Week 5: Eid Henna
Henna is mainly used on special occassion, like holidays or weddings. Eid al-Fitr was last Friday, and being the only henna artist in the entire family, most of my family asks me to do their henna. Other people who want henna but are unable to do it themselves usually go to the Chand Raat Bazaars, however, the henna artists over there are quite expensive for how large the design is (the Chand Raat Bazaar is a marketplace held in Edmonton, the night before Eid, for clothing, jewelry, food, an henna). So to be more clear, last Saturday (to celebrate Eid) we had a family dinner and once everyone had finished eating I did henna on my aunts and cousins. This is going to be a long blog post:
ALAYA’S HENNA
This was the henna I did on my little cousin, Alaya. After seeing that everyone was getting their henna done, she was excited to get henna done too. The design I did was small since she has small hands and children tend to smudge their henna fast while playing. Another reason I did a small design was it was hard for her to stay still (since she is a toddler). However, I was suprised that she stayed very still and focused while I did her henna. These designs only took me about three minutes. (She did end up smudging her henna on her left hand though) In the end she was very happy with her henna.
SAANI’S HENNA
In the photos to the left, I was doing my cousin, Saani’s henna. I started out by finding a reference henna photo she liked so I could make a similar design. This design was a bit complicated so it took me a bit more time. The design was completed in around 35 minutes which is still quite an improvement. I also recorded the process (shown in the second photo – I have a tripod set up to record), however, I recorded on a relatives phone and they are having trouble sending the video due to the file size. In the end Saani loved her henna (end result is the third picture).
BOTH MY AUNTS HENNA
This was the henna I did on Aunt Masooma. Again, I made sure to find a reference photo for a henna design she liked then began. I also recorded this but the file will not send. This design took me only 31 minutes which is great. In the end she really liked her henna.
This was the henna I did on Aunt Rubab. This design turned out beautiful (she did end up smudging the end a bit). I first found a reference design that she liked and made a similar design. This design took me nearly 30 minutes which is pretty good. I also did henna on her other hand but could not find any photos of it. That was my best design in terms of time as it only took me 20 minutes. This was also the only video that uploaded and I am still working on creating an Instagram account. In the end, she ended up loving her designs.
zahraott22 • April 24, 2023