Henna for Summer!

June 6, 2008 in Uncategorized, other art, wip | 4 comments

As I was exploring Berlin, DE last week with old friends and enjoying the nice hot weather with super cold beers, I got the warm feeling of summer coming ahead. So when I got back to London, I thought of going down to Brick Lane to scout out some henna to create a mendhi for myself (just in time for my b-day trip to California)!

I found a few options at a small grocer on Old Bethnal Green Road and bought the recommended Al Qamar CONE Henna Paste. I was expecting to buy the ingredients to mix, but this seemed like a much easier and faster solution. The guy behind the counter was right. This is by far the best £1 I’ve ever spent! There is no waiting for the paste to set and no messing with home-made cones, which made it super easy.

I was pretty happy with the end result. It’s a very nice dark reddish-brown color. You can tell that the design is darkest, where I began, on my hand so next time I’ll try removing parts of the henna towards the bottom first that way the design carries the same tone of color all through out.

This is what the design looked like before the paste was washed away.

Bookmark and Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

  1. Jen’s avatar

    Jen on June 7, 2008 at 18:28

    Lovely design, and that’s pretty impressive color for a pre-made cone, BUT…

    What’s in the pre-made cone? They usually have no ingredients listed on the packaging. They are also likely to contain unsafe ingredients.

  2. Maribel’s avatar

    Maribel on June 7, 2008 at 19:36

    Thank you!

    You know, you’re right, there are no ingredients in the packaging, but without really knowing the contents, it would be hard to say that it does in fact contain unsafe ingredients. I’m just gonna assume that if it’s for sale to the public that it probably won’t kill me :)

  3. nathalie’s avatar

    nathalie on August 6, 2008 at 03:29

    I read you now, i found this in a small indian shop in turnpike Lane, london i did it with adhesives strips i found in morrocco…But where did you get your model? Did you do it by yourself or by transfert? It is really beautiful!!!

  4. Maribel’s avatar

    Maribel on August 6, 2008 at 12:03

    Nathalie:

    Thanks! I did the design free-hand following a drawing I had previously done on paper. I wanted to try doing something untraditional to the designs you usually see for mendhi.

    Just yesterday, I found actual henna powder, which I’ll be trying out next with a different design.