Beauty Bloom

Transform your beauty cabinet into an apothecary by harnessing the goodness of dried flowers. Anuja Premika shows you how.

- Anuja Premika

Walk through the aisles of any beauty store and you’ll notice an array of floral essence-infused products for every need under the sun. The beauty realm’s obsession with flowers is well-founded, with the ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, and Chinese being known to use flowers for adornment as well as decoration of spaces. The Egyptians, however, were the first to see the merit of using flowers beyond mere ornamentation. They found that flowers could be put to various therapeutic and medicinal uses.

Manufacturers today fully recognise the healing and beautifying potential of flowers with favourites such as rose, lavender, patchouli, calendula and violets being employed for their potential to moisturise, tone, treat acne, prevent ageing, and more.

WHY DRY?

The process of drying flowers has been practiced across cultures for millennia, as a method to preserve the beauty of freshly-picked blooms. The Egyptians used dried instead of fresh flowers to make cosmetics and perfumes. Their beauty benefits are many, as they retain all the goodness of fresh flowers, and come with the added benefit of a significantly longer shelf life. They can also be powdered, making them easier to store and use.

While it’s easy to dismiss them as a luxury reserved for the Pinterest fueled aesthete, dried flowers are fairly easy to make at home, and still easier to work into your daily skin- and hair care regimen.

CHOOSING RIGHT