Indian Bridals | Wedding Planning and Ideas: Indian Bridal Mehndi Designs

No Indian bride gets married without adorning her hands and feet with mehndi. Mehndi or mehandi is made from henna leaves. The henna leaves are made into a paste, along with several ingredients to enhance the color. Intricate patterns are drawn onto the hands and feet of the bride the day before the actual wedding ceremony.

You can easily buy ready-made henna paste in the most Indian stores. But please make note of the ingredients in the paste. It has been found that some henna ingredients may actually cause cancer. The main ingredient in henna is hydroxynaphthaquinone which is obtained from leaves of the Lawsonia tree. Hydroxynaphthaquinone alone is not carcinogenic, but when combined with para-phenylenediamine (PPD) the mixture has been documented as causing problems. PPD is a synthetic dye used to accelerate the drying time of the henna mixture, darkens the overall tattoo and allows for more precise, detailed images.The chemical has been documented to cause severe blisters, skin rashes and scars. In 1979 the US National Cancer Institute labeled PPD as a possible carcinogen due to a high incidence of liver cancer in workers at PPD production plants. Not all henna artists or henna kits use dye with PPD, if the resulting tattoo is an intense dark black and lasts for more than several weeks, it likely contains the undesired ingredient.

Indian Bridal Menhdi Designs