5000 Years of Glow: Decoding Ayurveda With Sahajan's Lisa Mattam and Practitioner Ananta Ripa Ajmera
Breaking Beauty Podcast
This episode of Breaking Beauty Podcast explores the ancient Indian healing tradition of Ayurveda, diving into its 5,000-year history and mo
Key takeaways
- Ayurveda is a holistic system focused on balance across body, mind, spirit, and senses.
- The three doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—are constitutional types rooted in elemental combinations that influence health and beauty.
Main topics
- Introduction to Ayurveda: The science of life
- Understanding Vata, Pitta, and Kapha doshas
Notable quotes
"Ayurveda is the science of life. It teaches us how to achieve well-being at four different levels." – Ananta Ripa Ajmera
Conclusion
Ayurveda offers timeless wisdom that bridges ancient traditions with modern wellness and
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:00) The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Speaker 5 (0:08) Welcome to Breaking Beauty, the podcast all about the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty. We're your hosts, Jill Dunn and Carlene Higgins. Speaker 5 (0:21) Welcome back to Breaking Beauty Podcast. I'm Carlene Higgins, and I'm here with my co-host with the most, Jill Dunn. Hey, Speaker 6 (0:28) everyone. And of course, we are two longtime magazine beauty editors turned beauty podcasters. And we're serving up the breakthrough people, products, and moments in beauty every single week. Today, we are diving into the world of Aria Veda, something, a topic that we have been wanting to cover. for ages. And it's really incredible because this is a practice that has stood the test of time. Quite literally, it's 5,000 years old. And it's the traditional system of medicine from India that's focused on natural healing and holistic health and really just all about balance in your life. And the Speaker 5 (1:02) word comes from Sanskrit combining air, life, and Veda, knowledge or science, and how these ancient rituals are shaking up modern science-backed skincare. So to break it down, we brought in two powerhouses. First, Lisa Matam, founder and CEO of Sahajan and a longtime friend of our podcast. Hi, Lisa. Hi. Speaker 3 (1:22) It's Speaker 5 (1:22) so good to be here. Thank Speaker 6 (1:23) you Speaker 3 (1:23) so Speaker 6 (1:23) much. Lisa spent more than 15 years in Big Pharma before blending her clinical background with her South Asian heritage. to build one of the most respected Ayurvedic beauty brands in the world. And now it's at Sephora too. Clock it. Speaker 5 (1:38) She's also celebrating a major moment this year. Sahajan was just tapped by Air Canada to supply the amenities products in their signature class. amenities kits. And we're so proud to be Canadian, to have a Canadian beauty brand in there. Finally, Speaker 6 (1:52) it just makes sense. And so that lip karma balm, everybody, that you're applying at 35,000 feet, we have Lisa to thank for hydrated lips at that altitude. Thank you so much for that. Speaker 5 (2:02) We're also joined by a true Ayurvedic expert who Lisa has collaborated with and leaned on for her expertise. And that is Ananta Ripa Ajmera, an award-winning author and host of the True to Yourself podcast and advisor of Ayurveda at The Well in Miami. Welcome, Ananta. Speaker 6 (2:22) Thank Speaker 1 (2:23) you so much for having me. It's wonderful to be here. Speaker 6 (2:25) Ananta comes from a lineage of Ayurvedic healers in ancient India. She has spoken at Stanford, at NYU, at Columbia, and she consults on some of Sahajan's skincare formulations, including this year's sacred flower oil. Speaker 5 (2:39) And just ahead, our guests are going to help us better understand how we can apply these ancient rituals to serve our wellness and skincare goals. Everything from defining your dosha, pitta, kapha, and vata, and the rituals now going TikTok famous. I Speaker 6 (2:54) mean, these things I've never even heard of, but they probably have been around forever. Oiling your ears, everybody. Speaker 5 (2:59) Oiling your navel. I need Speaker 6 (3:02) to know absolutely everything about it. And there's like a consa wand. Like, what is that? I need to know more. Lisa shares how Speaker 5 (3:10) she's bringing Ayurveda into the science of clinical trials and our guest's top three tips to have you glowing as we kick off 2027. So Speaker 6 (3:18) with all of that, officially, welcome to Breaking Beauty Podcast to the both of you. Ananta, you come from this long line of Ayurvedic healers, like I mentioned. So for anyone that's new to the practice, what do you say it's all about? Speaker 1 (3:32) Ayurveda is... the science of life. So there's actually no part of life that Ayurveda doesn't touch. It teaches us how to achieve well-being at four different levels. Everyone's heard of mind, body, spirit. It's almost cliche, right? Especially in the magazine world. Speaker 2 (3:47) But Speaker 1 (3:48) Ayurveda also looks at your five senses as a really important aspect of overall health and well-being and also a source of where we find the root causes of what. is creating our health imbalances. And in Ayurveda, it's all about attaining a state of balance or harmony between your body, mind, spirit, and your five senses. Speaker 5 (4:11) Beautiful. I love that. I love that. We've chatted before, Lisa, about how you grew up in a household where Ayurveda was kind of naturally woven into your daily life. Maybe you can tell us some of your earliest memories and what has stayed with you. Yeah, for sure. It is funny Speaker 3 (4:30) because we never used the word Ayurvedic growing up. It was not a word that I was familiar with or heard. But as I look back in my life, what I find funny is I realized when I was visiting India with my family, I've seen Ayurvedic doctors, all the things. But I would say some of the practices as I think of my life growing up. You know, one that I don't think we've ever talked about, Ananta, is my parents used to have us take milk baths. Oh, Speaker 1 (4:52) wow. Yeah, Speaker 3 (4:53) which like was at the time not feeling very cool at all. I feel like all the things that my, particularly my dad made us do, like there was a time where I was like, okay, I'm done. Like, I no longer want to go to school with oily hair. I know. Yeah, I remember having a sleepover and saying like, just be like everybody else's dad and make pancakes and don't meditate in the morning. But I would say the earliest rituals, particularly around beauty, beauty were and skin were oiling of the hair for sure. We, you know, I can remember that and something we did regularly. Milk baths for sure. And it was believed, and actually there's some really good research to talk about what milk does for the skin. And I think you've probably had so many conversations about milk, even just that it has lactic acid in it is so good. As I started to get older and my first acne, you know, presented itself, it was always a turmeric. pimple patch that was homemade that presented itself. So I think what I learned and what I came to when I started the brand was that this was woven throughout my life. And I thought it was family tradition or I thought it was, you know, I'm South Asian therefore, but what I didn't appreciate, particularly my parents being from the South and Kerala being the epicenter of Ayurvedic study was that I was actually practicing this wellness science and I had no idea. Speaker 6 (6:07) Ananta, so continuing with Ayurvedic fundamentals, can you help us walk through the doshas and the approach? So there's pitta, kapha, and vata, like Harleen mentioned. And what are these exactly and their significance? Speaker 1 (6:20) Yeah, so the doshas are basically mind-body types or constitutions in Ayurveda. And they are responsible for both our physiological functioning and also for imbalances that we can have when they build up too much. We all have all of the three doshas within us, but to different degrees. And that's what makes us all so unique. And actually, the whole material world is made up of these doshas. And they're rooted in the laws of physics, because each of the doshas is made up of certain elements, which now even modern physics is recognizing. And then these five elements come together to form what are called doshas. So the air and space elements come together to form vata dosha, which is responsible for all movement inside of our body and inside of the world. And then we have the pitta dosha, which is made up of fire with water, and that is responsible for metabolism and all transformation of one state of matter to another, right? When you see a solid ice cube melt into water and then evaporate into air, it's a perfect example of fire. being present. What happens when the sun is out is that it's fire and it causes these changes to happen. And then we have the kapha dosha, which is made up of the earth and water elements. And this is responsible for sturdiness and stability. So it's actually really, really important for all of us in the modern world to have this kind of quality of... steadiness and stability in both mind and body. And it's what we often lack in the world that is moving so fast. Speaker 6 (8:01) So Speaker 1 (8:01) a lot of the beauty and skincare is actually bringing us really healthy kapha and earth and water, especially water, back into our bodies. Speaker 5 (8:13) Now, is your dosha something that you're born with, or is it something that changes from day to day or season to season? Speaker 1 (8:22) I'm so glad you asked that because it's a both and. You are born with a certain dosha. And the thing is, a lot of people will think you can just do a quiz on it, Speaker 2 (8:32) but Speaker 1 (8:32) it tends to be more complex than that, just because a lot of us have more than one that are combined together. Right. So you have to kind of really consider the combination of what you had at the time of birth. So the kind of questions that we ask to determine that one, which is called Procrathie, your natural constitution at the time of your birth, is something you have to ideally know a lot about your birth to be able to answer. Just Speaker 6 (8:59) like when you can go deep on your astrological sign. Yeah. You need to know the time you Speaker 1 (9:03) were Speaker 6 (9:03) born, everyone. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1 (9:06) It's like that. You need to know how tall were you? How much did you weigh? How much did you cry? How much did you eat? How much did you, you know, like all these things. really help nail down what exactly is your specific constitution at birth. And then we have another constitution, which makes it more complicated, right? Where it's called the vikruti. And that's the more important one in some ways, because it's the one that's out of balance. currently. Speaker 2 (9:31) So that Speaker 1 (9:32) can change throughout your life, throughout the season, throughout the week, throughout even the day, believe it or not. And you'll feel it. Like you'll feel change in your temperature. You'll feel a change in the quality of your skin. You'll feel a change in your ability to digest food. And that is reflecting the current state of the dosha. So that's where the practitioner becomes really essential to be able to help you bring the things that are out of balance into balance without getting your natural constitution out of balance as well. Speaker 5 (10:05) So is part of the goal to get back to the constitution that you were born with? Or what is the significance of determining what you were born with, your doshas? Speaker 1 (10:18) It's good to know what you were born with just to have that idea of your foundation and your baseline. Because a person's baseline, if they're already having a lot of kapha dosha, is going to be very different than someone's who has a lot of pitta dosha or vata and pitta combined. So it's more something to keep in mind that knowing this, we will not go too far with how we bring you back into balance. You Speaker 5 (10:46) want to respect it. Speaker 1 (10:47) Yeah, you want to respect it and keep it in mind for sure, always. And the goal is not so much to come. back to your natural constitution as much as it is to be in a state of balance. Because if Speaker 2 (10:59) a Speaker 1 (10:59) person, like I'm, for example, having a lot of pitta and vata, I don't have tons of kapha to begin with. And so if I'm just going back to my constitution, that could almost be like getting yourself out of balance because you already have so much and then you have more. So what I would want is actually to have more kapha. Speaker 3 (11:18) things Speaker 1 (11:18) to kind of bring myself into more of a feeling of overall like harmony between all of the doshas. And that's really the ultimate goal is that everything is just in a state of balance and harmony. Speaker 5 (11:32) Yeah. So part of what inspired us to want to have the two of you on the show, years ago, I had an Ayurvedic facial. And so I did do a quiz at that time. And even though it may have been very rudimentary, I did find it helpful and enlightening to figure out that, you know, because I tend to have a lot of fire, I guess you would say. So the idea that I shouldn't have heat during a facial and I should be doing more cryo and cooling it down. And then there was advice for like foods that I should eat and all of that. I just found it to be, it was a worthwhile process to go through it. And I wondered though, do you think that Ayurvedic facials are kind of gimmicky or do you think that there's something valid to it? Speaker 1 (12:23) No, I think that's great that they were able to do that for you because they can for sure see what's going on right now. Right. Speaker 5 (12:30) And Speaker 1 (12:30) the idea is to bring that back into a state of balance. And so if there's red, if there's inflammation, if there's heat, you know, that's... great to know because then you can bring that down. And for skin especially, it's like real obvious what the state is, right? And how to kind of work with it that way. So we see digestion as being the root cause of overall health. Speaker 6 (12:52) And Speaker 1 (12:52) therefore food is very important. That would be the first question, you know, to ask for sure. Are you eating too many red things or spicy things? And are you having acne? Okay, well, there's a connection, you know, we have to cool it down. Speaker 6 (13:04) But Speaker 1 (13:04) then we have have to go deeper than that too, because someone can eat all the right stuff and still not get relief because it could be some really deep seated anger that is just hanging out in your skin because it has nowhere else to go. Fire Speaker 5 (13:20) in the belly. Right. Speaker 1 (13:21) So that's profound. And that's where Ayurveda really wants to get to the root cause of what is going on. And then even the thoughts that we're persistently thinking, right, can give us stress or they can give us ease. And a lot of times we're on autopilot and we don't even know what we're thinking on a regular basis. So