How to correctly take care of Henna drawings?
Preservation
- Body temperature
The higher is body temperature, the faster the Henna paste absorbs into the skin. Therefore, if before applying Henna drawing you feel frozen, drink something warm.
- Drying the Drawing
Leave the fresh Henna paste on the skin for as long as possible. It is recommended not to take it off for 5-6 hours or even longer. Leave paste on your skin throughout the night to get a better design tone and fixity. The longer the paste stands on the skin, the darker the design will be and the longer it will hold on the skin.
- Wrapping
When Henna paste design has become dry, it is possible to wrap it. For wrapping you can use gauze, toilet paper, medical tape or elastic bandage. Wrapping helps to keep the heat in the drawing area and thus allows you to get a darker shade. When wrapping the drawing with an elastic band, at the beginning it has to be wrapped with toilet paper so the paste is not fouling the bandage. Heat is Henna friend!
- Scraping off the drawing
When the Henna paste has become dry and been held for the maximum period, it has to be nibbled away. Nibbling can be done with hand, sliding down the drawing so everything falls down on the ground, or with a credit card along the skin without hurting it.
- Drawing tone
After cleaning the Henna paste residues, an orange drawing stays on the skin. The drawing will penetrate more deeply into the skin and gradually become darker during the next 48 hours. Henna powder plant paste reacting with skin proteins, gradually and apparently change its tone. Final colour tone will depend on your skin type - the drier the skin, the longer holds the drawing and tone is darker. The darkest tones have drawings on the hands and feet.
- Avoid water
You should try to avoid contact with water, if possible, during the first 24 hours after paste removal as water can stop the oxidation process and thereby stop darkening of the drawing.
How to protect the design and to help it look the best possible way:
- Avoid contact with water on the drawn site for the first 24 hours after paste removal. If for the full Henna paste residue removal from the skin you have to use water, it is better to replace it with a small amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice or olive / corn oil to clean the skin, rather than use the water.
- Lubricate your Henna design with oil before swimming or bathing to protect it from water. You can use olive oil, corn oil, canola oil, and also other natural vegetable oils. Avoid using any petroleum products, such as baby oil or petroleum jelly, because it will shorten the life of your drawing.
- Avoid unnecessary rubbing of the design area. Keep in mind that frequent washing, soap, petroleum products (tanning oil, baby oil, etc.), as well as clothing and footwear rubbing will make your Henna design to fade more quickly.
- Avoid shaving of the place of your Henna design. Shaving will remove layers of the skin and the drawing will fade faster.
How to remove Henna drawing:
The durability of Henna drawing is in average of 7-12 days. It gradually goes off and finally disappears at all. On some body places where the skin layers are thicker, the drawing holds even 2-6 weeks. It is impossible to completely remove a fresh Henna paste drawing but its extinction may be slightly speeded up.
Henna plant coloring molecules penetrate into the skin and paint the upper layers of the skin. Every day new skin cells replace the old cells, including those that are painted with Henna paste. Unfortunately, to fully extinguish a Henna design on your skin, you have to wait for the body's natural processes, and they will gradually make the drawing to become brighter, until it goes off completely.
There are things you can do to speed up the skin layers replacement process and Henna drawing extinction:
- Soaking in a bath, basin, shower, Jacuzzi;
- Skin scrubbing or pealing;
- Chlorine can help to quicker remove the drawing, therefore, swimming in the pool is a way to speed up the drawing extinction;
- Applying whitening toothpastes onto the drawing can help;
- Some chemical agents may also speed up extinction of the drawing, but they are very detrimental to the skin and ARE NOT RECOMMENDED as a removal method.
Made by: WebWizard