Yesterday on Facebook I posted a picture of Gracie’s currently lime green hair and asked if any of you could guess what had happened to it…that was kind of an unfair question…there was pretty much no way you were ever going to guess.
Sorry…I wasn’t trying to be difficult…ok, maybe I was but today I’ll explain what happened.
Here’s the story of how I turned Grace’s hair green:
Saturday was Holi Fest at the Sri Sri Radha Krishna Lotus Temple.
It’s an annual event and loads of fun so when my brother called and reminded me about it we decided that we had to go and that we had to take Simon and Grace.
So we did.
And it was awesome.
Now if you are like me and not of that faith you may not know what the Holi Fest is so here is a very brief explanation taken straight from the Krnsa’s Temples website:
Holi—Festival of Colors
In India, Holi announces the arrival of spring and the passing of winter. The festival breathes an atmosphere of social merriment. People bury their hatchets with a warm embrace and throw their worries to the wind. Every nook and corner presents a colorful sight. Young and old alike are covered with colors (red, green, yellow, blue, black and silver). People in small groups are seen singing, dancing and throwing colors on each other.
So that is the general idea…now add in the location (an intriguing temple on top of a hill in the middle of cow pastures) and the people (the festival averages around 80,000 people)…and the live bands playing music…and the bags and bags and bags of color and you’ve got yourself something pretty amazing to attend.
I like taking my kids to experience different things…and I’m pretty sure my kids thought this experience was well worth attending.
On the way to the festival I explained to Simon about where we were going and what we were going to do there. He thought about it and asked that if we were going to be throwing our worries up into the air would they come down and stick on to other people? (And then they would have to worry about those worries?)
We said no.
Then he asked if he could still throw color even if he didn’t have any worries.
We said yes.
And once we got there he didn’t waste anytime unloading his worries…er…colors.
As for Grace….
Every two hours they have an official color toss.
But you can’t even make it to the entrance of the festival before you are covered in color.
This photo of Grace was taken before any of the color tossing started.
Everywhere you turn people are hugging and laughing and dancing and throwing color EVERYWHERE. My kids were in heaven.
Grace got her own bag of hot pink color and went to town sprinkling it on every person she passed.
And me?
Well, I even let someone take a picture of me at the beginning of the color toss.
(Which was really something to see….the color toss that is, not me. Which is why I am sharing this picture…look at the air around me! It’s crazy!)
When the tossing starts the sky changes color…its loud…its jubilant…it’s a fun place to be.
And I’m telling you right now..none of these photos do the festival (or the colors) justice…it’s awesome. To see a really short really cool video of the sights and sounds of the Holi Fest you can go HERE to see what we saw.
(It’s worth clicking over to just for the first 15 second shot of the temple and the first color toss. I promise.)
As for the green hair, well, you saw Grace in the photo above and that was at the beginning of our day…she was far more colored by the time we left. And when we got home and began washing her hair I realized that it wasn’t coming out.
That green is just loving her hair.
Since Saturday she has had her hair washed and conditioned MANY times but that green is sticking. She doesn’t mind and was even proud that it matched her Easter dress but I hope it doesn’t last forever.
So there you have it—green hair from the Holi Festival.
I think I’ll blame it on my brother…going was all his idea.
Thanks a lot Zach.
(No really, thanks a lot. Let’s do it again next year.)
-liZ
oh my goodness how fun and beautiful! i have never heard of it before, thanks for sharing. and wow another pic of you:)
Too bad I don’t follow facebook, I’d have known. We did our own Holi celebration in my town and it was AWESOME! It has been one of my favorite holidays since I was a child. The other one is Navratri. You should look up that festival; and go if they celebrate it. It might be a bit late at night but it is a lot of fun. 🙂
Wow, that first throw of color in the video gave me goose bumps….crazy beautiful! Definitely worth getting green hair for!!
That is totally hysterical! What an awesome festival. Kind of rough on towheads, but fun nonetheless!
I Love it, I am so glad we went. I never would have gone by myself. I vote we go next year–hopefully Grace’s hair will return to normal by then. 🙂
As one who lives in the town that has the festival, it is a mess. But other than that, loads of people love it.
As for her hair, try something with a red base to neutralize out the color. Or there is a treatment that I used to use when I worked in a salon about 8 years ago called a Malibu treatment. We used it to get chlorine out of blonde hair at the end of summer. I have heard of people using tomato sauce to get the green from chlorine out of hair. The idea behind color on hair is that you use color wheel, so opposite colors neutralize each other.
Good luck!
That’s really a neat story- I’ve heard of it before in India-I’d totally go if I had the chance.
Okay, but the reason I’m commenting is because–Whoa mama! That’s you Liz? I guess I’ve never seen you before, you are classically beautiful. And young! I didn’t think you were old old, just thought you were too calm/wise to be in your 20s(?)
Now I feel like a weirdo- great post, & glad I have a face now lol!
I’m going to go look up Navratri right now. And I can see why this is one of your favorite holidays. It’s really cool.
-liZ
I’m going to go look up Navratri right now. And I can see why this is one of your favorite holidays. It’s really cool.
-liZ
Oh my! I bet it’s crazy for all of you that live near the temple—the traffic…and the cars parked EVERYWHERE was insaine!!! (But is was so really so fun.)
Thanks for the hair fixing ideas…I really think I’m going to try the tomato sauce!
-liZ
Oh my! I bet it’s crazy for all of you that live near the temple—the traffic…and the cars parked EVERYWHERE was insaine!!! (But is was so really so fun.)
Thanks for the hair fixing ideas…I really think I’m going to try the tomato sauce!
-liZ
Amy…you’ve never seen me because I never post photos of myself…and as for my 20’s…I haven’t seen them for 5 years! But thank you for being so nice. You made my night.
-liZ
Amy…you’ve never seen me because I never post photos of myself…and as for my 20’s…I haven’t seen them for 5 years! But thank you for being so nice. You made my night.
-liZ
so fun!! You guys look like human Easter eggs all pretty and colorful!! One of my daughter’s has platinum blonde hair and it loves to soak up colors like green chlorine, paint, etc!! I have tried all kinds of shampoo but haven’t found anything that works like a charm. Think i might try the tomato sauce trick next time.
Even covered in paint, you look ravishing.
That looks like so much fun! And what a neat concept of getting rid of worries.
Thanks so much for sharing!
Gorgeously amazingly fun!
I’m seriously going to go next year! I hope you’re able to find something that will work with her hair. I really have no clue, but I’m sure next year, my 2 towheads will look just like her and we’ll have the same problem! Maybe we should start working on a hair net pattern that wont look too ridiculous for then? lol
Not sure if you found it, but if you didn’t, look up garba. Navratri (translated) is the celebration of nine nights corresponding to nine goddesses. And people worship them by dancing the night away. The traditional dance is called garba. There are two or three step ones that are most popular and easy to follow. Hope you can go.
I actually saw a bunch of pictures from the Holi festival on tumblr from abroad and I thought it looked amazing. Glad you guys had lots of fun!