8 Holi colours you can also make at home

Dr Arvind Poswal from New Delhi tells you how to make Holi colours, the healthy way

The best way to avoid the hassle and ensure a healthy play of colours, choose herbal colours as alternatives to the ones induced with metallic chemicals.

Herbal colours are easily available in the market, and much to your surprise can be easily made at home too with the help of flowers, herbs, leaves and other household ingredients easily found in the kitchen.

Dr. Arvind Poswal, Medical Director, Dr A's Clinic, New Delhi tells us how to make those colours at home so that you can enjoy Holi in a blissful and safe way.

You can use dried henna leaves, powdered and soaked overnight for wet colour.

For lighter shades, use henna leaves mixed with wheat flour or refined flour.

Vegetables like spinach and coriander can also be used to get natural green colour after grinding.

Red sandalwood powder or vermilion can be used.

Dried rose petals, soaked red hibiscus flowers or grated beetroot are also preferred alternatives.

Flowers like jacaranda or blue hibiscus when grounded can turn into beautiful blue Holi colours.

If you want a wet blue colour, you can always use the crush berries of Indigo tree, add them to water and get the desired shade of blue.

Gram flour mixed with turmeric powder will surely do the magic for yellow!

Easiest way is to soak a few stalks of saffron in 2 table spoons of water.

Leave for few hours; grind it to make a fine paste.

Keep mixing water to the desired colour strength.

And if you do not want to go by the above mentioned expensive method, you can mix a pinch of sandalwood powder, especially the one from Ujjain, in one litre of water for an instant and beautiful fragrant saffron colour.

Amla, kept in an iron vessel, left overnight, produces the base black colour which can be diluted according to desired colour strength.

Juice of black grapes can also be used, but it should be kept in mind to dilute the extracted juice with as much as water possible to remove the stickiness.

Magenta colour can be easily obtained by slicing or grating beet root and then soaking it in 1 litre of water.

If you want a deeper shade, leave it overnight.

One teaspoon of haldi to two litres of water and stir well, it can be boiled to increase the concentration of colour and further diluted.

Soak 50 marigold flowers in 2 litres of water.

Boil and leave overnight to get that dazzling yellow colour.

You have two choices now -- either you go the herbal way or play with the colours available in the market. Irrespective of what you choose, don't forget to have fun.

Just enjoy this blissful festival and add colours to your life.