OPINION: Henna – appropriating a culture you don’t know

The rich orange designs on my my skin show the intricate work of an artist – but many people didn’t see that growing up. Instead, teachers criticized students for “drawing in marker” on their hands and bosses asked that employees wash the markings away.

What maybe be known as henna here, is called mehndi (Men-dee) in South Asia. Mehndi is a wet paste that is applied to skin with a cone, often in elaborate, flowing designs. It stains the skin leaving orange-brown patterns.

While misleading articles on the internet may tell you it is sourced from cow poop, mehndi is actually plant based and comes from the lawsonia inermis, also known as the Egyptian Privet.

This plant is dried and crushed into a powder which is used to make the rich paste. The mehndi is used to draw a design and left to dry for at least a few hours, allowing for the color to stain the skin. Once dry, the crusted paste can be scraped off to reveal the color beneath it.

Mehndi easily stains and a slight smear can last for days. Usually a design will continue to darken for another day. Ideally, a mehndi design lasts for over a week.

Women often get their mehndi done for celebratory events, but never alone. Mehndi parties are a way for everyone to take a turn getting their mehndi done while socializing within the community. In my home, it’s always been a way for the women to get together, dress up and play the dhol, a type of drum, while singing.

Most brides have a mehndi night as a part of their wedding events. Brides will have heavily detailed designs done on their hands, arms, feet and sometimes more.

While I know this practice to be a beautiful thing, in both the past and present, others haven’t had that experience. Having my mehndi done has resulted in confused reactions and sometimes disdain. People are quick to jump to assumptions of it being dirty or unappealing. As a young brown woman in Idaho, this can be difficult to deal with.

Every time we have done our mehndi as a group, some girls express concerns over how their bosses will react, what customers at work will say and what their classmates will think.

We have had to become hyper aware of own culture, as it doesn’t fit the norm.

Rather than being met with admiration or innocent curiosity, we have oftentimes been met with disgust. So it’s difficult to watch the same people, who would have grimaced at the sight of my hands, now attending henna booths in growing popularity. The booths are often staffed by people who lack knowledge of its background.

Something that was frowned upon in my day to day Idaho life is now becoming a trend, but not in the ways you would expect. Recently, mehndi has been making its rounds on Tik Tok, with teens using it to make “freckles.”

There is a fine line between cultural appreciation versus appropriation – and it’s about the mindset. I do want people to experience this tradition, but as a means of understanding the culture behind it and seeing the bigger picture. Using mehndi as a quirky trend to replace temporary tattoos misses its purpose.

This artform goes back to hundreds of years and is a skill learned with time and patience. It is embedded in my identity, especially as something I had to feel conflicted over or even embarrassed of as a kid.

If you truly want to wear mehndi in a respectful way, do the leg work. Research its traditional use and styles, find someone who has a deeper understanding to do it for you and, please, use traditional mehndi that won’t give you chemical burns.

Sitting down with a woman who grew up wearing it and mastered the craft of applying mehndi embraces the practice. On the other end, getting a heart “tattooed” on your ankle for $5 and moving on with your day cheapens a beautiful aspect of my culture.

Haadiya Tariq can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @haadiyatariq