Follow my blog with Bloglovin

Let’s talk about Henna.

A couple of weeks ago I saw an amazing henna glove on Instagram and I COULD NOT get it out of my mind.  I’m kinda obsessive about all things pretty and wether it’s a cosmetic, shampoo bottle, leather jacket or pretty dress, once IT gets in my brain I simply cannot function until I have it.  Henna was no different! So I started to do my homework…

Obviously I’ve seen henna gloves or finger designs on others but always in a kinda rubbish ‘stopped off at some lady on the street in Benidorm’ kinda way.  That wasn’t gonna cut it for this girl, I wanted the BEST!

After a fair bit of Googling and Facebook creeping I stumbled across Heenatastic.  I actually remembered from my stop off in Naf! SALON (for our first ever blog post…click HERE if you wanna check it out) that Sadia of Heenatastic worked there, and since I loved my visit to Naf! I trusted that I was in safe hands…and as ALWAYS, I was right ( not really, like 60% of the time in life I am right, but when it comes to pretty things I bat at 100%).  Sadia no longer works in Naf! but does appointments from her home in Shawlands, so I booked in and off I went!

Sadia has 14 years of experience in doing henna and she is so knowledgable in her field. We talked for hours about Henna, her background, the dangers of some henna practices and of course we ended up having a 20 minute conversation about pizza, because with me, the conversation always ends in pizza. I wanted to talk a little about the do’s and dont’s of henna and a little about aftercare….and then if you want, we can talk about pizza?

Let’s start off by addressing that ALOT of places do henna and ALL of them claim that it’s 100% natural….it is not. So uh…how do you tell?

LOOK The henna paste should not be black. It should be a greenish\brown colour on application and will go a little darker once dry. If your henna artists hands are stained black, get the heck out of there. Black henna (what is mostly what you see in holiday resorts or the super cheap option in salons) is what causes the horrible reactions, sometimes burns and often lifelong scarring. I aint gonna get all scientific on ya, but it contains paraphenylenediamine, and that isn’t good news (and yes, I copied and pasted that word, I aint a genius honey).

SMELL Natural henna will have a citrus scent, very lemony but I had to put my hand all the way up to my face to smell it. Sadia explained that non natural henna have added oils to mask the chemical scent and this makes it overpowering. So again, head for the door if this is the case.

So there you have a couple of ways to tell that your hands are in safe hands lovelies. Now, lets look at how preeeeeeetty….

The whole process is so relaxing and took about 2 and a half hours (more intricate designs will obviously take longer). As soon as it was done, I was in LOVE!

As you’ll notice, it isn’t black and it’s a little raised. Sadia gave me a little sugar and lemon scrub (the lemon makes the stain darker) and hairdried my arm before covering in medical tape. This is IMPORTANT! The henna should be left on for 6- 12 hours to get the deepest stain, but as it’s raised it can be easily knocked. The medi- tape keeps it clean and safe. I’d recommend leaving it on overnight. The next morning I woke up, took the tape off (which was extremely satisfying)  
and unveiled a fresh orange stain…

The stain gets darker over the next 48 hours and looks INCREDIBLE!

TOP TIP- Wax your arm about 24 hours before your appointment, not only will it help the henna application, it will also be extremely less horrific when you’re ripping the medi- tape off!  Ouchi mammas!

The stain should last 2/3 weeks depending on how well you care for it. My advice is to put Vaseline over the whole stain before showering so the water bounces off and blot with a tissue paper when you are done. Also, don’t go too crazy with scrubbing it or it’ll come right off. I’ve had mine for 10 days now and it some little parts are showing signs of fade but still looking good!

I honestly can’t explain the reaction from people I’ve had. Everywhere I go people are asking questions and complimenting the work that Sadia did…I’ve even been stopped in the street a couple of times (which I don’t mind, it makes me feel like Yonce, and that’s never bad).

Try it, be safe, take care of it and you will love it. I know I do. I’m already booked in for my next session in December!

Click here for Heenatastic on Facebook  or Instagram

Looking forward to seeing all the beautiful work!

Love Kirsty x