Henna Tattoo

Henna Tattoo

A tattoo-like form of body art (Mehindi) in which the skin—especially the palms and soles—is painted using a paste made from leaves of Lawsonia inermis, a shrub that grows in Egypt, Tunisia, Iran, India, the Arabian peninsula and tropical Africa, popularly known as henna, henne, al-khanna and al-henna. It is applied to women as a temporary skin decoration, often for weddings and festivals for Jews, Hindus and Muslims from the eastern Mediterranean into the Indian subcontinent. Some artists use an illegal synthetic dye, p-phenylenediamine (PPD), also known as black hennam, to strengthen the colour. Prior exposure to PPD may evoke a brisk, even life-threatening, hypersensitivity reaction in response to reexposure, usually in the form of a sharply demarcated contact dermatitis