HOW SOUTH ASIAN BEAUTY RITUALS CHANGED YOUR DAILY ROUTINE – WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING
How much of your beauty routine is influenced by South Asian rituals? The answer is probably more than you think. From eyebrow threading to hair oiling and tongue scraping, centuries-old South Asian practices have been widely embraced by the beauty industry and no doubt worked their way into your regimes.
Nobody knows this more than the beauty journalist Sonia Haria, whose new book, South Asian Beauty, shines a light on everything from the history of Ayurvedic practices to turmeric face masks, plus the products and brands specifically tailored for brown skin. This essential guide to South Asian hair, make-up and skincare also weaves in Haria’s own beauty journey, including how it feels to see the customs she’s been practising since she was a child become TikTok trends and staples of Western routines.
Growing up in a “vibrant” South Asian household, Haria remembers hair oiling and homeopathic remedies being commonplace. “It was just the culture,” she tells me. “Some of my earliest memories are watching my mum do her make-up or my grandad giving me haldi doodh [turmeric and milk] if I had a cold. It wasn’t about ‘prettifying’ – beauty was entwined with self-care without that label attached to it.”
The 2000s was a particularly confusing decade to be a teenager in; Haria regularly compared her home life to reality TV culture where women were being ‘transformed’ with plastic surgery or attempting to look 10 years younger via makeovers. As a British Asian teenage girl, she was also conscious of her dark facial hair and breakouts, especially as the only concealers and foundations on the market looked too pink and ashy on her skin.
As a result, Haria distanced herself from the cultural beauty practices she'd grown up with. “I wouldn’t have oil in my hair or have mehndi done if I went to a wedding because I wouldn’t want to go to school the next day and have everyone ask questions about it,” she recalls. This continued through her twenties, where Haria avoided anything that made her feel 'different' as she started out in her career.
She’s not alone – while interviewing South Asian brand founders for her book, Haria was particularly touched by Akash Mehta, the co-founder of haircare brand Fable & Mane, who told her he “hated” his colouring and tried to scrub his skin fairer. At the same time, Haria was branded a ‘coconut’ by some South Asians in her school – and even by extended family members – as a result of trying to play down her Indian heritage.
“Even as children, we felt this push and pull of cultural identity, wanting to fit in within an area that wasn’t necessarily our own,” she reflects. “I felt like I needed to cover up and I was desperate to get my upper lip and eyebrows threaded as early as I could. I was desperate to make them thinner.”
Now Haria loves her full brows – and brow care is big business, worth upwards of £20 million in the UK. With thousands of threading salons now around the country, does it feel strange for Haria to see something her grandma practised become so mainstream?
“When salons like Blink Brow Bar started popping up, I was thrilled,” she says. “This is something that’s been around for thousands of years and passed down through generations. Suddenly, everyone was talking about it. I felt like it authentically celebrated South Asian expertise. No matter where you went, there’d be a South Asian woman doing the threading. It hadn’t been adopted and taken away from us.”
Haria does roll her eyes at £5 turmeric lattes and studios of “white people saying ‘namaste’” after hot yoga. “Yoga has Ayurvedic principles, but people just want to make it hotter and hotter. Then there’s tongue scraping; my Gujarati husband grew up tongue scraping and it’s an important Ayurvedic ritual. It’s been adopted in the West without an understanding of why it’s so beneficial.”
As for the soft-glam look popularised by the Kardashians? “It’s the same as the aesthetic in the golden age of Bollywood. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, it was all about beautiful winged liner, smokey eyes, nude lips, fluttery lashes, shaped brows…”
So where is the line between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation? Haria has relaxed her stance on this over time. “Five years ago, I probably would have gotten angry about all of it,” she says. “Now, I find cultural appreciation nice – where someone likes elements of a culture and takes the time to understand them. If you get henna that’s going to be there for 10 days, that’s appreciation. If you’re not making money from it, if you’re getting it done because you really like it, that’s not appropriation – in my opinion.”
She pauses thoughtfully and continues: “Appropriation for me is putting on a sari to play dress up rather than wearing it authentically. If you’re not taking the time to learn about the culture or why you wear a bindi, you’re not appreciating it... You're selecting parts of the culture that you feel are interesting for your own gain.” Clearly, understanding is key to staying on the right side of the line. “It’s also about recognising where ingredients have come from,” she points out, referencing ashwagandha, a 5,000-year-old ingredient. “It’s become popular because it’s a good adaptogen for anxiety and moods, but it’s about understanding the story behind it, rather than just adopting something and putting your own Western label on it.”
Haria also argues that we need to move past just talking about South Asian beauty at times like Diwali and Eid. “It’s lazy – these brands exist outside of these key moments and conversations,” she says. “Brands like Ranavat are just good brands – with or without the South Asian label. When companies have Caucasian founders, we don’t go into their history every time. We’re allowed to exist without this cultural wrapper.”