As ‘organic’ Holi colours flood the markets, here’s how to check if they are actually safe

What are these ‘safe’ colours made of?

Traditionally, Holi, a harvest festival, was played with colours made of spring flowers which bloom this time of the year, and other natural ingredients such as leaves, tree bark, etc. Over the years, colours made from chemicals flooded the market, easy on the pocket and leaving long-lasting stains.

Today, genuinely natural gulaal or colour is made from dried flower petals, vegetable dyes, starch, leaves, etc. However, some manufacturers also use food-grade colours, which, though technically fit for consumption, are synthetic.

How can you check if ‘organic’ colour is indeed organic?

Here comes the tricky part. Not all manufacturers display any accreditation or hallmark to prove that their product is all it claims to be. If you examine packets of gulaal being sold online, while they will be plastered with words like “organic”, “natural” and even “ayurvedic”, the fine print doesn’t support the claims.

While some packets do state they are certified by National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories or the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), others simply say they are “lab-tested”. Some say nothing at all. The list of ingredients in most mentions flowers and plants, but if the starch or essential oil used is not mentioned, that means the list is incomplete.

The basic steps a customer can follow is carefully read the ingredients, check for accredition, and not buy loose colours sold in unmarked packets. Natural colours will have a short shelf life, so check the use-by date too. Also, the more vibrant the colour, the more likelihood of it having chemicals mixed in, as natural products give off a more muted colour. And because sourcing materials and making natural colours costs time and money, they are more expensive than the synetic variety.

Nakul Pasricha, president of the non-profit Authentication Solution Providers’ Association, had told The Indian Express in 2021: “If you are buying natural organic gulaal then look closely at the colour, if there are shiny particles in the colour then it is not naturally produced. Natural holi gulals are made with turmeric or henna (mehndi) flowers such as Marigold, Chrysanthemum, Rose and have ingredients like gram flour or rice flour. None of these has shiny quality of particles. So, note that shiny particles mean chemical content.”

And why are synthetic colours unsafe?

Multiple studies over the years have shown that synthetic colours have chemicals that can harm your skin, respiratory tract, and eyes. These chemicals also harm the environment, adding particulate matter (PM) to the air and taking years to decompose.

A 2009 study in the Indian Journal of Dermatology, titled ‘The Holi Dermatoses: Annual Spate of Skin Diseases Following the Spring Festival in India’, says, “Some of the popular colors and their ingredients are black (lead oxide), green (copper sulfate and malachite green), silver (aluminum bromide), blue (Prussian blue), and red (mercury sulfate). The dry colors, commonly known as ‘gulals’ or ‘abeer’, have two components – a colorant and a base, both of which may cause cutaneous problems. Mica dust is often added as a sparkling agent to the dry powders that can lead to multiple microtraumas of skin and predisposition to infections. Use of contaminated starch or wheat flour can further increase the chances of skin or ocular infections.”

Particulate matter are bascially tiny pieces of solids or liquids suspended in the air, that can get into your eyes, nose, throat, and lungs, causing infections and breathing trouble.

A 2016 study published in the National Library of Medicine, titled ‘Holi colours contain PM10 and can induce pro-inflammatory responses’, says, “We show here that all tested Holi colours consist to more than 40 % of particles with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than 10 μm, so called PM10 particles (PM, particulate matter). Two of the analysed Holi powders contained even more than 75 % of PM10 particles.”