Qixi, a traditional Festival in China, has many folk customs, begging, fighting, planting, storing water, making food, etc., of which flowers and grass dye nails, is one of the important customs, Qing Sunsun described: "Meaning the edge of the fence, the sound of the grass, and see the phoenix fairy opening." Search through the dew bushes and gently pick them, crush the golden pots, and dye them into a haze. Like a little bit of saliva, early and night, spring fingers. "The phoenix, the plant name Impatiens balsamina, a plant of the genus Hydrangeae, is a very common popular flower, and when there are patios, gardens, yards and open spaces in front of the door, you can see its red, purple, pink, and white flowers everywhere you look. Hyacinths and sunflowers (portulaca grandiflora), celosia cristata, and purple jasmine mirabilis jalapa are iconic plants with nostalgic complexes, and everyone's childhood has the fragrance of the nocturnal flower and the splendor of the sunflower, and everyone's youth also has the green of the cockscomb flower and the germination of the hyacinth flower.
▼ Photo by the hydrangea | June cow
"Who is the house of Dong Zhen yi song, He Han Xi liu yue half oblique, vulgar dyeing fiber red nails, golden pot night pounding phoenix fairy flowers." Folk dye nails with the flowers and leaves of the hydrangea flower, so it is commonly known as henna and nail peach. Strangely, the red flowers and purple flowers are directly mashed and dyed, in fact, they cannot be dyed, and the Southern Song Dynasty's elaborate "Sequel to The Miscellaneous Knowledge of Decoction" records: "The red flowers of the phoenix are mashed with leaves, a little bit of alum, first wash the nails, and then pay for the nails, and wrap them with pieces for the night." The initial dyeing is light, three or five times in a row, its color is like rouge, washing can not go, can be through ten, until the nails are withdrawn, the party gradually goes away. ”
▼ Hydrangea | June cow
Lawsonia inermis, also commonly known as henna, henna leaves, henna wood, the leaves contain henna quinone, the content is much higher than the leaves of the hydrangea, can dye nails. Compared with the widely planted hydrangeas, henna native to tropical and subtropical semi-arid regions of North Africa, Asia and Australia, due to temperature and other factors, domestic planting is not much, and there are not many people who know it. The "Compendium of Materia Medica" describes it as "yellow and white, open in summer, fragrant like a wood rhinoceros". The long inflorescences of henna, the flattened spherical capsules, and many of the flower colors resemble the different genera of Lagerstroemia indica in the same family. Linnaeus named hennaeus in 1753, and the Latin scientific name of the genus Lawsonia pays tribute to the Scottish physician Lawson, who funded the publication of Natural Systems, adding the word inermis meaning "thornless", but in fact its mature twigs are hard and prickly.
▼ Henna | picture source see the original watermark
Henna dyeing is widely used, not only in nail dyeing, but also in hair dyeing, eyebrow dyeing, beard dyeing and even body art, and has many connections with the aesthetic development of the West, including the dying of red hair by female artists in the aesthetic movement of the 19th century. Many festivals in the area where they are planted, people celebrate with this flower. The powder processed from henna leaves is called Henna, which comes from Arabic and is a name inherited from the mainland Uyghur language. Nowadays, Henna has long gone from folk to commercial, giving birth to many products, usually red-dyed series, known as "Red Henna", but if it is blackened Henna, the raw material is not Henna, but may come from the cruciferous plant Isatis tinctoria.
▼ Henna powder | image from Wikipedia
Phytolacca acinosa of the Shanglu family, the ripe fruit is black, but the extruded juice is as bright as a purple red like rouge, which is the most direct nail dyeing material, and it can also be the fastest and most convenient nail dyeing. If you are afraid of contaminating other parts of the hand except the nails, you can use paper to pick the ripe fruits of Shanglu, knead them, and carefully apply each nail while squeezing the broken fruits with the paper, but the red, purple and a little intense. In fact, the wild shanglu of Jiangnan has been relatively rare, and a large number of them are vigorously inhabited alien species of American shanglu (vertical order Shanglu P. Americana ), just by looking at the sagging inflorescence and synthrophytic carpel, it can be clearly distinguished from the shanglu with the upright inflorescence and the detached carpel, but the juice of the purple-black berries of the American shanglu can dye the nails.
▼ Shang Lu and Shang Lu | Zhu Li photo
Another commoner flower, purple jasmine, is often flowered in the evening, nicknamed supper flower, bath flower, and because of its juice dyeing, also known as rouge flower. The flowers are purple red, yellow, white or variegated, purple red ones, the flowers are twisted, the red flower juice can be directly dyed nails, this red color number is quite different, a bit of ordinary taste. The red dye plants commonly used by the ancients were rubia cordifolia, safflower (Carthamus tinctorius), caesalpinia sappan, etc., but the materials are rare, such as the heartwood of the trunk to be dyed, and the safflower is not a common species; Second, the dyeing process is complex, such as safflower contains yellow and red pigments, which need to be separated, otherwise the color is not pure, and the Ming Dynasty Song Yingxing's "Tiangong Kaiwu" records the detailed process of purifying red pigment in safflower. Therefore, if you use these nails, you are suspected of being too big and small, after all, dyeing nails is just a trick of the little daughters.
▼ Purple Jasmine | June Cow Photo
▼ Madder | Muyan Photo
▼ Safflower | June Cow Photo
"The golden phoenix blossoms are more vivid in color, and the beautiful people are dyed with dan." The kites scatter peach petals, and the wine is frivolous tortoiseshell spots. Mirror Mars flowing night moon, thrush red rain over the spring mountain. Sometimes Manto blushed and thought, suspected to be rouge dot jade face. "Dyeing nails is a chore that can be done or not, venting a mood, like planting flowers." Plant hydrangea flowers, plant purple jasmine, you can see colorful flowers, play the cracked capsule fruit of the phoenix, the small mine-like black skinny fruit of the purple jasmine, the stalk of the hydrangea can also pickle famous small vegetables, and the meat of the roasted fish throws a few hydrangea seeds. If you plant some roses, lingxiao and the like, it is also very good, and the flowers are also beautiful. One day, I wanted to pick some flowers to dye my nails, which was also a very natural and very happy thing.
【Author】June Niu, whose real name is Hang Yueyu, is a researcher at the Research Center for Plant Diversity and Phylogenetics at the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jiangsu Province, and an adjunct professor and doctoral supervisor of Nanjing Agricultural University. His research interests include plant systems and taxonomy, plant and functional gene evolution. In addition to research, since June 2016, he has created a personal public account "Grass and Trees Youjia", aiming to popularize the science of plants and culture. He is currently a member of the 9th Jiangsu Science and Technology Association, the chief communication expert of botany in Jiangsu Province, and the director of the Jiangsu Science Writers Association.
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Manuscript | June cattle
Edit, Layout | Yao Yuan