The first thing New Delhi did when I arrived in all its chilly grandeur was numb my fingers. The second was to offer a steaming cup of chai, jasmine garlands and a folk soundtrack, setting the tone for what came next; an experience where Rajasthan’s royal nostalgia met a very New York idea of glamour, which is exactly the mood Julien Moignard, global chief prospective innovation and design officer and SVP at Unilever, tells me it was designed to evoke. The Palace On Wheels journey is a cinematic circuit through Rajasthan. Our version was a tighter, curated slice from New Delhi to Jaipur, just enough time to understand why this train has been mythologised in the first place. Inside, everything conspires to render logistics irrelevant with compact suite cabins and service that arrives before you’ve thought to ask.
If you've ever visited North India during winter, you know the kind of bite it has. It goes straight for your hands, throat and (most personally for me) your hair. Mine’s fine-textured and weather-sensitive, which is why I stick to the trusty steps that work for me: cleanse, condition, serum on the ends and heat protectant if I’m styling. By the time we were rolling out, my dry hair had already entered crisis mode, complete with static-induced frizz and thirsty ends.
Back in my cabin, a Nexxus kit sat on the vanity: shampoo, mask and serum from their PROMEND Repair line. In daily life, I don’t switch products on a whim. On a day like this, with cold air, constant movement, heat styling and royal feasts thrice a day, I took the help where I found it. So that night, I treated this kit like a reset. The shampoo went in first, more to calm my hair down than to cleanse it to death. It helped that it felt rich, quick to lather and was generously formulated with keratin and collagen. Then the mask, smoothed from mid-lengths to end, cocooning my crackling strands in creamy lipids to support them with deep nourishment. I left it on for the whole three minutes I could actually manage on an evening scheduled like a set list, then rinsed until my dry hair felt soft to the touch. As we got closer to Jaipur, the weather got drier and dustier and I reached for the serum, formulated with a trillion proteins and oils like jojoba and sunflower; a couple of drops warmed between my palms and pressed into the ends. I didn't look like I belonged in a shampoo commercial right away, but it took the edge off the frizz and made my lengths less likely to snag on the first woollen layer that came near them.
Dinner at the City Palace took place alongside classical dancers holding the room in one mood, while Divyansh Kacholia flipped it into another, beatboxing to Chaiyya Chaiyya and Breathless. It sounds improbable until you hear it live. Back on the train later that night, I did a half-panicked, half-curious hair check. The first thing I noticed was what wasn’t happening. The ends hadn’t turned to straw and there was no clingy static when I pulled them forward. My hair still had a decent range of movement and was overall more manageable. By breakfast, we were returning to Delhi and my hair was still holding. It hadn’t deflated into that dry, shapeless puff that happens after one too many climate shifts and it still had a little shine at the ends instead of turning rough. A relief for someone like me whose confidence is almost entirely attached to her hair.
The rest compressed into memories that felt oddly cinematic for something so brief. I came for a story about Indian royalty meeting New York glamour, but I left with a little more faith in my mane than I usually give it.
