Mehndi

I mentioned something in my last post that I wanted to show you. Bridal henna, or mehndi, is one of my favorite things. I think it is so beautiful, and it's such a traditional part of desi culture. A lot of American-born children of immigrants don't like it - not the look, not the smell. But not me - I'd have it on my hands & feet every day if I could!

Mehndi is not only for brides, though. Most ladies going to a wedding usually put it on - definitely the bridal party. And also on various other holidays. It's just like jewelry or makeup - for more festive events, you put on more and more. Sometimes a bride even has it done all the way up her legs and past her elbows!

There are different styles of Mehndi. I only know a few, but I know that African designs are very geometric, and Arabic styles are usually flowery and sparse, and my favorite - traditional Indian designs - which are usually very intricate. (And usually more expensive to have done because of their intricacy.)

In America, there aren't a whole lot of people who do mendhi. The first time I ever had it done was when M did it for me himself. He'd told me about it, and showed me pictures. I told him how pretty I thought it was and he said he could probably do it if we could find some henna. So we went searching. What we found were boxes of henna powder. He wasn't used to that. Back home, mehndi is usually bought pre-mixed and put into cones. Kinda like how you put frosting into those pastry bags and pipe the frosting onto the cake - only smaller tubes and much smaller lines of henna past piped onto the skin.

We tried mixing it ourselves and drawing on my skin with it, but is was a disaster. Eventually we found a store that sold pre-mixed henna in a tube - but it was like a toothpaste tube with a really large opening, and the designs M drew were hardly intricate!

They got better over time, though!

And eventually, at our wedding, I got to see first hand the difference between your boyfriend doing mehndi for you - and the professional stuff!