Henna - decorated

After giving the henna paste several hours to set, the girls and I went at it. I started off by rigging a cone out of the corner of a thick plastic shopping bag (reduce, reuse, recycle...), then practiced on my own arm.



You know, it's really hard to work on your own arm. *L* Unfortunately, part way through, Eldest pointed out that I'd bent my wrist back while adding some details higher up, and smudged the band. You can actually see it a bit in this picture, I just noticed now. I ended up having to fill in the section with dots, so it'll be just solid henna stain.

I shaved my arms before I started, because the paste can get hung up on the hairs.





Eldest had drawn out on paper what designs she wanted. After Dh freshly shaved the sides of her head, I copied her designs onto her scalp.

I like this side's design.










Eldest likes this side better.











Later on, I let Eldest go nuts on one of my legs, so I've got a design on my foot, ankle and lower leg. We didn't get a good picture of it, though. Maybe later.


Then Youngest got her turn. She wanted me to go up her arms, too, but we'll have to shave her arms to do that.

So we're all sitting around with henna paste drying and setting on our skin. We're looking at ways to cover them so that they can be left overnight before we wash off the paste, so the designs will be nice and dark. :-D

Henna - getting started

We haven't done anything with henna since before we moved away from Manitoba. It took me a while to find some again. The hard part is finding pure, powdered henna leaves. Unfortunately, it's one of those things that are often adulterated. I did have a Canadian supplier highly recommended to me. Eldest had something mind, though, so we wanted some faster than ordering online would allow for. After much searching and recommendations from people we've got to know since our move, we ended up getting some at Superstore, of all places. I have no idea as to the quality of what we found, but we'll give it a go.

In the past, I've simply mixed henna power with warm water. It works fine, in general. The henna tends to flake off a lot when it dries, though, and sometimes the stain isn't very good. So this time, I used instructions and advice from here, and used lemon juice and sugar.


All set up and ready to mix. I made sure to use a ceramic bowl and plastic spoon. Glass bowls work fine, too, and I could probably have used both a metal bowl (if I had one) or a metal spoon, but the site mentioned that henna sometimes reacts with metal. I also made sure to cover the counter area with paper towels and got out some latex gloves.






I didn't bother sifting the powder first - I didn't feel like doing it twice. You'll see why, later. Here, I've got about 1 spoonful of sugar and 5 rounded spoonfuls of henna powder mixed together. This is a *lot* of henna for personal use.







It took a lot more lemon juice than I expected to get it to the consistency I wanted. Note that you can see a few lumps in the paste.








Here, I've got Eldest helping me out. For a sieve, I used an old knee high stocking with a run in it (see... being a packrat does come in handy sometimes... right, Dh? *ahem*). I just cut it open and had Eldest hold it taught across the bowl. If I'd had one, I could have used a "carrot bag" to scoop the paste into an uncut stocking.

Things got interesting at this point. The cat, seeing us in the kitchen, decided to come over and start talking to us. As I was trying to take this picture, she jumped up onto my hip and stayed there a few seconds, then climbed up to my shoulder, crossed over to Eldest's shoulder, and started heading for the top of the fridge. Several ruined photos later, Eldest was able to take her to where she was really wanting to go - the top shelf of the hall closet. She's still there as I write this.

The scratches on my hip and shoulder should be interesting.



The finished paste. Now, it just needs to sit for a few hours for the dye to activate. I've covered it with plastic so it won't dry out.

Now I have to figure out what to use for a cone. I've got a few options to decide from.