The First Thing This Ayurvedic Healer Puts on Her Face Is a LeafCreated with Surya

MARTHA SOFFER |Founder of Surya

Long before Surya became a serene Ayurvedic retreat inside the Santa Monica Proper Hotel, it existed in Martha Soffer’s home. People came to her for pulse readings, panchakarma, herbal oils, food cooked to soothe whatever had gone out of balance, and the rare feeling of being treated not as a set of symptoms but as a whole person—with a history, a nervous system, a digestion, a sleep pattern, a life. The experience was intimate by design: You were not checking into a spa so much as entering Martha’s world.

That home was later lost in the Palisades fires, a fact that gives the evolution of Surya a particular poignancy. The setting has changed; the feeling has not. Soffer, a widely sought-after Ayurvedic practitioner, chef, herbalist, and founder of Surya, has built her reputation on a form of healing that is both ancient and unusually personal. Gwyneth has long been a devotee, as have plenty of people whose names you would recognize, but the reason people care about Martha has less to do with celebrity than with what she seems able to perceive: the body’s most subtle signals, the imbalances that accumulate long before they become impossible to ignore.

Which is why we wanted to know how she begins her own day. Her morning is not a wellness performance or a race toward productivity. It is a set of small, exacting practices—warm water with lime, tongue scraping, oil, herbs, movement, quiet—that bring the body back into rhythm before the world starts making demands. You do not need to speak fluent Ayurveda to understand the appeal. You only need to know what it feels like to wake up already braced for the day, and to wonder whether there might be another way to begin.

9:30 p.m

My morning starts the night before by preparing Serene Night Water—an ancient practice passed down from my grandmother. Before I go to bed, I put a glass of filtered water outside so the night air can touch it. In Ayurveda, we talk about the quality of the night, the coolness, the stillness. By morning, the water is cold, and I use it to wash my face.

At night, I pick a Siempre Viva leaf from my garden and mix it with lemon. Siempre Viva means “always alive.” It’s a succulent. My grandmother told me about it, and later, one of my therapists, Veronica, reminded me of it. I grow it at home; it grows very fast. I put the lemon and leaf mixture on my skin, let it dry, and then apply my collagen cream. I also use my Menopause Yoni Cream before bed. It has organic ghee, coconut oil, rose geranium, shatavari, ashwagandha, vidari, fennel seed, licorice root, and beeswax.

I try to go to sleep between 9:30 and 10:30 p.m. I don’t wear an Oura ring or track my sleep. I don’t like to be connected to anything.

5:30 a.m

I wake up naturally, usually between 5:30 and 6 a.m. I don’t use an alarm. The sun is my alarm. The minute the sun starts to come out, my body senses it and wakes up.

In Ayurveda, it’s important to wake before Kapha time, before the morning energy becomes heavier and slower. That early period is very beautiful to me. It is the time when I am most by myself.

The first thing I do is scrape my tongue. The body moves undigested toxins up to the tongue overnight, and the scraping helps clear them. It also cleans the palate, opens the glands, and improves breath. It is such a simple thing, but once you start doing it, you understand how much accumulates overnight.

5:40 a.m.

I wash my face with the water I left outside overnight. It’s clean filtered water that has been sitting in the night air, and by morning, it is very cold. It feels amazing on the skin.

Then I drink warm water with fresh lime. I drink 24 to 32 ounces before I go into the sauna. I use a mason jar, and once you get used to drinking that much water, it’s not difficult.

I started drinking more water during menopause. I had gotten a UTI, then another UTI, and I was having a little bit of incontinence. It felt to me like my bladder was not cleaning well, like there was bacteria or irritation, so I thought I needed to flush myself. The warm lime water helps cleanse the body. For me, right now, it also feels connected to balancing hormones.

5:45 a.m

I go outside through the back of the house to get to the kitchen. I walk on the grass. I hear the birds. Sometimes I look at the moon. At my house, the birds are incredible at 5:30 or 6 in the morning. It is so beautiful to walk outside at that hour and feel the earth.

I also go outside to get my Siempre Viva leaf. I take one leaf, put it in a mortar and pestle, and crush it completely until I get the juice out of it. In Ayurveda, we call that rasa. It becomes almost like a water. I put it all over my face and let it dry while I continue my routine. It is hydrating, full of antioxidants, and rejuvenating. I use it especially for dark spots. It really works. It’s like nature’s serum.

Then I feed YoYo, my cat.

5:50 a.m.

Next, I go into my Clearlight sauna. It’s a little box with an infrared setting, so I turn it on and sit down to meditate. I usually do this by myself because my husband is still sleeping.

I keep the sauna at about 140 degrees. I think sometimes people put it too high. I go in when it is still warming up, so I can stay in longer. It gets hot fast, but I’m already inside as it warms, and by the time I start sweating, I’m usually close to finishing.

I practice Transcendental Meditation for 30 to 45 minutes. Meditation is the one thing I really do not skip. If I don’t meditate, my day is not the same. I have been doing it for 35 years.

Sometimes in the sauna, I listen to Paramahansa Yogananda. He wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, and I keep rereading it. I have it on my phone, and I listen to his talks. I also do his prayers. At the beginning of the day, I ask for wisdom and guidance, and that everybody I touch or talk to can be guided in a good way.

Depending on the day and what my body needs, I might do Sukshma [small repetitive movements focused on joints, circulation, and energy flow], yoga asanas, or weights. If I don’t have to be at Surya too early, I’ll do some yoga before I meditate.

If I don’t have time for that, I keep five- and 10-pound weights in the sauna and do a short strength routine after meditation. I’ll do bicep curls and different arm exercises. Some I can do with 10 pounds, but some I can only do with five. For the legs, it’s more like tai chi, and I also use a band. I like doing it in the sauna because the body is warm, you’re sweating, and everything moves more easily. On those mornings, I’ll do about 30 minutes of meditation and then seven or eight minutes of exercise.

Once a week, I also do a hair mask before the sauna. My grandmother taught me this when I was 14 or 15. I started doing it again after COVID, when I lost almost half my hair. I blend egg, avocado, olive oil, vinegar, lemon, and some of the hair oil I make myself. It turns into this beautiful green cream. I spread it all over my hair, put on a shower cap, and go into the sauna with it. If I don’t have time for the sauna, I leave it on for 30 or 40 minutes. I wash my hair about twice a week, depending on how much I’ve been working in the treatment rooms and how much oil gets in my hair.

6:40 a.m.

I get out of the sauna around 6:36 or 6:40, then go into the pool for 2 or 3 minutes. It’s cold, but it’s not a 40-degree cold plunge. This morning it was cold, but not as cold as usual, so I could stay in a little longer.

I’m not swimming. I’m doing it for the contrast: heat, then cold. I was doing contrast therapies long before they became popular. At Surya, when someone had a lot of inflammation, I would put them in a sweat treatment, then fill a bathtub with ice and put them in it.

I also put my face in the cold pool water. As we get older, we lose skin elasticity, and I notice that cold helps tighten the skin. When people only do sauna and then start doing the contrast, the skin starts to get tighter.

6:50 a.m.

After the pool, I start breakfast. Usually, I make buckwheat cereal. Sometimes I make mung bean pancakes, but buckwheat is my normal breakfast.

There are two kinds of buckwheat I use. Sometimes I buy toasted buckwheat groats and soak them overnight, so they cook faster. I also use Pocono Cream of Buckwheat because the groats are already cut, so it’s faster. I put the buckwheat on the stove with water and let it simmer. I cook raisins right into it.

While the cereal is cooking, I do self-Abhyanga, the Ayurvedic oil massage. It’s the same up-and-down massage we do in the treatments. I choose the oil depending on what I need that day: Calm, Cool, or Energized. Right now, I’m using the Vata oil, and soon I’ll change to Pitta. The massage in the morning is very important for me.

I don’t usually take a bath in the morning. The only time I take a morning bath is if I’m doing panchakarma and it’s the day of elimination.

7:15 a.m.

I get into the shower around 7:15. I don’t like to use soap all over my body because it takes the oil out of the skin. I use only natural soap, and only on my private parts. Otherwise, I let the oil stay on the skin.

After the shower, I get dressed. When I look in my closet, I think about the color of the day. In Ayurveda, every day of the week is related to a planet. Monday is the moon and white. Tuesday is Mars and red. Wednesday is Mercury and green. Thursday is Jupiter and yellow. Friday is Venus and purple. Saturday is Saturn and blue. Sunday is Surya, the sun, and orange.

Today is Wednesday, Mercury, so I’m wearing green. Green is the color of communication. I try to dress with that in mind, or I use jewelry intentionally. If I don’t want to wear white on a moon day, I might wear pearls because pearls have the influence of the moon.

7:35 a.m.

After I shower, I put the Siempre Viva water on my face again and let it dry. Then I apply my Balancing Face Oil, and then my collagen cream. I finish with the Menopause Yoni Cream.

Sunscreen is my last step. I never liked putting sunscreen or anything unnatural on my skin, but now I’m paying the price for not doing it, so I started using sunscreen again two or three months ago. Right now, I’m using an Italian sunscreen called Santa Maria Novella Crema Solare Sunscreen SPF 50, and I also found one in Kauai from a small company that I really like.

If I’m going on camera or want to put on a little makeup, I use a very light touch. I might use Kosas Comfy Smooth Sunscreen in Dream Beam Sunlit to even out my skin. I don’t use it every day. I try to put only completely natural things on my face.

I also use Jillian Dempsey Kohl Eyeliner in Jet Black, Ere Perez Avocado Waterproof Mascara, and sometimes a Farah Hamidi compact in Sable. I don’t really wear blush.

8:15 a.m.

I eat breakfast around 8:15. I finish the warm buckwheat cereal and add fruit. This morning I had nectarines, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I cook them together and put them on top of the cereal.

I buy sprouted nuts at the market and add those, too: Brazil nuts for my thyroid, walnuts for my brain, pistachios, pecans, and almonds. I also add blackstrap molasses, maple syrup, cardamom, and cinnamon.

I make my own nut milk from pecans, Brazil nuts, almonds, walnuts, and pistachios. I drink it warm because I don’t drink anything cold. I blend the nuts with a little vanilla, cardamom, and cinnamon. It’s delicious.

I don’t drink coffee or matcha. Just the warm water and the warm nut milk.

I also take some herbs (Brahmi, Bacopa, Shankapushpi, and Ashwagandha) in the morning for my brain and my hormones. I take B12 and vitamin D, too. I had bloodwork done, and my B12 was going down. After I went to India and meditated at the cave of Babaji, I stopped wanting chicken or turkey. I used to eat a little bit, but when I came back, I couldn’t eat it anymore. It felt revolting to me. So now I’m taking B12.

8:30 a.m.

If it’s warm enough, I like to sit outside with my breakfast for five or 10 minutes. I believe morning light is important. When I first wake up, there isn’t direct sun yet, but the light is there. By the time I finish the sauna and go into the pool, the sun is there.

If someone has only 10 minutes in the morning and feels ungrounded, I would tell them to walk barefoot on the grass. It immediately connects you to the earth. And if there is sun, do it in the sun.

8:40 a.m.

If I have treatments that require plants, I go into the garden before I leave. When the girls from goop came, I filled a table with all different herbs from my garden, and the smell was so beautiful. I have different kinds of sages, buckwheat, greens, and right now nectarines. Sometimes I cut greens and eat them or bring them to Surya.

I live in Mandeville Canyon, so sometimes I go up into the canyon and gather herbs for treatments. Sometimes we dry them and keep them at Surya; sometimes I use them fresh and put them all over the skin.

9:00 a.m.

Most days, I’m out the door to Surya by 9. When I get there, I start consultations for people who are doing panchakarma or other treatments.

Mornings are my favorite because they are really my time. I can write, pray, meditate, listen to the birds, walk in the grass, feel the earth. Ayurveda changed my body and my life, and I’ve had some version of this routine for almost 30 years.