Chrysanthemum paint !

Have you tried out the Jacaranda flowers to make dry blue colour? You can dry these flowers in the shade, and then grind them to make a lovely blue powder. The jacaranda trees bloom and put out hundreds of blue flowers in summer. You can make blue holi colour also with the purple hibiscus which is sometimes found in Lal Bagh but most often in Kerala so you will have to travel there or ask a friend or a relative living there to send you some for next year’s holi.

These too can be dried and then powdered. For the wet colour crush berries of the Indigo plant and add water to the fruit to get a nice dazzling blue colour. You can also boil the leaves of some Indigo species in water to get a blue juice!

Beetroots taste yummy as a salad but are also very nice to make a stunning red colour for holi. Grate a large beetroot and soak it in one litre of water for a glorious red colour. You can boil them in water or leave them overnight to make your colour deeper and brighter. You can also dilute for a lighter shade.

Pink onions which taste great in sambhar also come in handy during holi. Boil the peels of 15 to 20 pink onions in half a litre of water for an orange and pink shade. To get rid of the onion smell, remove the peels before you use the colour.

You can also soak the Kachnar, Bauhinia variegata flowers in water overnight, or boil for a pale pink colour. To get the saffron shade, try using the Flame of the Forest (Buteamonosperma) known as Tesu, Palash or Dhak. This is the favourite flower for making holi colours. Soak the flowers all night in water or boil them to get a shimmering orange and yellow coloured water which will also have a lovely scent so your friends and enemies won’t mind being splashed with them.

You can also dry these flowers and powder them for an orange powder. You can also boil the petals of Semul/silk cotton (Bombax ceiba) in water for a silky shade. Then you can collect and dry the stalks of Parijatak flowers (Nyctanthesearbor-tristis) flowers during winter.

Soak them in water and enjoy using the lovely orange colour water they will make.
If you have sandalwood powder mix a pinch of it in one litre of water to get a quick, gorgeous and scented saffron colour! Soak a few stalks of saffron/kesar which we use in making sweetmeats, in two tablespoons of water. Leave this mix for four to five hours and then grind it to make a fine paste.

Dilute it with water for the kind of colour you want to make. It is a bit costly, but safe and scented and fun. It is also good for your skin.

For making brown colour for holi try the Kattha (Acacia catechu) in pan, mixed with water will give you a nice creamy brown paint. You can also boil tea or coffee leaves in water, cool and make delightful colours of coffee and reddish tea shades.

Boil amla, gooseberry fruits in an iron vessel, let them sleep there for the night, then dilute with water. Grape juice can also turned into black paint to give friends a small friendly shock!

If you use all these tips, this year will be your safest, greenest holi!

All holi tips from Heritage
Amruth A Magazine for Healthy
Living, The Natural Way.
Liver Care Vol 5 March-April
2009. FRLHT,
Ph: 28568000/28568001/8002 and www.frlht.org