Henna Hand

Yup, that's my hand. :) Last weekend a friend of mine threw a 'henna' party. Several of us got together and had our hands stained with henna/mendhi (sp?). (I'm not sure about the difference in those words). Now, a week later, the stain on mine is fading, probably because I do too much with my hands-smile. I think my kids were a little shocked to see my hand 'colored' (as they called it), and I have had to think carefully about my word choices in order to avoid their own experimentation of hand-coloring. (They're wondering about my 4 years of chirping out the theme: "We write on PAPER!!"- not on hands- not on walls- not on furniture - etc.)

It only took about 8 minutes to have done initially (the top picture), then about 2 hours to dry (hold still!!!) you peel off the dried bits (the other pictures you can see that part of it is peeled off) and your skin is stained an orange-brown, which usually wears off in about 2 weeks.

Indians use this type of decoration for all sorts of events and just for fun too (it's for making a woman more beautiful... I'm not sure I agree!!). It has a cooling effect (so my hand froze while it was drying), comes in several different colors, and is often put on backs/fronts of hands, tops/bottoms of feet, scalp, arms... my friend who threw the party got it done on her great big pregnant belly just for fun! :)