What My Great-Great-Grandmother Knew About Healing Skin.
Our Great Grand - MADA BENT didn’t read ingredients — she read leaves. Didn’t follow routines — she followed the moon. She made medicine in silence, or while humming, or while calling on names no longer spoken aloud. Her hands were cracked from labour, but soft with knowledge.
Her skin held the memory of hot sun, cold rain, and the whisper of plants that only revealed their secrets to those who knew that healing doesn’t start in the jar. It starts in the soil. It starts in the body’s ache. It starts in the breath that says: I need mending.
She taught us:
- That cocoa butter is a balm for grief.
- That ash mixed with oil pulls out heat and anger.
- That moringa isn’t just for strength — it’s for memory.
- That castor oil roots the spirit when it feels like it’s floating too far.
She didn’t write anything down, but her wisdom lives in the palms. In how we rub oil into our legs after a long day. In how we steam our faces over boiled orange peel and bay leaf. In how we make time for care, even when the world says rush.
We remember: The way she cracked open a coconut with a stone. The way she sang while straining herbs through cloth. The way she used aloe vera and touched every wound with her whole heart. The way she said, “The skin listens — so speak with gentleness.” She didn’t call it skincare. She called it care. And that was enough. Because to touch your own skin with reverence — to see it not as a problem, but a page on which your lineage is written — that is an act of revolution. She taught us the body remembers. She knew that skin, like soil, responds to tenderness. Not just bruises, but blessings. So when you rub oil into your limbs, you’re not just moisturising—you’re recalling your name.
This is not nostalgia. This is inheritance. This is survival coded in rituals. This is skinwear. This isn’t beauty. It’s a bloodline.