Henna FAQ

What is Henna Body Art?

The henna plant grows in the desert, the leaves are harvested, dried, ground into a powder which is then mixed with Lemon juice, essential oils, sugar to form a paste which is then placed on the skin to stain the top layers.

Henna has also been used in the desert as it has a cooling effect- it “draws out heat” from the body. People would roll henna paste in a ball and place it in the palm of their hand to keep cool- then if it was going to be staining the skin anyway- they began creating designs.

The artist Larysa- when she first heard about the cooling effect figured it was just the wet paste drying- but even long after it dries, if you have henna on one hand or leg but not the other, and touch the skin of each, you will find a noticeable difference in temperature. The person with the henna paste on can feel it, along with any friend who might place their hands on said limbs to see if it really is so cooling!

Henna Body Artists draw designs onto the skin with the henna paste. The natural dye in the henna plant leaves leaves a safe, painless, temporary stain.

This type of body adornment has been done for thousands of years, across many countries and cultures. It is a way to temporarily adorn the body -similar to cosmetics application, fingernail polish, or hair coloring.

​Henna will often last  7 days with a darker stain, can then begin to fade. However, it can last up to 3 weeks, even more for some people! It cannot be washed off, but fades as your skin exfoliates.

It depends how you care for it, while paste is on, then in the following days. Where on the body you have received the art, and how you care for and protect your stain. Some people shed skin faster than others and there’s only so much that can be done to manage that. You and your friend might care for it similarly and have different results because of your own genetics.

​

Hands and Feet stain the darkest, and the ability of the skin to stain gets lighter as you move toward the center of the body.

100% Natural Henna is very safe, and reactions are extremely rare.

Larysa uses only 100% Natural Henna, Essential Oils, Lemon Juice and Sugar and make the henna paste myself which is a surprisingly involved, multi day process.

No dyes or artificial ingredients are added.

Individuals with the following conditions should consult with their doctor before getting a henna application:

• Sensitivity to Eucalyptus or essential oils.

• Pregnant

• G6PD Deficiency (told by your doctor to avoid aspirin, mothballs, fava beans).

Natural Henna should develop a reddish to dark brown color -NOT pure black. I do NOT use "Black Henna." If you ever see Black Henna advertised use extreme caution as they can be found in tourist destinations especially out of the country. Reactions to those chemicals can cause life long allergies, scarring and worse. For more information on dangerous black henna educate yourself here

https://www.floridahealth.gov/environmental-health/tattooing/black-henna.html

https://dermnetnz.org/topics/black-henna-tattoo-reaction

Henna stains the darkest on the palms of the hands since it is thicker,   followed by backs of the hands.  As you move up the body toward the trunk of the body, it stains more lightly due to skin differences and body oil.   

  Same for the legs- the lower legs can be a great place for various designs, side of the calf if you can point the skin to the sky, the henna can be applied there.   

   Since it will also stain natural materials,  you could also request the henna on a cotton shirt, a leather purse or wallet, a wooden box etc.    

Wherever the paste is, it will stain your skin- so you will want to remove the parts of the design that would be staining where you don’t want it-  you can scrape it off, or wash that part off carefully.       

If you are viewing a photo of Larysa’s henna that was decorated onto a real live human, then those designs may be proportionally to scale.

However if you are seeing a design in the design book- they may not be to scale. You might see a cluster of stars and to fit them on the page they have been shrunken down 5x to fit multiple designs on the page- and they may be larger in real life.

Larysa’s design style tends to be larger rather than tiny intricate details so keep this in mind when choosing designs. Most people feel it’s a better value to have more skin covered with thicker more noticeable lines especially since Larysa works rather quickly for most artists and can cover a lot of skin/ground quickly especially in festival settings.

At a recent festival in Fall 2024 Larysa was completing $15 designs in 30 seconds. For face painting- industry standard was 5-8 minutes per face and Larysa was typically 1-3 minutes per face. She talks fast and can create art fast as well, but can take a while to get out the door :)  

With Henna Body Art Larysa loves drawing flowers on people, peacock feathers, Sea Life like Octopus, Mermaid, Seahorse etc. Larysa can take requests and it can be fun to see how some ideas get “translated” into henna.

Larysa loves church themed henna- with quotes from prophets and apostles, images that relate etc.

The artist always has final say and will have the boundary of not creating any design they don’t feel comfortable drawing, for any reason, whether it’s outside the scope of their art, or they don’t want to promote certain language, it’s artist choice and just like with Cuddle Party™️ and Cuddlist, “I’m not comfortable with that” or simply “no” is a full answer.

Henna stains your skin and while you will notice shade differences as you go from the palm, to back of the hand and up the arm, but those shades are all still in the realm of brown. Because the skin is stained, you mostly keep it moisturized and avoid exfoliation and once you’ve taken care of the staining process, it’s then set it and forget it.

Larysa personally loves all kinds of colors and glitter. She also offers Glamourology body art which sits on top of the skin and can have all kinds of colors, shimmers, glitter etc. It’s a different process to apply, but once the glitter is on, you don’t have to care for it the rest of the night- but the care is opposite, AVOIDING anything oily because that will break it down, and you can also remove it as desired unlike waiting for it to fade like henna.

Different supplies and artist preparation are involved so this would need to be discussed with the artist and client in advance.

Nope, no interest, don’t wanna, for so many reasons. For body art I only want to deal in the temporary. Longer lasting art for me is decorating boxes, bowls, clothing etc.

If you want to compliment me on my steady hands and artistic prowess, I consider it much more of a compliment to hear “you’d make such a great surgeon” especially if you know how much I value education and continuing learning throughout life. Still won’t likely be doing that in this life but I’d have a heck of a lot more interest in that than permanently marking people artistically.

Also- I have a pin that says “don’t should on me” and I try to avoid “shoulding” on myself as well. Sometimes I even remind myself to phrase things like “wow you’d be so great at this too” as opposed to “you should totally XYZ”. :)