The Best Party Idea- Hands Down!

When you’re in charge of planning an upcoming celebration, there can be a bit of pressure to pull off the perfect celebration for the person/honorable occasion. You’re looking for something that will keep everyone connected and engaged. You care about your people and want something that makes your guests get comfortable while having an experience that they’ll remember for a long time.

Better yet, you want something that will make them pull out their phones, take pictures and video snippets for their own social media. Yes, it’s that last part that let’s you know that you’ve pulled it off special.

Did you know that hiring a professional henna artist for your next celebration, gathering or special occasion is easier than you think? It’s a novel experience that most likely 95% of your guest list haven’t ever experienced it. And trust me, they want that novel experience.

But isn’t henna for traditional eastern culture weddings you ask? It is if you’re part of the culture but if you’re not henna serves everybody in a lot of different ways. It’s fun, celebratory and exciting for anyone that chooses to experience it. It’s not a one size fits all.

But isn’t it just for women? You ask. Nope, but because most henna is shown from a wedding perspective, it’s understandable that this is a misconception. A good henna artist can design for all genders.

If you’re local click here: Plan a Party with Mind Body Henna

Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to find and hire the right henna artist for your special occasion.

1. Determine the Event Details: Before beginning your search, clarify the date, time and duration of the event. This info is crucial for the henna artist to schedule their services accordingly.

2. Define your preferences: Some artist specialize in more traditional patterns while others excel in modern or fusion styles. Look at Pinterest or do a Google search to have a clear idea of what envision for your event.

3. Finding the Right Henna Artist: Seek recommendations for friends or family. Explore online platforms, social media and review websites to find artist with positive testimonials and portfolios that match your preferences.

4. Ensure that the artist uses high quality henna: Seek an artist that uses only natural henna paste and follows hygienic practices. This is crucial so that your guests are safe from the potential risks that imitation henna can bring such as allergic reactions or skin issues. Ask about the artist’s experience and their ability to adapt their skills to various design requests for both men and women.

5. Pricing and Contracts: Get a quote and discuss pricing structures including event rates or hourly rates. Carefully review and sign a service agreement outlining all the terms and conditions.

6. Confirm and follow-up: Stay in touch and ask questions prior to the event including any set up requirements or last minute changes.

Henna at any celebration is always a HUGE hit! Guests want to experience something different. They love to experience it with other first timers or with those who haven’t done it since they were teenagers. At parties henna is a great icebreaker and conversation starter.

A henna experience will elevate your next celebration!

XO,

Mind Body Henna

Make Your Next Retreat Stand Out: 5 Reasons to Have a Henna Artist at Your Next Retreat

With a bazillion retreats out there for people to choose from related to spirituality, wellness, healing, mindset, how will you get yours to be just a little bit different and connect with your guests as well as them to one another?

Retreats are an amazing gift for guests to reconnect to themselves, meet like minded people, and reset their exhausted nervous system. Many retreats typically  will have options for self care such as tarot readers, massage, skin care, energy healing, and more.

And while location and surroundings do matter there’s also another major component that may be missing- retreat uniqueness. Guests want to be surprised and they want to experience something that maybe they’ve never experienced before that makes them feel bold, adventurous, beautiful, badass, and especially loved.

Henna is for everyone in every geographical region around the world. It’s unique for both men and women. It’s celebratory. It’s healing. It’s a safe, temporary, plant-based body art and let me tell you, people LOVE to experience it especially in a safe, community setting such as a retreat.

Here are the top 5 reasons henna needs to be a part of your next retreat.

5. They’ll be reminded why they came to your retreat and what they learned. They’ll also be talking about it to their friends, family and colleagues.
They get to take it home! How many experiences actually physically leave with you?  Their henna design & experience will be absorbed into their skin for up to 2 weeks after their experience.

4. Custom experience- What this means is that you get to create the type of experience that your guests will have. Will it be an intention word? A meaningful symbol? Or something that they get to choose on their own. It can be meaningful or it can just be something that makes them feel magical, confident and seen. Henna has a way of giving a wide range of feels to all that choose to wear it.

3. Henna raises your energy and promotes healing- Yes this one is true. After receiving henna people feel into their bodies and a deeper level and experience a kinder more accepting feeling towards themselves and those around them. When people feel adorned their spirits are lifted, energy is raised and humans come back to their natural state of love and kindness. This one happens naturally!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                2. Connective experience with themselves and their new community. Once the structured parts of the retreat end for the day, guests can really get to know each other through a shared henna experience. It’s amazing to watch people let their guards down, relax and get curious and become a playful version of themselves when they have an opportunity to do so. Can you picture it- the smiles, the laughs, the support, and the giddiness. Guests LOVE to connect through this shared experience.

1. Novel experiences elevates your retreat and makes it a little bit different than the rest. This one is the no-brainer. Who else is adding henna to a retreat in this way? Your guests want to be surprised and experience something special and unique- just for them. For many of them, this will likely be their first henna experience and what better way than to incorporate into your retreat to let them know that you cared enough to give them an unforgettable novel, custom experience that raised their energy, connected them to their community and was able to take home. 

Retreat guests will absolutely love the time, care and attention that you’ve given by gifting them this experience along with all the personal transformations and connections that they’ll make. Your retreat will be different and all because you found something so fitting, yet so different and novel to bring everyone together in this shared experience.

XO,

Mind Body Henna

Your Free Ultimate Guide to Understanding Henna

Our curiosity makes us human and humans love to learn. Living in the information age has made it a little uneasy for us to want to ask each other questions. “Google it” is a common response to any question. And while that maybe the easy way to get general information, it’s also sometimes very overwhelming. There’s a lot of conflicting information out there. So who is right? Who do you trust to give you the best answers to your questions?

As a professional henna artist that works many events and parties, I find that guests have so many questions regarding what henna is and what is actually going on their skin.

Here are a few of the most common questions that I hear:

• What is henna?

• What’s so dangerous about buying it online?

• Where do you get it?

• How long does it take to dry?

• What is black henna?

• What is chemical henna?

• Can I wash it off in an hour?

• How long do I need to wear it?

• How do I take care of it?

• How long will the stain last?

• And so much more…

There’s a lot of misleading information available that’s why I wanted to give you a complete guide to help your understanding about what henna really is and how it works so that you can feel that you have something to refer back to should you need it. My main mission is to provide education about henna to the person who is thinking of getting their first henna and it’s also for the person who may have grown up with henna at cultural events but still wants to know the details about it. The reason behind my ‘why’ of providing this information is because your skin’s safety is my first priority.

Unfortunately, there are many different types of henna on the market and even some well-intentioned henna artists out there are not aware of the dangers of buying henna online or other local stores.

So here you go! I hope you enjoy reading and learning all these different topics about henna and feel empowered to keep asking questions and have a guide to refer back to. Please share and spread the word!

XO,

Christine

Henna: Off The Beaten Path of Self Care

Guest Blog Post by:

Client- Nicole Bills

I am a Healer and Life Guidance coach who was approaching a new chapter in life where both my children were becoming adults. “Who was I in this new chapter?” was a difficult question to sit with. As I had more time to myself, I became aware that I did feel worn out and bedraggled. 

Realizing that I had started to become lost in the hustle and bustle of rearing a family, maintaining a marriage, and running a business - it happens even to the well-trained of us! 

Taking time to reflect within, I decided to try and implement novel self-care with henna tattoos. 

I chose henna because it encompasses self-nurturing through physical touch and adornment. The ”me” at any stage deserves to feel beautiful and worthy. 

It’s become one of my go to rituals when getting ready for an upcoming girls trip. After all the weeks of stress from group planning, coordinating, & packing I get to pause, clear my ruminating thoughts, and receive restorative pampering -  especially important when I’m headed out on a camping trip!

Finding Christine, a henna artist in Austin, Texas, was providential. I am grateful that she took time to explain the cultural ties and historical importance of Henna. It’s knowledge that’s given me confidence when people stop and compliment the art, it’s an appreciation of culture that I can pass onward. 

I feel cared for in each session, from Christine greeting me with a warm cup of chai, to holding a sacred energetic space that allowed me to open up, reset my intentions, and love on myself. 

If you'd never considered this type of self nurturing, I'd definitely try it to help you venture out. and offer yourself something a little different.

The Real Reason that I Became a Henna Artist

People ask me all the time, “How did you get into doing henna?” And “Is it because you married into Indian culture?”. The answer to that last question is both “yes and no”. The marriage part was just my introduction to the art itself and the cultural excuse that I used to hide behind.

 Here’s my story:

 Nobody’s healing journey is a straight upward arrow, and I’m no different. Before working my way into becoming a professional henna artist, I earned a Master’s degree and worked as a Pediatric Speech Pathologist. And although parts of working with children with communication disorders were very rewarding, it was hard for me because there wasn’t much space for creativity. After years of practice in different environments, it all felt very mechanical and I became unfulfiled but I did it anyway because..….life responsibilities. When my kids were born, I stayed home with them until they were old enough to go to school. As life took an unpredictable turn and I ended up needing to homeschool my kids and did so for 7 years. In those years, to keep myself sane, I began exploring art mediums. I painted and doodled as a way to relax and give myself some “me time” Art was all very play-like with no rules and I loved it! Art practices felt healing and it slowly began waking me up to welcome my own creativity. 

I painted, woodworked and drew repetitive henna-like designs on canvases, coffee cups and even my bathroom walls. Eventually I tried buying some henna and found it very frustrating to work with. It wasn’t as easy as I hoped it would be. Since I married into Indian culture, there were always occasions for me to wear henna so I didn’t need to learn how to do it well.

Aside from loving the way henna looked, I always loved the way henna made me feel. Henna gives off this empowering, bold, badassery feeling to whoever chooses to wear it. I often wanted to wear it more and more to hold onto that feeling that was hard for me to put into words. I felt a need to wear it beyond cultural occasions and so I did.

I noticed that when I would wear henna that I would get a lot of head turns, attention and questions about it in public. I started to notice the uncomfortable feeling that I had with strangers coming up to me, touching and holding my hands, grabbing my arm as I walked by, bending down and rubbing my leg and giving me compliments and starting up awkward conversations with me. Of course it was all innocent and curiosity driven but I was uncomfortable AF. It was in those moments that I realized that I didn’t want that type of attention that henna brought. The outside physical and verbal attention brought me feelings of anxiousness and I hated it. So I stopped wearing it- for years. As these years passed, and I was working with a therapist, she helped me to figure out that my anxious trigger was an unhealed fear-based, reaction to being touched without permission from childhood sexual traumas.

She also made me understand that I used henna as a catalyst in my healing negative body image stemming from the abuse. Over the years, henna taught me how to learn to be with the attention that came along with it while learning how to set boundaries with people wanting to touch me (while I was wearing henna) without permission. Henna body art helped me grow and nurture myself so that I could mother myself into more wholeness and pop the top of my untapped creative potential. In time, I began to create with ease and have appreciation for my own body. It became clear that I knew I wanted to use henna as a source of healing and nurturing sourse for other women.

Most people that I come in contact with learn about henna from a friend/co-worker with ties to South Asian or Middle Eastern culture. Today, in eastern cultures it’s worn mostly for specific celebratory occasions. But even in henna’s rich history, it was used as a means of healing and blessings before anything else. To me, henna is healing, therapeutic and yes it’s magical! It helps women especially connect to their bodies. It can be a spiritual experience and a way to nurture ourselves. Henna is versatile and can just be worn because you want to feel pretty and feminine for no reason at all. But most of all, to me,  it is a celebration of self and my personal homecoming.

I love talking about henna and educating people about what it is and what it isn’t and allow them to decide for themselves if they wish to wear it. But most importantly, I do want to normalize wearing henna as another way to nurture and connect to our bodies. I asked for this healing. It was given and I’m forever grateful. 

If you have a specific way that you nurture your body, I’ll to hear about it in the comments.

Much love,

XX,

Christine