Day 321 - Baby Shower and Henna Designs

I attended a baby shower for a friend's sister who's soon going to be a proud mom of twin baby girls.  I wasn't the official photographer but I had offered to bring my camera when my friend told me that she didn't have any photographer lined up for the party.   I soon turned into the official photographer, and tried to capture the moments as well as the events.

The momma-to-be is a beautiful young lady and in keeping with her Moroccan traditions, she served wonderfully aromatic teas, delicate-looking and delicious cookies, and a variety of juices.  Normally, she should have been the guest of honour, but she ended up being a wonderful hostess.  Her first-born, also a girl, was looking all pretty in a while dress, but unfortunately she was really shy of the camera.

The highlight of the evening was the henna party that my friend had organized where she had a local henna artist, Shaista, from Hennarinah (http://hennarinah.com/) come and apply henna (also known as mehendi) designs on her sister's hands as well as the guests' hands, if they so fancied.  The henna artist happened to be a young Indian girl, who I got a chance to practise my Hindi with.  Very vivacious, she explained to us how she uses all-organic materials to make the henna paste which she then applies to the hands.

I have had henna applied to my hands before, but I have to say that she took it to an entirely new level.  The henna paste, which usually has a very distinctive smell of ... well, the leaves that it's derived from, was perfumed with most probably cardamom and cloves.  It smelled wonderful as she applied it, and it felt tingly and fresh on the hands as the paste dried.  She then sprinkled beautiful glitter all over the design, and sprayed a mix of lemon juice and sugar to seal the paste in.  This helps develop the rich and dark brown colour that's characteristic of the henna.

I too got a small design done on the back of my hand, and left the paste on overnight.  I applied a bit of olive oil over it in the morning, and let it sit for a while before scraping the dried design off.  The colours gradually developed over the course of the day and while I was initially disappointed that the design on my hand looked much lighter than on another friend's hand, I noticed that the colours have developed even further.

If you're in the Montreal area and are keen on getting a temporary tattoo, look up Hennarinah (http://hennarinah.com/) and I can promise you that you won't be disappointed.  She's a fantastic artist and the designs speak volumes.

However, here's a little trivia about the deep, dark colour of henna - there's a saying in India that the colour of your henna is directly proportional to how much your mother-in-law loves you!  ;-)  So, if you are your MIL's pet, by all means, go get a henna design and show it off! :=D