Kumkumadi Facial Oil^Preview

Kumkumadi taila is an old Ayurvedic preparation built around saffron — the most expensive thing in the room, used at a concentration that actually does something. Ours steeps Kashmiri saffron, manjistha and lotus in cold-pressed sesame for forty days before it is strained.

It smells like saffron and warm seed oil, which is to say it smells like what it is. Three drops, pressed rather than rubbed, on damp skin at night.

The colour varies batch to batch. That is the saffron, not a fault.