Use homemade colours, play safe Holi: Experts

Manmeet Gill

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Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 28

With the festival of colours, Holi, round the corner, the city markets are flooded with harmful items, such as colour bombs, compressed colour spray cans and high-velocity pichkaris (water guns), experts have warned against their use.

Experts say water guns with high capacity and chemical colours can cause damages to eyes and other parts on the face. Residents should go for natural and homemade colours, they say.

The use of commonly available home ingredients, such as arrowroot powder, hena powder, turmeric powder and annato seeds. These can be mixed in different proportions to make various shades of colours.

An elderly woman, Stawant Kaur, said, “Such powders are kitchen ingredients and not at all harmful as these are edible. Even if consumed, these natural colours will not harm children.”

A study complied in the past by the Department of Clothing and Textiles, College of Home Science, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, suggests that flowers such as marigold, amaltas, tesu, rind of pomegranate, rhizome of turmeric for yellow shade, slice of beetroot for deep pink or magenta, madder and golden drop roots for deep red, henna leaves for green, annatto seeds for orange and jacaranda flowers for blue and rose and dalian for fragrance can be used.

To make a dry powder, these sources can be mixed in besan, arrowroot and rice powder. Two or more of these ingredients can be mixed to prepare a colour. The choice and variety of colours will depend on one’s creativity and imagination. For wet solution, these can be mixed in water, soaked overnight to get a deep color, the PAU study states.

Different shades of green can be obtained by mixing arrowroot and hena in different proportions. Similarly, arrowroot and rattanjot can be mixed to get purple while a mixture of arrowroot and annato can yield orange shades.

Dr Sandeep Aggarwal, child specialist at the Jallianwala Bagh Martyrs Memorial Civil Hospital, said, “It is safe to avoid chemical-based colours. Chemicals can cause damage to eyes and skin even if used in less quantity.”