Journal Cover, sepia Pitt pen on moleskine cahier, 4/1/09
I’ve been keeping a fake journal, inspired by Roz’s International Fake Journal Month. The journal itself is a private affair, but I thought the cover came out pretty nice, so I am posting it for everyone to see. I was inspired by my trip to India last year, when I had my hands done up all fancy. It was fun, but it was a huge production.
It works like this:
They rub oil into your hands and apply the henna (it comes out of a little tube like icing). Then you have to hold your hands completely still while the stuff dries (or you will ruin the design). This took about 2 hours or so and I had to have people feed me because I was starving! It was so tiring because I was sitting with my elbows on a table the whole time so I wouldn’t spoil the front or back of my hands. When it dries you rub the henna off (as if you were rubbing dried Elmer’s glue off your skin). To make the color come out you rub your skin with Vick’s VapoRub (in the picture you can see that my wrists are lighter because I didn’t rub in the Vick’s as much there). And they say you are not supposed to let your skin touch water for some more time so it stays dark.
If you are planning on doing mendhi, make sure you are using natural henna. It will fade faster, but the black dye that they put into a lot of that stuff is really toxic. Be kind to your liver.
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