")! 

Yes, I'm one of those green tea freaks :P Powered with anti-oxidants to cleanse your body, it also contains stuff that slows down your aging process, regulates your heart and aids your digestion process. You'll find that buying  will be economical in the long run; plus, you get to experiment with loads of refreshing flavors! Ditch the tea bags - 9 bucks a bag ain't worth it if you're on a budget.

Here's an EASY RECIPE:

• Stick a 250-275 ml mug full of water into a microwave and heat it up for about 3 minutes. I usually go brush my teeth when this is happening - saves time. 
• Dissolve 1 teaspoonful (no more) of the leaves into it, cover it with a lid. While the flavors are being infused into the water, I prep my tea.
• Pour a teaspoonful (or how sweet you like it) of honey into a second mug of the same size, top it with slightly less than half a lemon (I don't like mine too sour, because that masks the green tea's real flavor).
• Once you're done with the lemon, rub its remaining juice onto your nose. You heard that right, NOSE (If you've dry skin, test it on a patch first, it could irritate your skin!) Most of us have dead cells, blackheads, pigmentation or tan on our noses, and lemon helps bleach it. You need to this every day for about 2.5-3 months to notice any difference (remember, you gotta wear lotion to protect your face as well during this time, if you wanna see the change).

NOTE: If you'd like to rub the other half of the lemon on your arms or face, go ahead. It has the same effect. If you have super-weak nails like mine, you can rub it onto your nails as well (if you can handle not getting them wet for the next 10 minutes! :P)

• So now that our tea's ready, strain it into the second mug you just prepped. Mix well and sip away! This is THE perfect start to my day!

DISCLAIMER: About 3 mugs of green tea (each 250-275 ml with one teaspoonful of leaves) is safe to consume per day. Here are some other interesting things that I found go well with green tea: freshly ground ginger (it's a strong flavor, so be careful with how much you add), cardamom (elaichi) seeds - 1 or 2 with their husks, sugar - add slightly lesser than the amount of honey you would add, mint (pudina) leaves - reaaaally yum! (I shred and add about 5-7 small-to-average sized leaves). 

GYM TIME!

I enjoy gymming 4-6 times a week because the cardio gets my heart pumped up and has me feeling light the rest of the day. But pilates, dance workouts, aerobics, yoga and outdoor walking and jogging are equally great options. 

TIP: If you've got a muffin top (love handles :P) like me, chances are you aren't that used to flexing your core too much. You'd be better served to reduce some fat with cardio like gymming, walking or jogging before moving on to yoga or pilates or dance workouts.

ROSE WATER (I recommend Dabur)!

WHY rose water? Helps fix wrinkles in the long run, leaves your face feeling beautifully supple and smooth. 

Wash your face when you brush, when you shower, before you go to bed, and at least once more during the day. EVERY SINGLE TIME after you wash your face, dab it with some chilled rose water using a cotton ball. I tear my cotton up into handy-sized balls during my free time and store them in a box which is always on my refrigerator. You've to reach for your rose water in the fridge every time, anyway. Make sure to press the wet cotton on your face slightly and let it seep in (This is safe to use around your eyes). 

Literally takes 60-90 seconds!

P.S.: It's always recommended to moisturize once the rose water dries - a very thin lotion even during the summers. You can, however, skip it if you've oily skin. 

TOWEL EXFOLIATION!

You don't even have to take any extra time out for this. When you're wiping yourself dry after a shower, gently rub the towel on your lips to exfoliate them - this helps kill dead cell accumulation on the lips. 

PLANKS, CRUNCHES AND TOUCH-YOUR-TOES! 

Any time during the day (NEVER right after you eat), do 3 planks facing down, 1 or 2 on each side, 5 X 3 (4 X 3 or 3 X3 if you're just starting out) crunches and 2 X3 touch-your-toes. 

If you're following a cardio workout, this is a must because it helps build flexibility. If you're not, you can optionally skip this part.

PRE-SLEEP ROUTINE

DO NOT drink any water an hour before you go to bed. Always empty your bladder and bowels before you sleep. You can swap the rosewater routine for a castor oil one before you sleep. Castor oil helps eradicate dark circles and slows down the onset of wrinkles. Another lesser known use of castor oil is to help your lashes grow longer and help soothe DRY EYES.

Spread about 3-4 drops of castor oil on the index and middle fingers of your heads and gently massage it around your eyes. ALWAYS move your fingers in one direction, either towards your inner eyelid or move outwards. 

Do remember to massage the oil on your lower lash line (where you apply your kajal) too soothe dry eyes from over-using the computer and along your inner upper lashes (for longer lashes). Massaging takes about 5-7 minutes, I timed it.

You can any remnants of oil gently on your lips if you have darker colored patches on your lips.

SUMMARIZING, I've covered the eyes, nose, lips, face, arms and workout. And none of them eat up your precious time! :)

I'm back, folks!

SOOOO.. ahem. I know, I know. I seem to have vanished for over a year. I do realize that up until now, my track record of blogging has sucked bigggg time. I actually wanted to create a whole new blog and start afresh, but didn't have the heart to have my older posts diconnected from it :( I really hope to make up for my absence by posting more frequently and posting more interesting stuff.

This post is just a quick recap of what I've been up to the past year. Yes, it took me quite a while to move on from the death of my beautiful baby turtle, Bubba. But I'm in a good place now :) So, to get over Bubba, I had gone for a trip to Mysore, Wayanad and Coorg (part of South Karnataka) with a bunch of close friends, and my, was it the best trip of my life! It was also a culminating point of my life, in that it made me face my issues with emotional confrontation. The fights, patch-ups and conversations during the trip were the starting point to making me more comfortable with expressing negative emotions boiling right under my surface.

Shortly after the trip, I packed my bags again to move out of home and live away (Mysore) for the first time in my life! I was recruited at Infosys as a 'systems engineer intern' (yeah, yeah.. I know we IT folks are boring :P). The 4 months that followed were probably the most intellectually, physically and emotionally taxing (in mostly a good way) of my life. Although I left home alone, by the end of the internship, I could easily count a whole big bunch of good friends on my fingers. The funny part is that they were mostly people from my college, who I hadn't noticed or spoken to before!

I got back home in May, with an offer letter in my hand to be called back for training in August. Longest break ever - yippee! I spent as much time as I could with my closest group of friends, ALL of whom left for the US last fall for their education.

Once back at Infosys (Mysore), I began prepping for my own MS plans. I'd finally decided to go for it, after being all 'yes-no-maybe' the past one year! It wasn't easy - studying for the GREand the TOEFL, the ridiculously torturous Infosys training, smooth-talking and nagging my mentors and profs to write me LORs, constantly fine-tuning my SOP, researching universities and taking notes, making 13-hour bus rides back home to run to my college for transcripts (weekends well spent, huh? :P) - it was a constant roller coaster! 

But I finally made it! Cleared the Infosys training (phew!) and got posted to Bengaluru (the coolest metro in India!), only to be blasted with the amazzzzing news of acceptances from 4 out of 6 universities I'd applied to. TAKE THAT, LIFE!

I decided to pick the MSIS course at the Kelley School of Business, Indiana University Bloomington. Ranked among the top 10 universities not only for its business school, but also for its beautiful campus, it was my favorite choice, hands down, also because of the effort I put in to get that acceptance. Yeah, it had the earliest deadline out of all my chosen universities (November 1 :O), so I'd to hurry my process up for it. Then came the group case interview, followed by a personal interview for that creme de la creme who qualified it!

That finally brings me to the present :D I'm currently doing their pre-requisite course called 'JumpStart', which has been super interesting and fun, but just as stressful as a regular semester's workload :'( I just wish I'd gotten a few weeks off before I left my COUNTRY for the next year and a half (at least), but no, I've got work crammed until July 5, which is 4 days before I fly. Yeah, I'm leaving India July 9, which is a month early, in order to complete the in-house component of the JumpStart at Bloomington. Alright, I'm gonna stop boring you, now that you're all caught up :D All you lovely ladies out there, look out for my next post, coming soon, which is gonna be about home remedies for a beautiful (and healthy!) skin and body!