The Skin Doctor

Known for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, there’s more to hemp than being marijuana’s cousin. Beauty writer Komal Basith decodes the healing powers of this medicinal plant.

- Komal Basith

The year was 2000. Britney ruled the world and a certain crush—who has now become a bit of a literary star and shall hence remain unnamed—ruled mine. I was at my best friend’s house, though we weren’t BFFs yet, still in that luminous phase of discovery, clocking in the prerequisite hours of hanging out, doing nothing that seems so essential to lifelong friendships. She’d just moved to India from Washington, DC. She wore Ralph Lauren and J. Crew and had a pulled-together, preppy vibe, which was the perfect foil to my ‘rebel without a cause’ outlook at the time.

We were going through her beauty stash at my behest when I found a little aluminium tube that said Hemp Cream with a picture of a marijuana leaf on the lid. “Try it,” she said. “It’s amazing, trust me.” This was not how I pictured my Saturday night going, but she looked as if she knew what she was talking about, so I slathered some on my hands and a teeny bit on my lips—to hasten the process, as it were—and waited.