‘If I don’t work out, I’ll be depressed’: Saba Azad shares her morning routine

On being asked how she gets ready in the morning, Saba said, “I usually wake up and tie my hair up in a bun. If I go on stage as Mink, then it’s an entirely different story. If you’ve got to shoot, you have a character to get into. I usually am in my gym clothes till evening unless I have to go out somewhere. You know, I’ve tried to look towards people who understand fashion, but I’ve given up. I am a frump. I am going to be a frump and I am okay with it.

As for her morning routine, she said that she likes to cleanse her face. “I wake up and do an ice bath for my face. So I do a minute of putting my face into a bowl of ice water. And then I do the cleanse, tone, serum, moisturiser, and sunscreen,” Saba said.

Next comes a glass of celery juice. “I drink it on an empty stomach. That’s a couple of things I do for my skin and hair to begin with. I also use vitamin C.”

For skincare, Saba also loves applying homemade face packs. “I like doing chandan, rose, and nutmeg face packs. They are really good. You can add a little bit of yoghurt and lemon to it. There are a lot of really beautiful ubtans that are found traditionally which you can try. Yoghurt is always great and milk is good. So, my grandmother would give us milk baths every now and then,” she shared.

 

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Saba’s go-to breakfast is a smoothie which, she admits, “is not really delicious but is excellent for hair and skin”. It comprises beetroot, half an orange, ginger, amla, and a little bit of banana. “It’s really good,” she said, adding that she also likes to have oats.

“So, it’s simple. I carry a bag of oats and I just ask people to make it with whatever fruit they have, like bananas. I carry my own chia seeds and stuff. When I am at home, I’ll have an avocado toast, two eggs, and a strawberry smoothie,” Saba said.

As for her morning workout routine, she revealed that she does yoga thrice a week and weight training with strength training thrice a week. “Sometimes, I do a hitch or go for a swim. I have been a dancer so I have been on my feet since I was four. If I don’t work out, I’ll be depressed. So I love it. I need it,” she said.

Saba also opened up about her haircare rituals in the video. “I like doing rice water for the hair. I like putting eggs on my hair. I do all kinds of bizarre s**t. I have a special oil that I make for it which is like onion, hibiscus, methi, and curry leaves tempered. You let this concoction brew for a while and put that on hair,” she said.

Chai or coffee? None of the above, Saba said. “I don’t drink chai or coffee. I love coffee but I have a bit of an addictive personality so I stay away from it.”

On being asked if she has a ritual that grounds her to face the day ahead, she said, “There’s a thing that my dance teacher told me when I was very, very little. She said, ‘Before going on stage and performing, you need to centre. So instead of talking to people and making a lot of noise, you should just sit down in one place and centre yourself.’ So I like meditating. That really helps me. Even if it’s 15 minutes, I’ll take it.”

In the same breath, she also revealed a morning habit she would like to break. “Waking up and picking up the phone immediately. We don’t have clocks anymore so just to check the time and then it’s a vortex that sucks you in and that’s the end of your day. I don’t want to do that and I am trying not to.”

On the contrary, a morning habit she would like to adopt is waking up with an empty mind. “To just put things aside and digital things aside, and maybe start with reading, not on the screen,” Saba concluded.

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