 Sindoor is a red powder which is applied as a full line along the dividing part of a woman's hair or a dot on the forehead. Sindoor in the part is the mark of marriage in Hinduism and is only used by married women. Single women do wear the dot ("bindi" in Hindi).
The history of sindoor is believed to be very old; it is a very traditional practice. It expresses a woman's desire for a long life for their husbands. The reason sindoor is red is because it comes from vermillion, and it is said to represent strength and love. Women initially experience it during their marriage ceremonies and it is considered very important since the bride belongs to the groom and, apparently, loses her virginity as soon as it is put on.
There are many Indian movies and dramas under the name of sindoor — sindoor tere naam ki and the movie sindoor released in 1987 — with their themes revolving around the ritual's significance.
Modern women seldom use sindoor in the part, partly because it is inconvenient and considered unattractive; in some cases, women have adverse reactions to the chemicals in sindoor. (It usually contains mercury or lead compounds.)
In general, using sindoor is a Hindu tradition, and not followed by Muslim women. In the 19th century, sindoor was one of the rituals that a Sufi leader Sharafuddin Maneri had permitted Bangladeshi Muslim women to practice but soon a reformist organization was established to eliminate it.
Though most Indian women do continue to wear the bindi, it has become a decorative accessory often applied as a sticker.
Composition
Traditional sindoor (also known as kumkum) was made with turmeric and alum or lime, or from other herbal ingredients. The commercially available powders are usually mercury or lead compounds (e.g., powdered red lead); these are toxic and can cause lead poisoning.
Health hazard
In early 2008, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered several US retail stores and malls to remove bindi and sindoor from their shelves due to concerns over high lead and other harmful chemical contents.
Dermatologists have concluded that the internal effects of lead are dangerous and can cause possilbe side effects on the central nervous system, kidneys and heart. Nevertheless, the emergence of synthetic dye industry has led to a variety of chemical dyes and salts at a cheaper price in India.
Vermilion
Vermilion, also spelled vermillion, when found naturally-occurring, is an opaque orangish red pigment, used since antiquity, originally derived from the powdered mineral cinnabar. Chemically the pigment is mercuric sulfide, HgS. Like all mercury compounds it is toxic.
Today, vermilion is most commonly artificially produced by reacting mercury with molten sulfur. Most naturally produced vermilion comes from cinnabar mined in China, giving rise to its alternative name of China red.
As pure sources of cinnabar are rare, natural vermilion has always been extremely expensive. In the Middle Ages, vermilion was often as expensive as gilding. As of 2007 a 40 ml tube of genuine Chinese Vermilion oil paint can cost £51.
In painting, vermilion has largely been replaced by the pigment cadmium red, a pigment that is less reactive due to the replacement of mercury with cadmium, especially in certain applications such as watercolors. The last mainstream commercial source in watercolors was from the Belgian artist's materials company Blockx, although the pigment can still be obtained in oils, where it is considered more stable. Unlike mercuric sulfide, cadmium sulfide is available in a large range of warm hues, including hues obtained by the addition of selenium or zinc. The range is from lemon yellow to a dull deep red, sometimes referred to as "cadmium purple".
Vermilion is also the name of the typical color of the natural ground pigment, which is a bright red tinged with orange. It is somewhat similar to the color scarlet. Vermilion is not on the color wheel since the color is mixed with a slight amount of grey. As with cadmium sulfide, mercuric sulfide can be found in a range from a bright orange-toned red to a duller slightly bluish red. The differences in hue are due to the range in the size of the ground particles. The larger the average crystal is, the duller and less orange-toned it appears. It has been theorized that the more coarsely ground "Chinese" form of vermilion is more permanent than the more orange "French" variety. It is also theorized that purification leads to increased stability, as with many other pigments.
Hindu women use vermilion known as Sindoor, after they are married.
Turmeric
Turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a rhizomatous herbaceous perennial plant of the ginger family, Zingiberaceae which is native to tropical South Asia. It needs temperatures between 20 and 30 deg. C. and a considerable amount of annual rainfall to thrive. Plants are gathered annually for their rhizomes, and re-seeded from some of those rhizomes in the following season.
It is also often misspelled (or pronounced) as tumeric. It is also known as kunyit or haldi in some Asian countries.
Its rhizomes are boiled for several hours and then dried in hot ovens, after which they are ground into a deep orange-yellow powder commonly used as a spice in curries and other South Asian cuisine, for dyeing, and to impart color to mustard condiments. Its active ingredient is curcumin and it has an earthy, bitter, peppery flavor and has a mustardy smell.
Sangli, a town in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra, is the largest and most important trading centre for turmeric in Asia or perhaps in the entire world.
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