Henna Designs

As Ramadan came to an end, many girls around have their hands yellowed with Henna.  Traditionally, on a day of celebration, such as Eid, weddings, engagements, and other cultural ceremonies, women and girls get henna designs done on to their hands. The designs and colors seen around campus all varied. The designs vary from culture to culture. From Southern India and Pakistan the design tend to be more intricate and very fine. Each line is very thin, and they are very close together. When looking at suck designs from far, you can barely see any spaces in between. The actual designs consist of flowery figures. One modern style that has been more often seen lately with traditional Indian henna is shading. The artist creates larger flowery figures and shades the petals, creating a darker edge for the petals working to a lighter center. Along with flowers, Indian henna incorporates a lot of geometrical shapes and many times creates symmetrical designs. The overall look of Indian henna is close, intricate patterns that generally run from the center of a girl’s forearm to the tips of her fingers. 

 Another popular style of henna is known as Arabic Style henna. This type of henna consists of bold designs. The artist picks very thick lines and creates generally larger designs. The overall look of this henna is very different from Indian style henna, while Indian style henna creates intricate designs with little to no space in between; Arabic Style Henna is spaced out with more open designs. Due to the thickness of the lines and bold patterns, the actual color of Arabic henna after it is completed looks much darker. One more obvious difference is Arabic henna is generally not designed to cover the whole hand; it is drawn from the wrist, through the palm and a light design on the fingertips. It has become a new popular fashion to create a Indo-Arab fusion style of henna. This style includes both thick and thin lines, while the large shapes and designs of Arabic Henna are incorporated, so are the thin lines of Indian Henna as a filling. Henna styles are very rapidly changing, as fusion of different designs creates many new options for possible styles.