Go organic: DIY Holi colours to make festive celebrations fun

Any Holi celebration is incomplete without a burst of colours. While there are several colours available in the market that claim to be organic, there is no way of knowing how safe they are.

Organic colours, made with natural extracts, are environmentally friendly and won't cause harm to the hair, skin or eyes.

Days before the special day, here are smart ways to make natural colours at home. The colours can be easily made using simple kitchen ingredients. All you need is a little time and proper planning.


One of the important ingredients to make these colours is a powder made of arrowroot, a tuber that is tropical to Indonesia. Arrowroot flour or powder is easily available at grocery shops. You can also substitute arrowroot powder with wheat flour (atta) or refined wheat flour (maida) which will give the colours a powder-like texture.

Pink Paradise
Take a beetroot and make a paste of it with little water in a blender or mixer grinder. Filter the juice out. Add arrowroot powder to the juice. Keep adding arrowroot powder till you get the pinkish-powdery texture. Add some talcum powder or rose water for fragrance.

Feeling Blue
To get the bright blue colour, repeat the entire process with red cabbage, which comes in dark purple shades. Once the powder dries, the result will be a bride shade of magnificent blue. This same process can get you the cyan shade. All you need to do is add baking soda to the red cabbage juice before adding arrowroot four.

It Was All Yellow
Take a little turmeric powder and mix it with water. Add arrowroot powder till you get the yellow powder consistency. Repeat the talcum step for fragrance.
You can also mix the turmeric powder with gram flour (besan).

Give The Green Light
Take a bunch of coriander, spinach, mint or neem leaves and add it to the blender with water. Repeat the process like you did for pink to get the pastel green colour.

Sunny Side Up
To make the orange couple, you will need orange marigold flowers or orange food colour. Use the same process as you did to get the green colour.

The Rush Of Red
Gulal is the most-preferred colour during Holi. You can repeat the above-mentioned technique with the use of red hibiscus flowers. You can also make gulal using rose petals.

Do your hair & skin a favour, and play Holi with home-made colours.