Re: henna safety during pregnancy
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on May 01, 2000 at 18:29:09:
In Reply to: Re: henna safety during pregnancy posted by Amy C on April 30, 2000 at 00:31:14:
I've heard from two people that the euc oil in Mud is 1) overwhelming
to the point of making your eyes and nose run and 2) another person's
shoulder went numb from the Mud euc. That's second hand info, and I
don't have personal experience with it. It would be your judgement
call whether or not to use it, since you're getting some. When I was
pregnant, I was very uncomfortable with strong smells..... intense
smells always made me really nauseous up till the day I gave birth.
Everyone's different, though. If you suspect there's camphor in the
mix, I'd really nix it.
But...
Lately I've been getting results comparable to Mud with Castle Art
henna, just by useing extra heat and steam. Also, work with relatively
bold patterns. The more paste that's on there, the more hennotannins
are available. I think the most important thing is to figure out the
most comfortable way to get extra heat on the lady's tummy without
annoying the baby. An electric heating pad is probably a bad idea. A
rice bag might be a lot better, even if you needed to make one special
for the occasion to fit. I've latexed the ladies whose big tummies
I've hennaed. (Let henna dry totally, latex, dry the latex, dust with
body glitter just for fun). Add heat any way you can. When you peal
off the latex, get out a hand held steamer, and steam the henna for 20
minutes,and that really gooses up the color!
Don't use henna anywhere the skin is broken or extremely thin (ie,
can you see the capillaries easily just by looking at the skin?) ....
and you might even go on the safest possible side by making sure the
lady is not anemic. Henna will pass through broken areas of skin, and
mucous membranes, and will destroy red blood cells if it gets past the
barrier between epidermis and dermis (which it does not normally). It
will also leave dumb looking freckles if it gets into the dermis.
Test and see if lemon juice left on the belly skin causes any
irritation.....
Keep the henna on, under some sort of wrap, with extra warmth, about
16 hours for a chocolate dark stain on a belly. Less than that is
less color.
