Reset Your Skin Ecosystem: How an Ayurveda Healer Balances Hormones for Clear Skin

One of the worst things you can do for your skin is to scrub it every single day with a synthetic cleanser nobody on the planet used before the 1900s and then wonder why your skin keeps acting up. But first, let's blame it on the Germans who developed soap in the avatar that we know it now and say a big Dankeschön to them. Hey there, sisters. I'm Salila Sukumaran, your neighborhood Ayurveda lineage keeper based in sunny California. I have been an Ayurveda practitioner for over a decade, and the question I hear the most, especially from women, is some version of, why does my skin still look so tired no matter what I put on it? Expensive creams and serums, and it makes no difference. My skin goes back to looking dull. And why is my hair coming out in fistfuls every time I comb it? Hopefully we get to Unlock your own Ayurvedic intelligence, your inbuilt AI today, so that you can have a juicy, glowy body and a life of purpose. That is ancient code for you to have a balance in your doshas. The juice, your Kapha dosha, the glowy body, your Pitta dosha, and a life of purpose when your Vata dosha is in its most Satwik expression. So you are the badass that you're meant to be. I have lived this too. My first job was working for a full-on professional kitchen, bussing a staff of 32 men. Yes, I did that. Running on caffeine and ambition, barely sleeping. My skin had sailed through teenage unblemished, thanks to my mother and my told your family? Because we had one rule for face and body: the very traditional Mysore Sandal soap. If anybody of you grew up in India, you'll remember this. Plain old tap water and a stiff cotton towel, that's it. But come early 20s and my skin began to tell a different story. Breakouts along my jawline, dullness that no highlighter could fix, hair fall and flaky scalp that I tried my best to clean with anti-dandruff shampoos I hid in the bathroom. So when my partner one day said, "Your scalp smells," and wrinkled his nose, I almost died. So I have been there. What brought me back was something my mother pressed into my hands as a child when I caught jaundice, a rite of passage for all little children growing up in India. What she gave me was a little ball of freshly ground neem leaves every morning before school with milk. This will save your liver, she would say as she chased me around the neighborhood as a school bus honked. The whole story behind how mother took me to a traditional Ayurvedic healer is super, super interesting, and one day I'll share it with you. But for now, let's focus on the neem balls that she used to mix in milk and chase me around the neighborhood trying to get me to drink it. That's how neem came into my life, and we have stayed good friends, the kind you don't meet often, but you drop them a note a decade later and they drop everything to be with you and you have fun together. So neem has been used in Ayurvedic medicine for at least, at least 5,000 years. Almost every household in ancient India would have a neem because it was so essential for the monthly, annual, yearly cleansings and the healings that 'Grihavedyas' in their homes, usually grandmothers and mothers, knew how to do. In Sanskrit, it's called as 'Nimba'— that which bestows good health— and 'Sarva roga nivarini'— 'Sarva' meaning all, 'Roga' meaning diseases. Nivarani, curer, she removes all ailments. So every part of the neem tree is medicinal, the leaves, the bark, the oil, the flowers, the roots, you name it. The entire tree is chock-full of potent medicine. In Ayurveda, neem is primarily Tiktaguna, meaning bitter, the taste of Purification taste that makes you look snatched. If snatched is your goal, then neem is your herb. It works on Rakta Dhatu, the blood tissue. The health of the blood is mirrored directly on our skin. You have persistent acne, inflammation, dullness? Ayurveda says look to the blood first, and neem is the blood's most powerful purifier ally. Modern research is also catching up. Neem contains compounds shown to be antibacterial against the bacteria we most associate with acne and anti-inflammatory through pathways linked to eczema and psoriasis. Interestingly, some of the same compounds also show antifungal activity in the gut, so don't be surprised if your digestion feels a little lighter as well. So that's the the bonus of taking neem. But today we are focused on skin and hair because we women love skin and hair. Here are my 3 neem remedies coming your way for you. The first one is an intimate wash for down there so you are in squeaky health. Get ready with about half a cup of neem bark shavings or powder steeped with about a teaspoon of organic turmeric, and about a tablespoon of triphala. Okay, cook this with 1 liter of water, simmer for about 10 minutes, and then use this as a wash postpartum or during third trimester, or if you notice any kind of weird vaginal discharge, burning sensation, as your hygiene wash to prevent UTIs. Strain the liquid through a cheesecloth or a wire mesh. Take it in a little cup and have a generous rinse down there. This is safe enough to be used as a sitz bath, especially if you are having any perennial tears or you're recovering from surgery down there, or you have extreme dryness and you wanna make sure that you do not get recurrent UTIs. Now you can also use this as a facial cleanser for acne-prone oily skin, as a bath water for fever, and when you are recuperating from injuries, surgery, etc. Take a sponge, dip it in this warm water, and sponge your body with this. The second remedy is for hair, especially when you have dandruff and flakes. I used to make this for my little girl when she would come home with an itchy scalp and tell me, Mama, I've got all these white weird things falling on my clothes. So what you do is you take a drop of neem oil, you take a drop of karanja oil, it's also called pongamia oil, and about 10 drops of almond or coconut oil. Don't use coconut oil in the wintertime, use almond oil. Do not use coconut oil when it's Frozen. Use coconut oil only when it's in the liquid form. Leave it overnight and wash with mild shampoo or with a soap nut solution. The third remedy I have is for shampoo for persistent dandruff and flakes. All you do is you take about 1 cup of neem leaves, you take 1 cup of amla, dried amla, 1 cup of reetha or soap nuts, 1 cup of shikakai, and you mix it all together. So you have about 4 cups of the herbs and you add 5 liters of cold water. You bring it to a boil and you simmer it till it's about 1/3, and then you can pour this into a shampoo bottle, keep it in the fridge. You can add your favorite essential oils to it. Use this as shampoo. This will really help your hair nourish, grow strong, shiny, and also prevent any future acne from coming. So before I leave, there is one thing I want to share. Let me tell you about one of my patients. I'll call her Ria. She was in her mid-30s, working in a high-pressure job in London. When she came to me, she had tried, in her words, everything. 3 rounds of antibiotics, for acne on her forehead that kept returning, switching cleansers every few months, chasing whatever was trending. A dermatologist prescribed retinol that left her skin red and peeling. Nothing held in spite of everything she was doing. And underneath all of it, she mentioned almost as an afterthought that she had been dealing with bloating for years as well, and she had frequent diarrhea. Something that no one had naturally connected to her skin. So I asked her how many times did she have diarrhea, and she said almost 4 out of 7 in a week. And that made all the flags in my head go up. So her Ayurvedic situation-ship is classic Pitta Kapha. Excess heat in the blood showing up as inflammation on her skin, and the repeated antibiotic courses had only depleted the underlying tissues. The underlying imbalance had worsened. So the high Pitta in her gut was causing frequent diarrhea, and before she knew this, this young lady was battling with a mild case of lack of nourishment. In Ayurvedic language, it's dhatu kshaya. Kshaya means depletion, dhatu means the tissues. When tissues are undernourished, the microbiome starts to shift. Her colon was struggling to digest fiber, and so she was experiencing the bloating, and her scalp was starting to get colonized by bad bacteria, and her good guys were left without the firepower they needed to keep the baddies in check, which caused the eczema kind of situation, which caused the flakes to build up. Because her scalp could not do the renewal, the cleansing that normally a healthy scalp does. And because of that buildup, the oil, the sebum was getting trapped in her scalp and she was starting to develop this acne all around her forehead and by her ears and everywhere around her hairline. So I started her on exactly the 3 steps I've walked you through. I gave her a digestive herb to calm her Pitta and normalize her Agni as well. Her diet was scrubbed clean of everything excessively S.O.S.S., my favorite acronym for salty, spicy, oily, sour. So think of really salty foods, spicy meaning lots of spices, anything that is sharp, oily meaning fried foods, or even your dressings. If you're just pouring lots and lots of oil, you must stop. 'Cause it activates your Pitta and it imbalances it, especially when you are already displaying an imbalance. And sour would be anything that is lemon-like, oranges, pickles. Yeah. Even probiotics, even fermented foods would come under the sour category. So be careful with all this. And she did the morning neem rinse. The twice weekly hair massage with the Neem Karanja oil and the natural Neem shampoo. And after 4 weeks, she messaged me. And after 4 weeks, she sent this message to me. My hairline has calmed down for the first time in 2 years. My stomach feels so much flatter and lighter too. And the second part did not surprise me. When you purify the blood, the gut often follows. It's the same root system. System. By 6 weeks, her skin had stayed clear through what would normally have been a flare-up week. She was still doing all 3 18 months later. I'm sharing Rhea's story because it's not unusual, it's typical. Today's stressful lifestyle, weird tap water, and takeout diet— pitta-dominant girlies find themselves in a pickle, pun intended. You don't have to do all 3 at once. Pick the one that feels most doable today and start there, and the rest will follow. I've watched this work again and again for over a decade of practice, and in my skin and hair too, and in my daughter's hair and skin issues, Neem is not flashy. She's bitter, she's humble, and she's been quietly doing this healing work for thousands of years, and she's still here. Because she gets it done. Shout out to Vivian from Frankfurt. Thank you for making it all the way to my Ayurveda Festival events and bringing a friend along as well. Your enthusiasm helps me keep going. Your questions help me understand what benefits you. I record these podcasts because I believe ancient wisdom is practical daily medicine. You deserve to feel well, not someday, now. Starting now. Now I want to hear from you. Leave a review on your listening platform and share one way neem has shown up as medicine in your life. I read every single one of your messages that reach me, and maybe your stories will find a way into this show that we have here. Send me your questions. We would love to feature you next week. We meet now in our Sacred Herb series with our next herb, brahmi. I have some interesting recipes coming up for you. Until next time, with warmth, with some tough love with neem, I'm Salila Sukumaran. This is Actionable Ayurveda. Shubhamastu.