<p>Nethravati Ramesh is the embodiment of everything healthy and natural. She is among the few ayurvedic beauticians in Bangalore and her treatments are widely popular, earning her the sobriquet ‘Shahnaz Hussain of Bangalore’. <br /><br />Nethravati, who hails from Sagar in Shimoga, has grown up in the lap of nature. With a deep interest in kitchen gardening, painting and handicrafts, her experiments have fetched her many awards. But she gained popularity only after she set up an ayurvedic beauty treatment practice. <br /><br />“It seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do for someone who had grown up on kitchen remedies as herbs are easily assimilated by the human body,” she says.<br /><br />Nethravati comes from a family of ayurveda physicians. This, coupled with a sudden bout of illness, for which ayurveda was the only remedy, reinforced her faith in ayurveda. She began to incorporate this line of alternative medicine into her beauty treatments as well. <br />“My hobbies like painting may fetch me awards and add to my list of personal achievements, but with this (beautician) as a profession, it is an opportunity for me to create an awareness about traditional medicine. The power of ayurveda is slowly losing its value in a world of quick fixes. For instance, the plants we dismiss as weeds have remarkable healing properties. Like chatte soppu, which is an excellent treatment for psoriasis or huli soppu, which makes a superb anti-wrinkle face pack,” she reveals. <br /><br />“Instead of availing of nature’s bounty, we buy products loaded with artificial colours, fragrances and synthetic chemicals, which can produce some ugly reactions in the body like allergies. Even if you were to buy products which have the ‘all natural/ herbal ingredients’ label, the amount of natural ingredients used is usually less than 1 per cent,” she warns. <br /><br />Nethravati has formulated treatments for common problems such as hair loss, skin ailments and alopecia. <br /><br />She hopes to see ayurvedic beauty treatments become the preferred choice and in an effort to propagate it, she has recently started a beauty school. <br /><br />The important part about making ayurvedic formula-tions, she says, is figuring out the proportions of ingredients. “If only the vaidyas of yesteryear had left us with well-documented versions of the herbal preparations, including the proportions of the individual ingredients, there would be no room for fancy labels in beauty treatment, at fancy prices today,” she quips. <br /><br />She has some advice for those who like to go the ‘natural’ way. “Grow a first-aid kit in your backyard. It will not only give you valuable and inexpensive medicine, but also help the environment. Herbs like tulsi and brahmi can be grown very easily.” </p>
<p>Nethravati Ramesh is the embodiment of everything healthy and natural. She is among the few ayurvedic beauticians in Bangalore and her treatments are widely popular, earning her the sobriquet ‘Shahnaz Hussain of Bangalore’. <br /><br />Nethravati, who hails from Sagar in Shimoga, has grown up in the lap of nature. With a deep interest in kitchen gardening, painting and handicrafts, her experiments have fetched her many awards. But she gained popularity only after she set up an ayurvedic beauty treatment practice. <br /><br />“It seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do for someone who had grown up on kitchen remedies as herbs are easily assimilated by the human body,” she says.<br /><br />Nethravati comes from a family of ayurveda physicians. This, coupled with a sudden bout of illness, for which ayurveda was the only remedy, reinforced her faith in ayurveda. She began to incorporate this line of alternative medicine into her beauty treatments as well. <br />“My hobbies like painting may fetch me awards and add to my list of personal achievements, but with this (beautician) as a profession, it is an opportunity for me to create an awareness about traditional medicine. The power of ayurveda is slowly losing its value in a world of quick fixes. For instance, the plants we dismiss as weeds have remarkable healing properties. Like chatte soppu, which is an excellent treatment for psoriasis or huli soppu, which makes a superb anti-wrinkle face pack,” she reveals. <br /><br />“Instead of availing of nature’s bounty, we buy products loaded with artificial colours, fragrances and synthetic chemicals, which can produce some ugly reactions in the body like allergies. Even if you were to buy products which have the ‘all natural/ herbal ingredients’ label, the amount of natural ingredients used is usually less than 1 per cent,” she warns. <br /><br />Nethravati has formulated treatments for common problems such as hair loss, skin ailments and alopecia. <br /><br />She hopes to see ayurvedic beauty treatments become the preferred choice and in an effort to propagate it, she has recently started a beauty school. <br /><br />The important part about making ayurvedic formula-tions, she says, is figuring out the proportions of ingredients. “If only the vaidyas of yesteryear had left us with well-documented versions of the herbal preparations, including the proportions of the individual ingredients, there would be no room for fancy labels in beauty treatment, at fancy prices today,” she quips. <br /><br />She has some advice for those who like to go the ‘natural’ way. “Grow a first-aid kit in your backyard. It will not only give you valuable and inexpensive medicine, but also help the environment. Herbs like tulsi and brahmi can be grown very easily.” </p>
