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Re: Hi.. can you help me?
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Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on March 12, 1998 at 19:10:02:
In Reply to: Hi.. can you help me? posted by Marie on March 12, 1998 at 17:40:27:
:Here's a straightforward recipe that hasn't failed me yet....sift your 100% red henna powder (from whatever source, Egypt, India, Pakistan,.....) through a fine tea strainer to remove the leftover grit and twigs. Squeeze fresh lemons or limes and strain the juice. add the juice a little at a time to the henna powder, stirring, until the henna is a paste about the consistancy ot thick cookie dough. (1 lemon for 1 0z henna, approximately) Boil some VERY strong tea or espresso and sweeten it with sugar. Add the hot tea or coffee, a bit at a time, stirring it into the henna until the henna is a consistancy a litle softer than toothpaste. Apply the henna with a flat toothpick as is done in the African/Arab henna tradition, or make a tiny cake decorator cone with scotch tape and a square of freezer bag, fill it with henna for the Pakistani/Indian style mehandi patterns and squeeze it out into frilly paisley and peacock paterns. When these patterns are nearly dry, dab them moist again with a cotton ball dipped in lemon juice. Let them dry again. When the patterns are firm to touch, no longer smooshy, cover the hennaed area with cling wrap and tape it in place. This will make the hennaed skin hot and sweaty, and the chemistry or your sweat will help the henna to go darker, and your skin pores will open up and accept the henna more. Does that help? There are many other slightly different recipes for henna, but all of them are based on getting the henna to ph5 or sourer, and warming the skin and henna up to increase the chemical reaction. We can answer more questions for you at www.mehandi.com , and stop by there any time for free hennaeing patterns and lore. There are many other things you can temporarilly decorate your body with, some safe, some not, but nothing else makes the 3-week change in your skin safely like red henna. Not much can get through your skin's barrier and color the cells, and there's if it's IN your skin cells, make sure it's not harmful! The other products passing as mehandi that are not henna are mostly things staying on top of your skin, like resins (Temptu) and inks (acrylic)...or perhaps manic panic hair dye which is fda approved for hair, and will dye skin. Safety of that on skin? I don't know. Indigo will dye skin, but the stench of extracting the dye from the plantstuff is not sexy.
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