Bindi (Forehead Decoration) – How to Design Your Own Bindis (Pottu) at Home

If you ever happen to visit a village fair in India, you will find these bindi stamps (pottu achu in Tamil) sold by small vendors. I got mine a long time ago and I have made a good use of it over the years. I have always loved to draw elaborate bindhi designs with my hands using a good eye liner brush. Designing your own bindhis is not very difficult, but you need a steady hand to draw the bindhis from scratch and loads of patience.

But these bindhi stamps take out all the hard work of bindhi designing and the best part is they usually have all the shapes that we can think of. Usually a bindi stamp will have up to 20 to 25 individual stamps of different designs. I usually make a base design with the bindhi stamp and then add a few touches to the basic design and it usually results in a stunning and unique bindhi design. These bindhi stamps also have fun shapes like animals that small girls will enjoy a lot.

If you are a person who is allergic to chemical based eyeliners, then please try out my homemade eyeliner and use it a base for bindhi designing. To make the bindhi design, first apply a thick coat of homemade eyeliner on the bindhi stamp and then press it lightly once on the forehead without shaking your hands. It is very important that you press it lightly and remove it without shaking the hand. If you press it firmly, it smudges and the design looks all messed up.

Now you will have a beautiful base design. With the help of a good fine eyeliner brush, add further designs to the bindhi. You can even add stones that are available everywhere, to make bridal bindhis. If you use the homemade eyeliner as a base, you can draw bindhis for very young girls too, without worrying about any skin allergies. You can even try it out with different colored liquid bindhis available in the market, if you are not allergic to store bought liquid bindhis. But when you are using liquid bindhis on stamps, make sure to use little or they will smudge.

How to Design Your Own Bindis (Pottu) at Home

METHOD:
1. Choose the base for the bindi design, I used my chemical free homemade eyeliner.

2. This is how the bindhi stamps are sold.

3. Choose any one stamp and apply a thick coat of the home made eyeliner.

4.Press it lightly once on the fore head and remove the stamp. If you feel certain areas are not clear, you can finish it up with the eye liner brush. But please don’t press the stamp again on the already made design. This is the base design, you can keep a stone in the middle and draw using this design as the base.

4. You can also use bindhi stones to create bridal bindhis. I just did a simple design for a bridal bindhi. You can do elaborate designs with the base design.

NOTES:

• The quality of the brush also matters a lot, so try to find a good quality eyeliner brush that will help you to draw fine lines.
• I have no experience with liquid bindhis, but I have seen people use it.
• The trick to perfect bindhi is to press lightly once and remove it.