How to Color Your Hair with Henna
by Hema Padhu
Take a cup of organic henna powder. Yes, organic. Otherwise, you’re buying brownish-green dirt and chemicals. Of course, it’ll cost you. Beauty, after all, has a price.
Next, steep some black tea leaves in hot water. Black tea has tannins, which darkens the henna, so it doesn’t look brassy. Plus, antioxidants. Use English Breakfast. It sounds better, doesn’t it? Tea befitting an empire. Girls in Assam and Sri Lanka pick the leaves with their little fingers. They begin work at dawn after drinking a cuppa — Chai made from low-grade tea dust swept off the factory floor. The leaves go to the empire where the sun never sets.
Strain the tea leaves. Let the liquid cool. The sun has set on that empire but risen elsewhere. The girls still pick. They still drink tea dust and work twelve-hour days under the hot gaze of an unforgiving sun. They still live in a tin shack and sleep stacked like matches in a box. English Breakfast now goes to empires both old and new.
Mix the henna powder and the black tea. The resulting mixture must have the texture of yogurt. Regular, not Greek. Back in the home country, mothers of brides add tamarind and honey, so the henna stains their daughters’ hands a deep burgundy. In just a few days, the henna on their hands will turn the color of a faded sunset from washing dishes, scrubbing floors, and cleaning toilets. Doesn’t matter, the mothers say. Let her have this one day of beauty. This one day, her hands will rest. She will be gazed upon adoringly like the day she was born.
Let the mixture sit overnight. Darkness is essential for alchemy. It holds the hopes and soothes the pain of the young bride. In the morning, the blood on the sheets matches the burgundy on her hands. The dye will also be released from your henna. The darker, the better.
Put on some gloves. Part your hair. Comb out the knots. Use a fine brush to apply the henna to your hair. Start with the roots and apply generously. The roots go deep. They were planted thousands of years ago by forefathers who devised a crude system of rank and class. Interesting, is it not, that they were forefathers, not foremothers? The English merely nurtured those roots, creating serpentine rituals around them and elevating them to an art form, as they did with the tea.
Coat the roots with henna paste. The cool, tingling feeling is normal. Did you know that the henna plant has medicinal properties? Mothers in our home country dried the plant leaves, ground them into a paste, and applied it to the backs and knees of their exhausted little girls while they slept. As you work your way from the roots to the ends, you might run out of paste. The roots take so much, and there is little left for the ends.
Set the timer. Let the henna sit in your hair and soak for three long hours. The wait is essential for the stubborn roots to turn a rich burgundy. While you wait, daughters with long, thin fingers are being born in the hills of Assam and the deep valleys of Sri Lanka. Their mothers hope against hope that those fingers will never pick tea leaves. But they will. They are indentured to the land. The few who manage to escape, lured by the promises of the cities, end up in a hell far worse than picking tea. Some escape and return home. But they are too broken to pick anything.
The henna is now caked to your hair. Rinse your hair with lukewarm water until it runs clear. Your hair is now a rich Bordeaux. When it catches the sun’s rays and glints a burnished copper, you get compliments. You forget about those girls. It’s only natural. It’s the price you pay for beauty. It’s worth it.
About the Author
Hema Padhu's short fiction has been accepted by or has appeared in New Letter, Joyland, Copper Nickel, Fourteen Hills, Litro Magazine, American Literary Review, and more. She is an Indian immigrant and a working writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area.
