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Make your own colors for your Rangoli

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Rangoli is an integral part of our festivals. While in North India, people generally make Rangolis only during festivals where as it is a daily routine in South. Every morning you will find ladies waking up, cleaning their porch and making a beautiful Rangoli with rice flour. Of course, they do not bother to color it every day but yes, we do love colors. Right?? Diwali is almost there and of course, your designs for Rangolis would be improvising day by day. So, have you decided on how will you color your Rangoli. No, not the Holi colors please!! They are chemically processed making them unhealthy not only for the skin but also they can cause asthma and cancer. Skin allergies from Holi colors is nothing new. I stopped playing Holi because of the very reason and many of you must have too.
So, how do we go about making our own colors? I am sure many of you must already be aware of it. But, for those who do not, I’ll recount certain things and your own imagination will also give you exquisite results on the D-Day. Lets start with things already available.
  • Turmeric – yellow. Mix turmeric with rice flour (off-white in color) or even maida (all purpose flour) and create different shades of yellow. Besan can be used for pale yellow too.
  • Orange peels are already lying for your daily scrubs. Use them for orange color.
  • Sindoor can be used for maroon. The orange shade of tika is also available. It will do beautifully for orange.
  • Beetroot – shade of magenta. Dry the peel or a single beetroot cut into pieces and then grind them for a beautiful and vibrant shade of something ranging from pink to magenta. You can vary the color using the white flour.
  • Pomegranate – something between red and orange. Dry the peel and grind it.
  • Carrot – Peel it, cut into pieces and dry and then, grind. Carrot red.
  • Rose Petals – which ever color is your rose. General colors are pink and red. Dry the petals and grind them or you can use them as they are.
  • Marigold petals – a vibrant orange. Petals can be used as they are.
  • You have a wide array of choices for green. Go for mint, spinach, fenugreek, corainder leaves or leaves from the plants from your garden or you can dry the peels of your green veggies from the gourd family and powder them.
  • Blue is a difficult color. You can go for small blue flowers which is the best bet. Or, if you can get indigo, you can create blue color of your own. But, this would be rare. So, I am giving this a miss!! You have lavender flowers. They would do beautifully and impart fragrance too.
  • Hibiscus flowers – would again give red.
  • You can use cinnamon and other spices for brown. I would go for cinnamon because it has a fragrance too.
  • Use mustard seeds (rai) for black. I know black is not used or preferred but using mustard seeds in the middle or small pockets of your Rangoli would give a different look to it.
  • Jasmine flowers, jasmine buds, rose buds can also be used (as in the pic). It is just made of all the flowers you can get at the florist shop. Why not use them? The green color is made form the ferns stems.
I am not able to think of any more colors but I am sure you can make out some from your own imagination and kitchen and beauty ingredients. There are some tips which I can give on your Rangoli decorations:
  •  Mix rice grains with the respective colors to make them look more appealing. My mom had made a complete Rangoli from the rice grains mixed in different colors and believe me it was fabulous. It was in a competition she participated and won the first prize!! Using rice grains makes your Rangoli stay for longer.
  • Do not have the time to dry the ingredients and powder them. Just crush the things, make a paste and mix with rice. You will need more quantity and little patience to mix with rice because it takes time.
  • You can use essential oils in your colors to make your Rangoli smell exotic.
  • Use the diyas for decorating and illuminating your Rangoli strategically.
  • I do not have to tell you this but make Rangoli at a strategic place where it is visible to all but not in anyone’s way so that no one disturbs your hard work.
  • You can place small Ganesh ji’s in your Rangoli. That looks chic and will utilize the numerous Ganesh ji’s coming your way. (We do get lot of Ganesh ji’s during Diwali and I love it!!)
Wish you all a very Happy Diwali!! May it bring you and your family all the prosperity and happiness you wish for.
[Do you have any tips on Rangoli decoration or color making?]

Reduce air and sound pollution this Diwali

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Diwali is one of the favorite festivals for almost everyone due to various reasons but the most due to the crackers. But, have you ever realized the amount of pollution which can be caused just in one day? Of course, I know that the tendency to burst crackers has reduced to a large extent and year by year, Diwali is getting greener but still efforts must be kept up by every body and those who have not yet realized should become aware of the harm they are causing to the environment.

“On a personal level, my experience on a Diwali day is like why is it so loud and deafening? Oh, I can not breathe. It is so suffocating.”

“How much smoke comes from igniting just a single anar!!”
Imagine this on a scale of every house in the country. My God!!! Its just preposterous. So, this is my humble request to all those who love crackers and wait for Diwali just to burst crackers that please reduce or do not at all burst crackers. I will definitely understand if you can not completely give up because even I have not given up completely. I still love phuljhadi, pencils, anar, charkhi even though I have given up on rockets. Yes, not much contribution but definitely, I have reduced the amount of crackers I bring home. Not buying crackers can be devastating for kids. So, as a solution, you can at least opt for crackers which do not make noise on a huge scale.
For those who think that Diwali is just about crackers, it is not so. Diwali is a festival of lights not sound. Decorating your homes, making sweets, taking part in buying gifts and then exchanging them, all contribute to the festival. Frankly, it is the excitement of a festival which I enjoy more than the particular day. On a further note, I would also add that crackers have really bad effects on animals. So, please be humane and think about their plight too. And, as far as my resolution goes, I’ll buy even less crackers this time and will enjoy the festival in more greener ways.

Detox your home this Diwali

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Diwali is just a week away. And, I am damn excited about it 🙂 It is my favorite festival in whole of the year. And, it is a age old custom to clean our homes inside out before Diwali. I have seen that this custom has lost its importance over time due to our busy lifestyle and hectic schedules. But, there is more to this custom than just being a tradition. You can call this ‘Detox your home’ to make a more specific effect on people. In a sense it is what we do, removing all the junk piled up in the house over the course of year, taking the house inside out, buying new things for the house to welcome the new year. So, what all can be done while doing the detox of the house:

  • Start with the entrance of the house. Do you wash your door mats regularly? They becomes so dirty due to constant usage and dirt being accumulated. They are potential source of infections in the house so it is advisable to either wash it regularly with an antiseptic solution using a vacuum cleaner or you can even replace it with a new one every year.
  • Do you place door mats in front of your bathrooms? I know most of the people do but do not know how regular they are in washing it. So, same goes for washing these bathroom mats.
  • Now, lets go for bathrooms first. We do wash bathrooms really regularly. But, do you remember to wash the walls of the bathrooms, the shower head, the taps, soap holders and other cabinets in the bathroom. Do not forget it this time. Oh, by the way, do wash the shower curtains too if you have one. Of course, toilet rims are most prominent places to wash but do you wash inside the commodes? Then, again the buckets and mugs and other things we use.
  • Lets move to the bathing accessories. The flannels, loofahs, scrubbers, dry brushes, combs, hair brushes, makeup brushes and any other accessory which you use should be washed regularly and kept in sunlight for some time every week. Even 15 minutes is enough. That kills the bacteria in them. And, dry them every day before storing.
  • Do not forget to dry the tooth brush with hair drier or in sunlight before storing it to prevent molds and bacteria growing in it.
  • By the way, do you open the windows in your bathroom if you have any? Do open them at least once a week for a complete day to allow fresh air circulation. It also allows sunlight to come into your bathrooms.
  • Now, let us go to laundry. You wash clothes then put them in the drier. Today’s automatic washing machines give you fully dried clothes which you can simply put on and go. But, drying them in shade once a while or even in sunlight for 15-290 minutes helps them smell fresh and last longer.
  • Same goes for bed sheets. Change the bedding every week. And, if you suffer from acne and other breakouts, change bedding in 3 days at max making sure to use clean pillows almost everyday.
  • Do you launder your carpet? Do not forget to expose it to sunlight for a day this Diwali for a clean floor. Removing the carpet also helps the cleanign of the floor properly and removing the dirt in the carpet.
  • Same goes with the mattress. You can not launder your mattresses so keep them in sunlight for a day or two at least twice a year or once in three months.
  • Lets move to curtains. Curtains are ones which go completely beyond attention unless one day you are trying to remove it and find a plethora of dust settled on it. Change the curtains once in three months. That brings freshness to your rooms also in matters of look. You can use dark colored curtains or double curtains for bedrooms and light curtains for drawing room.
  • Now, cupboards are one places which are dark and become smelly quite easily. So, take out all the material from the cupboard, clean it nicely once in three months or every season change. Use a disinfectant with water while cleaning. After cleaning, leave the cupboards open to let lot of air inside. Then, after half a day, you can replace all the things inside the cupboard again. This way you can get the unnecessary junk out of the house regularly too. And, do not forget to donate the things which you do not need.
  • Place moth balls inside your cupboard every month. Always try to keep the cupboards in an orderly way but I know it is very difficult because I face the same problem. The more I try to be methodical, the more messy the place becomes.
  • When you remove the things from your cupboards whether it is clothes, suitcases, blankets, simple accessories, keep them in sunlight too for a day. This is again a nice way to freshen up things.
  • Before winters, always keep your winter clothes in sunlight for a week to freshen them up. This also includes the blankets and your jackets and other stuff too.
  • Open all the doors and windows in the morning to allow maximum natural light inside. Do this daily to reduce the usage of artificial light and hence, electricity.
  • Avoid using air fresheners as they have chemicals which are not good for you. Instead, keep your houses clean by using dried neem (margosa) leaves or homemade potpourri from rose petals and jasmine flowers. Also, keep lots of plants outside the house. Plants purify the air. If you can keep some inside, you should do that too.
  • There is a tradition of using mango tree leaves int he houses before any festival. The reason for this is because mango tree leaves are considered auspicious and control the evil elements for one and the second is because they are anti-bacterial and prevent the insects from entering the houses.
  • Use soap nuts or baking soda to clean your homes instead of any chemical detergents. You would be surprised by the results!!
Thus, detoxing your home is as good an idea as detoxing your body. Obviously, it is the basic hygiene which should be observed. A weekend is a perfect time to do this. So, happy detoxing and do share with me your own tips for cleaning out your houses.