Using Tamarind for Henna Dye

Video Transcript

"Alright we're going to talk about why we soak the tamarind. It's a dried fruit in this state and we soak it to soften it up which makes our henna paste. I'm going to show you how to do this. First of all you crack off the little bit of a shell and you can see it's kind of a rooty looking plant and there's seeds in here where all these little lumps are are seeds and this doesn't by itself doesn't really look like much, but when we cut it up and mix it with the lemon juice that we're going to use here in a few minutes, it makes a nice brown paste that we mix with the henna and it adds, helps to add to the reddish color and the thickness in the paste and it's natural and organic. And you want to get, you know I think two lemons is about enough, but you really want to get, you know about a half a cup, a good half a cup. So we get all the lemon juice in there. So now we're going to put our tamarind in and I like to break mine up just a little bit. It's kind of chewy and it has these dark little seeds in it, you'll see, and as this sets it's going to make a nice little paste. You know what, I think I'm going to put one more in than this little root, you just take it off and throw it away. Now it swishes around, now see, as you see this the lemon, the acidity in the lemon juice is going to do a couple of things. It's going to soften up this tamarind, and you're not going to believe how slimy it gets. It also darkens it up. It helps, it draws out some of the color that's in the tamarind naturally. I'm going to let it soak for about an hour, maybe more, maybe less, keep checking on it. It's no big deal, but you'll know when it's ready. It'll just be all nice and slimy."