Henna
Care
There are many ways to take good care of your Henna Tattoo. Here are a few useful directions:
- Do not touch paste while drying.
- Leave it on for a minimum of 2 hours. (the longer you leave the paste on, the darker it gets)
- Let dry paste fall by itself. Do not use water to remove paste.
- No water contact on henna for 48 hours to get good color. If needed, protect area by applying oil or Vaseline before wash.
FOR BEST RESULTS: When paste is dry, dab lemon juice to wet it. Allow the paste to dry again for 1 hour or longer.
NOTE: It takes 48 hours for your henna tattoo to fully darken! Henna tattoos can last up to 2 weeks or more with good care.
Henna Stain Color
Henna stains in a variety of colors, from pale orange-brown to burgundy. This is primarily influenced by the thickness of the skin layers of different parts of the body. Usually, the thicker the skin layers, the darker the stain. Additionally your skin tone influences the resulting color as henna is translucent and blends with your natural coloring. Keep in mind that henna has been used in countries all along the Mediterranean from Africa to India on women of varying skin tones with spectacular results!
Darkest stain areas: palms, soles and sides of feet, toes
Dark stain areas: tops of hands and fingers, sides and tops of feet
Medium stain areas: forearms and calves
Light stain areas: all other body parts
Natural Henna is NEVER black.
So what is the “black henna” that you may have seen at a festival or on the street? Well, the truth is, it likely has some henna in it but that isn’t what makes it black. A substance also found in black hair dye is the key ingredient for black henna, known as PPD (para-phenylenediamine ). Skin exposed to PPD for an extended period of time (as is needed in henna application) can irritate the skin, possibly even scar it (as seen in the photo below.)
This information comes from http://ajnahenna.wordpress.com/warning-re-black-henna/ Read More about Black henna on their page.
I encourage you to find out from your Henna artist what ingredients they use before getting a tattoo. They may use a premade paste and not even know if it contains PPD. Because I make my own you can be sure that I use only natural and safe ingredients. My basic recipe is ground henna powder, essential oil (usually lavender or cajuput), sugar, and lemon juice.
Facts
General Information on Henna
- Used to decorate the body for over 5,000 years in countries such as India, Egypt and Africa usually for celebrations.
- Made from ground leaves of the Lawsonia Inermis plant.
- Henna paste is applied to the skin in various designs with a Mylar cone or bottle (no needles!).
- Henna paste stains the top layers of skin and does not enter the blood stream.
- After paste is removed the henna stain (tattoo) will
darken over 48 hours to light orange/brown to burgundy depending on location of tattoo and skin tone.
- Shaka Henna Tattoos uses all natural Shelly Henna Paste with absolutely no dangerous PPD’s.
