Don’t let carelessness on Holi cause lifelong pain, make the festival happy and memorable.

On the festival of colours, Holi, there would be no such person who would not want to forget mutual hatred and get colored in colours. People express their happiness by putting colors on each other and applying gulal, but on the day of Holi, the increasing use of bright chemical colors instead of natural colors is becoming a cause for concern. Most of the colors are acidic or alkaline, which are prepared for commercial purposes and give very bright colors even when mixed in a small amount of water, due to which they are used indiscriminately on Holi. Such colors have very harmful effects on the skin. These colors have the most adverse effects on people with dry skin and especially the soft skin of women and children. Due to the effect of acid and alkali, itching starts on the skin and after some time, small white colored pimples start emerging on the skin, which are filled with pus. If it is treated immediately then it will be fine, otherwise serious skin related diseases can also develop. Poor quality commercial colors can cause various harms like allergy, skin diseases, irritation, damage to eyes, headache etc. Many times, even small carelessness on Holi causes lifelong pain. Therefore, if you want to make your Holi happy and memorable, then definitely pay attention to these things:-

– Use only natural colors instead of chemical colors. Most of the commercial colors contain engine oil and various harmful chemicals, which have a very bad effect on the skin.

– Before playing Holi, apply mustard or coconut oil or cold cream or sunscreen cream on the face and entire body so that the pores get closed and the colors remain only on the upper part of the skin. This will also make it easier to remove color from the skin after playing Holi.

– Before playing Holi, oil your hair thoroughly and apply castor oil on your nails so that the color can be easily removed later.

– Before going to play Holi, pour rose water in the eyes and as far as possible, play Holi with glasses on the eyes so that the colors do not affect the eyes.

– Women should wear thick and loose cotton and dark colored clothes while playing Holi. White or light colored clothes get wet in water and stick to the body, due to which the woman may have to face embarrassment in public.

– You should never behave in such a way that your relatives, husband’s friends or other men get unfair opportunity to molest you. Keep your behavior completely restrained, polite and dignified and even after seeing any wrong action of the other person, do not encourage him to move forward by keeping silence on it.

– Take bath immediately after playing Holi, but using laundry soap, kerosene oil, lime water, curd, turmeric etc. to remove color from the skin is harmful. Wipe the gulal applied on the face thoroughly with a dry cloth and if there is color, then gently clean the color from the skin by dipping cotton in coconut oil or cleansing milk. To remove color, add a little alum to the bath water and take bath with cold water only. The colors become stronger with hot water. Instead of detergent soap, good quality bathing soap can be used.

– If you feel itching or burning sensation on the skin even after bathing, then apply glycerin mixed with rose water.

– Shampoo your hair to remove color from it.

– After bathing, put rose water in the eyes. If color gets into your eyes while playing Holi or you feel a burning sensation in your eyes, do not rub your eyes but consult an eye specialist immediately.

– Yogesh Kumar Goyal

(The author is a senior journalist continuously active in journalism for 34 years)