Lalee: Black Feet

This week, in my never-ending effort to be well-integrated in my community, I turned the soles of my feet black with a product called lalee (this spelling is approximative). In my community, black soles are a way of enhancing your beauty. The product has a similar effect to henna (ie, it temporarily dyes your skin), but the substance itself is different.

There are two forms of lalee in Benin. There is the traditional lalee, which I selected, and also a new version which is called lalee Yayi Boni (named after Beninese president Yayi Boni).

The traditional lalee comes in two parts. First, you mix a green powder with water and apply the paste to your skin. Ideally, you will leave this on for at least three hours and repeat the process multiple times. The green paste will dye your skin red. To make sure that your dyed soles have very clean lines, electrical tape is used to define the area to be dyed, much like painter's tape and plastic tarp keep you from painting your baseboards when painting a wall.

Lalee. The paste in the bowl is ready to be applied to my feet. The green powder in the plastic baggies is for the next round. The small baggie on the left contains the crystals that will help turn my red soles black.

My sole is orange from the last round of lalee that we applied, but we are adding another round to make it even darker.

Once your lalee is deep red, you apply the second part. For this step, you mix a crystal powder with water and ashes or cement, then apply it to your feet. You let this sit for 20-30 minutes before removing. Any place that had been deep red before will turn black.

Applying the cement-crystal mix that will turn my red soles black

However, if your sole was not deep red, the black will not come in properly. On my first attempt, the red color did not set in very well, so I ended up with red soles with black spots like leopard skin. The next attempt produced a similar result. For my third attempt, my friend decided that I needed to wear the green paste overnight to make sure that the red color set in well. She applied it for me at 9 pm, then sent me home with plastic bags around my feet. I slept with those plastic bags, then removed the green paste. She had me do another round of green paste (three hours to set in), then the final step to turn it black, and voila! I have black soles.

Success!