Clay Consciousness

Realising clay’s potential, people are now heading to the exotic spas for exclusive clay baths. Spa Oasis at The Grand, for instance, provides a Natural Clay Body Wrap. Banking on a white clay base with rose water, lime and honey, “this leads to glowing skin and is also great for exfoliation,” says San-jay Arya, in charge at Spa Oasis. Dr Ritu Gaur, naturopath at the Sampoorna Health Care Centre agrees: “The nat-ural can never be replaced and clay is enriched with nutrients that can do wonders for your skin and cure various ailments.”

However, not just any clay would do. A tedious process is involved in converting the clay, procured from the interiors of the country, dug up from 20 feet under the ground. It is dried un-der the sun for a fortnight and mixed with various herbs and turned into re-fined clay. “Clay packs used for cos-metic purposes will have a higher pro-portion of neemand tulsi, but we add eucalyptus when we are using clay for cooling the body,” informs Gaur.

The magical clay concoction thereby prepared is enriched with healing properties and it is being ex-perimented with in the medical field too. The remedy in fact, begins from the basic act of kneading clay, which helps reduce joint pain and is a part of physiotherapy. “This exercises the fin-gers, soothes the nerves and effectively de-stresses. Moreover, medical exami-nations have also proved that this helps to reduce the pain of cancer pa-tients and increases their life spans, stopping short of curing them,” says Sharma, who teaches clay therapy in South Delhi Polytechnic.

Moving on, the yellow clay ban-dage comes to the rescue of the ab-dominally weak and helps cure indi-gestion, constipation and ulcers. “A clay pack comprising of herbs is wrapped in a muslin cloth and ap-plied on the stomach for 40-45 min-utes.

The number of sittings depend on the extent of the ailment, but long-term benefits are guaranteed,” says Gaur about the therapy provided by her at approximately Rs 500 per sit-ting. The beneficiary, 71-year-old, Dayawati Gupta, does support her.

She says: “I suffered from constant stomach ache, with no detected med-ical problem. But regular application of clay packs on the stomach, for eight months, has effectively reduced the bouts of pain.”

Likewise, the weight watchers too can opt for the Full Body Black Clay Wrap to loose those extra inches. The hydro-sucking properties of clay come into play in this case, as it ab- sorbs extra water that the body may retain due to varied ailments. Archi-tect Meena Jain, for instance, reveals that regular application of the clay body wrap, supplemented with regu-lated diet and exercise, helped her lose seven kgs in a month.

But before you take the clay route, don’t forget to check on the appropri-ate hue, as careful discretion also goes into deciding which colour clay is most appropriate for a specific treatment. The colour of the clay de-fines its constitution, which in turn is determined by the region of its origin.

“While the Iron-rich clay belonging to Madhya Pradesh will be red, the clay made from mud exported from Rajasthan will be yellow and the one from the northern part of India will be black,” informs Gaur. Stressing on the resultant affect on usage, Sharma adds: “Consequently, the therapeutic purposes also differs—the yellow clay is more useful for stomach ail-ments, but white is applied on wounds. And if you’ve got chronic arthritis or intend to loose weight, then black is your colour.” So, choose your colour and experi-ence the clay play.

HUE CODE

• Red clay: Very helpful for bro-ken capillaries and bags under the eyes

• Green clay: Cleanses, exfoli-ates, smoothes and softens the skin. Works wonders

• Yellow clay: Appropriate for sun damage and may also be helpful for eczema

• White clay: A thin and liquid preparation can be used as an excellent hair pack prior to shampoo in order to alleviate itchy scalp conditions

• Black clay: Considered apt for arthritis patients