Instagram.com/@Sakhicopenhagen
Organic and pure are slowly becoming key words in the world of beauty. As consumers take more of an interest in what really goes into their products, they are looking to cleaner brands that share their ethics. Sakhi Copenhagen is one such brand offering up bioactive and organic beauty remedies based on the powers of nigella oil. Its founder Farah Sakhi who was born in Scandanavia but is of Afghan-Persian origins shares her story.
What does beauty to mean to you?
In Eastern tradition beauty is wholesome, authentic, and integral, never artificial. Beauty is about purity. And in purity, less is more. Or in other words, less is pure.
Fundamentally, I am passionate about beauty through the pursuit of purity – purity of intent, purity of the ingredients, purity of the potion, and by that, ultimately, purification of one’s health, wellbeing, inward and outward state.
All I have managed to learn about the attribute of beauty points towards the one truth, that it is integral and unified in nature. When we take away that which is not – meaning the artificial, the synthetic and the superfluous – that which truly is, remains, appears and shines, as it ever was.
What is your first memory of beauty?
My first memory of beauty is this strange symphony between the terrestrial and celestial. Growing up in Scandinavia, the dramatically different seasons, and their manifestation in breathtaking colors and changing forms. Especially as witnessed on our grand oaks and pines and in our woods, that we grow up forest-bathing in. Those sounds and scents are engraved within me.
Lying in wilted leaves and gazing at the starry Nordic sky is another memory. We get to experience the occasional Northern Lights and the days are short and embellished with glowing candles during the long winter season.
How do you think your Persian-Afghan heritage has helped shape your beauty ideals?
I was privileged to grow up with a wealth of potent natural remedies and pure oils and have therefore always avoided the so-called beauty products with artificial and toxic additives. I come from a culture, where oils are an integral part of the daily beauty routine of women.
Oils are available in their unadulterated and pure, organic form, and it makes both intuitive and practical sense to incorporate them in our daily self-care, and women have been experiencing their transformative effects on their own skin, hair, and wellbeing for centuries.
Farah Sakhi. Courtesy of Sakhi Copenhagen
Does this differ from your Scandinavian upbringing?
My methodological, clinical studies have only confirmed and unpacked the wealth and teachings of the transmitted wisdom tradition that I have received and also traveled in search of.
I also must say that I don’t experience my mixed heritage in contrasts – I see complementary shades. I usually say that I experience the world in a hundred billion unseen colors and unspoken languages. I am a hybrid of trajectories, cultures, traditions, and states – as a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic being who is part vessel, and part caravan.
When did you first discover Nigella Seed Oil?
In essence, Nigella Oil has always been a part of me whether in the form of a topical treatment or for its nutritional wealth.
I rediscovered it during my studies, where I was first drawn to the Scandinavian research tradition within dermatology and nutrition. I found that the Nigella seed hides an astonishing secret: it is the only place in the known universe where one finds a unique combination of Nigellone and a phytochemical compound known as Thymoquinone. Thymoquinone is scientifically proven to possess extraordinarily potent anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-aging properties.
Researching the therapeutic effects of this bioactive Superseed, I was inspired to rediscover an entire heritage containing very potent remedies based on pure and organic Nigella oil. On a series of journeys in search of natural healing and integral wellness across Asia, Persia, and Africa, I was blessed to learn with practitioners from a wisdom tradition transmitted through more than a thousand years. Sakhi is really the fruit of this fascinating quest.
Why did you decide to launch Sakhi Copenhagen?
I have come to believe and trust in guidance.
A few years ago, I was in South Africa on one of my journeys seeking insights from living, practicing healers, and guides. I vividly recall having completed a meditation on top of Table Mountain, when a text message from a client ticked in, describing how a bespoke remedy had absolutely transformed her very sensitive and damaged skin. She said something, which impressed deeply upon me: “Farah, you have to share this, it doesn’t belong to you anyway…”
So the project became one of service also, trying to serve both a timeless wisdom tradition and an acute contemporary need.
Talk to us about its history within the world of beauty?
Everyone from the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the Greek Doctors Hippocrates and Galen, or even Cleopatra treasured the Nigella seed, with Cleopatra using its oil for her famed youthful beauty, and Tutankhamen ensuring that the seeds journeyed with him in his tomb to the other side.
Perhaps the most captivating description of Nigella is by the Prophet Muhammad who relayed to his followers that the humble Nigella seed contained “the cure for everything, except death”.
The Habbat ul Barakah (Seed of Blessing in Arabic) or simply Panacea (Cure-all in old Latin) as it is known, became instrumental in several Eastern traditions of natural healing and integral wellness.
Astoundingly, this extraordinarily potent seed and oil have remained a well-kept secret outside of the Eastern traditions, which have safeguarded and transmitted methods for its various internal and topical usages for over a couple thousand years. I dream of changing this and making available a contemporary adaptation, that allows you to benefit from a long-transmitted healing tradition.
Why do you think clean beauty is so important?
I see a rising consciousness amongst many people, who are exploring what natural, organic and wholesome nutrition, beauty care, and remedies hold of real and transformative potential, and I see it as a correction against having the synthetic and ineffective encroach upon us for far too long.
Even the experience of lock-down, isolation, or illness increases the yearning after natural connectedness and balance. The pendulum is swinging the other way now. And you know, before there were white coats and clinics, there were incredibly effective natural remedies, which were transmitted orally or by manuscripts. This process was transmitted by healers, guides, masters, and practitioners – yet over time the benefits became restricted to their elusive circles and inheritors. I like to say that the only additive we use in our products is generations worth of wisdom on healing, wellness, and beauty, along with a keen awareness of the challenges posed by our contemporary lifestyle to our skin, hair, and wellbeing.
That is also why the Sakhi range doesn’t consist of an elaborate line-up of products. We neither believe in waste nor superfluity. Effective remedies are multi-talented. So we offer one product for the face, one for your hair, one for your hands, and one for your healing needs. That is it. And we believe it is enough.
Which formulations are you most proud of?
If I absolutely had to choose one, it would have to be the Sakhi Face Oil, which is a unique and very specific blend of 11 oils.
Clients have consistently shared testimonies of how it hydrates and smoothens, without being greasy, and how they feel almost immediate effects and it being quickly absorbed to provide glowing skin. I am particularly proud of it since some clients have come back 12-13 times for the Sakhi Face Oil.
What’s next for Sakhi Copenhagen?
My clients are from anywhere in between Copenhagen and Cape Town and the Bay Area to Kuala Lumpur. They typically ask for supplementary products, that can be ingested, and this is something that I am working on currently.
The combination of an outer application with nutritional ingestion, and the stimulation of the olfactory senses through Nigella Oil with other essential oils, resins, and woods is also something that your Middle Eastern readers will recognize.
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