a brass bowl filled with mustard oil and turmeric

As tiny tots, my sister and I would spend some of almost every sunny winter afternoon on the patio naked.  At the time of our bath, we would start in the kitchen. Someone would get us completely unclothed, then sit us on the marble floor next to a brass bowl filled with mustard oil and turmeric.

The first step to a bath was to get oiled up.  This oil would first be massaged onto the top of my head, then my face, ears, hair, neck and slowly work its way down my limbs, under my feet, then my trunk and back, inspecting each part as it was oiled. We would then be sent out to the verandah with its high walls and marble floor to bake in the sun, especially in the winter to ward off the phlegmy, mucousy ails of the winter kapha season.

After our skin was hot, by which time coincidentally there were lots of tiny oily yellow handprints and footprints along the floor and walls of the verandah, we would be taken inside.

If there was any place where we were itching, it would be rubbed with a dry herbal powder, usually sharp in odor and smell, made of neem or babul. On Sundays, my aunt would inspect our nails, clipping as needed with a tiny pair of scissors.

~ EveryDay Ayurveda, 2015, Chapter 17, Oil Massage