Henna Gallery I - Henna Portfolio
Henna Gallery I - Henna Portfolio
(go
to Henna Gallery II for line drawings)
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Thanks to DoDoDi and Irini, my willing henna victims.
My First Henna
Below are pictures of my very first henna experience in Rabat, Morocco about 3 and a half years ago. I had seen designs on Moroccan women during my travels and finally decided to give it a try myself. We formed an impromptu henna party; a friend of the family, who is a neqasha (henna artist), installed herself and began to work on my hands. I sat there, giving my hands up to Nadia, my mouth hanging open as I watched her expertly flinging the design onto my hands, while talking a mile a minute to neighbors and family members. Nadia's tools were a tea glass full of henna paste and a syringe, which she would suck on to get rid of clogs (and without ever staining her lips). I watched as the design unfolded and every time I thought she could do no more, she would transform the design with some little element. Finally I gave up trying to guess where she was going with the design and gave in to the luxury of all these women attending to my needs. |
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After the design was complete and was drying, one of the women prepared the lemon-sugar mixture, adding some freshly ground cloves to it. I sat with my hands over a kanoun (a Moroccan clay brazier) until the henna dried. Before I left I got all wrapped up. They used wisps of cotton wool which stuck to the sugar glaze on my hands and then wrapped that up with gauze. When I send my clients home looking like this, people give their seats up on the bus for them, but in Morocco I was wished good health (saha) which is the traditional post-henna greeting.
These photos were taken the next day. The designs lasted about a month, with the backs of my hands fading first. This was several years ago, before Madonna "discovered" henna for us, so even in cosmopolitan New York City, people stared agog at my hands and pitied me for my unusual skin disease. How times have changed since then.
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