Wednesday, February 25, 1998
Too timid to tattoo?
MENDHI: For a less painful, less risky body art, many are
flocking to beauty salons and tattoo and piercing parlors to
experience mehndi, the
all-natural skin decoration
By Meghan Ward
Daily Bruin Contributor
When Corine Leseuer, a conservative woman in her 50s, greeted
her husband at the door, she held out her arm to show him her new
red heart-shaped tattoo with his name written across it. Charles
Leseuer thought his wife had gone mad. Midlife crisis? No,
mehndi.
mehndi, the Haitian word for henna tattoo, is the latest trend
in body decoration. Painless, sanitary and inexpensive, mehndi
provides an alternative to those who are having trouble deciding if
that fire-breathing dragon tattoo will look as cool at 80 as it
does at 20.
Though henna has long been used in Western culture as natural
hair dye, it has only recently become prevalent in hair salons and
tattoo and piercing parlors as coloring used to create temporary
tattoos on the skin.
The henna plant (lawsonia inermis) is a small shrub grown in the
dry, hot climates of Northern Africa and Southeast Asia. The
strongest natural dye in the world, henna leaves and twigs are
ground into a fine powder and sifted through nylon to remove
unwanted debris.
The powder is then mixed with oils to form a paste, and the
paste is applied to the skin in designs ranging from traditional
Indian patterns and African designs to Japanese floral decorations
and art nouveau motifs.
The paste is kept moist for one half hour by dabbing it with a
lemon/sugar solution. The hardened henna is left on for 6 to 20
hours and then removed with a cotton ball and vegetable oil or
scraped off with the dull edge of a knife.
Once the paste is removed, the stain on the skin may range from
a light orange to a dark brown or even burgundy color. The design
will typically remain two to four weeks, depending on the quality
of the henna and how often one washes ones skin.
Carin Fabius and Pascal Giacomini, owners of Gallery Lakaye in
Los Angeles, opened the first all-mehndi parlor in the United
States last year.
When we first opened, we were getting as many calls for people
wanting to do mehndi as people who wanted to get it done, Fabius
recalls.
At the time, articles about mehndi were running in People,
Vanity Fair and Los Angeles magazine. Celebrities like Naomi
Campbell, Demi Moore and Mira Sorvino were having mehndi
applied.
Soon hair salons and tattoo parlors began offering mehndi to
customers. Realizing how little information about mehndi was
available to the general public, Fabius and Giacomini decided to
focus their efforts on trade shows, trainings and mehndi
supplies.
Frustrated with the fact that once henna is mixed into a paste
it only lasts three days, Fabius and Giacomini hired a chemist to
combine henna with a natural preservative in order to create a
natural henna mixture with a shelf-life.
Seven months later, they marketed the Lakaye Mehndi Studio Earth
Henna body painting kit. The kit is complete with everything one
needs to practice mehndi and once prepared, the paste lasts up to
six weeks.
In addition, with the Lakaye kit, the wet paste remains on the
skin for just six hours instead of the typical 15 to 20 hours that
other kits require.
Corinne Weber, second-year world arts and cultures major at
UCLA, got a mehndi armband at the Farmers Market in Westwood last
quarter. Weber agrees that the hardest part is waiting for the
paste to dry. It was on for about a day. I couldnt put my arm to my
body. That part was kind of annoying, Weber says.
Other mehndi artists offer color and black mehndi. Color tattoos
last only three days, but are convenient for those who want to test
out what a real tattoo would look like and for those like Leseuer,
whose motivation is shock value.
Ravenna Bennet, a third-year student at UCLA, is a mehndi artist
at Thirteen BC, a piercing/mehndi parlor on Melrose Avenue, where
black mehndi is especially popular. Right now, the black is more
popular because it shows up better and looks more like a real
tattoo, Bennett says.
Parlors that practice black mehndi use natural henna mixed with
a chemical, or a chemical by itself. Bennett confirms that at
Thirteen BC, black mehndi is performed using an Asian chemical dye
called kattam.
Marsha Knight, web site designer and part-time mehndi artist at
Angel Hair Salon on 3rd Street in Los Angeles warns her customers
about black mehndi.
One girl who came here her friend had it done and she said it
turned green and splotchy. It also dyes the hair on your arms. One
other guy had it done and it scarred his skin. It looked like a
chemical burn.
Bennett agrees that kattam does sometimes cause skin
irritations. However, she is aware of only three customers that
have had allergic reactions to black mehndi.
The people who did have a reaction had the black henna done and
when it faded, came back and had it done again in the same spot,
Bennett adds. She advises that anyone concerned about having a
reaction do a test patch 48 hours prior to receiving a mehndi
design.
The art of mehndi (also spelled mendhi or mehandi) originated in
Egypt over three thousand years ago. Traces of henna have been
found on the fingertips and toes of mummified Pharaohs.
Spreading through Northern Africa and the Middle East, mehndi
made its way to India during the 12th century where it was valued
in particularly hot and dry regions for its cooling properties.
Indians cooled their bodies by applying henna paste to their hands
and their feet.
Gradually, people began to use henna as a cosmetic, as Indians
created designs on their skin for special ceremonies such as
weddings and the Hindu new year celebration, Devali. It was custom
for a bride-to-be to gather with other females the night before her
wedding so she could be painted with henna, while the others
divulged the secrets of married life.
Sometimes the bridegrooms name would be hidden in a design on
the womans body. The following night, he would have to find his
name on the womans body before the marriage could be
consummated.
You do not need to be a bride to get mehndi. You do not even
need to wait until summer (although summer is the most popular time
to get mehndi because people like to show it off). There are mehndi
artists all over Los Angeles eager to paint your hands, your feet,
your navel, what-have-you.
Men generally prefer tribal armbands while women go for the vine
bracelets.
For the artistically inclined, kits are sold at Neiman Marcus,
Pearl Art Supply, Aahs! and numerous gift shops and hair salons.
For the really adventurous, get on the Internet and find a mehndi
recipe. Experiment until you discover what works best for you. Just
remember that henna is virtually impossible to remove from clothes,
and if you get it on your nails, there is no way to get it out
except cut them.
AELIA KHAN
Pascal Giacomini draws patterns with mehndi on a customers
hand.
AELIA KHAN
A closer view of some of the designs that can be drawn.
AELIA KHAN
Menhdi can also be done on the feet.