If you like watching Indian movies, you will see it painted on women's hands, especially in wedding scenes. Those films might be the ones which spread the popularity of henna to all over the world. Actually, henna plants have been used for thousand years for medicines, cosmetics, and hair colorings. They can be used as an anti-fungal and a preservative for cloth and leather. The flowers are used for perfumes.
Henna plant grows in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, Northern Australasia, and Southern Asia, such as India, Morocco, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Egypt, Somalia, Bangladesh, Libya, and Sudan. Each region grows a different variety of henna. The powder is made of the leaves. Each plant has its own characteristic, so it influences the colors.
If you believe that henna is black, you are wrong. The pure black color is not the natural color. The pure and natural ones are khaki, dark green, and brown. When being applied to skin, they can produce some colors range from orange to red, to black cherry, and near black color. Some factories usually blend different types of henna taken from different parts of a country or even from different countries to get perfect colors.
You can apply henna on your hands, legs, and arms. For simple designs, you only need to prepare 10 to 15 minutes. For the complex ones, several hours are needed to get the best result. After the painting process, dab it with a lemon-sugar solution in order to preserve the paste. How long the painting will last depends on the quality of the paste and individual skin type. The best quality ones can last up to a month.
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