You can experience body painting, and you can last for a few days without worrying about washing your hands and disappearing, and you don't have to worry about staying for too long and affecting your work and studies...... This is the henna painting that is gradually emerging among young people. Good film, personalized, exotic, with more and more followers, henna painting has become a new profession. However, a reporter from Beijing Youth Daily found that there are certain risks associated with this new fashion.
Fall in love with it once you paint henna paintings have arisen among young people
Many women who travel to Southeast Asia have experienced henna painting, an ancient body decoration art that originated in India. Unlike the traditional tattoos that people are familiar with, henna hand-drawing allows people to experience the same fun as tattoos in a short time without pain.
When the college student Xiaoge was out playing, he found a stall surrounded by many people, and found that it was a booth for "henna painting". She saw the stall owner holding a "pen" as thin as a needle tube and squeezing and drawing, and a pattern that was indistinguishable from the tattoo appeared on the customer's arm.
Ge has always wanted to experience tattoos, but for various reasons he didn't put it into action, and after seeing Henna's paintings, he couldn't help but experience them. "It's beautiful to draw, and the merchant told me it would subside in 5 to 15 days. It's really out of the picture, and it's very suitable for experiencing it when traveling. A few of my classmates and I wanted to do something else in the future. ”
Xiaolan, who has done many henna paintings, said that the henna painting bath pattern disappeared after a few baths, sometimes in less than 5 days. "When I came back and took a shower, it had already started to fade. I really like these patterns, so I'm going to wait until it's completely faded before I draw one. ”
And there are not a few young people like Xiaolan and Xiaoge who are willing to try henna painting. "When I went to queue with my classmates two days ago, I found that there were more people than before, and I had to queue for a long time without making an appointment in advance." Small grid representation.
Henna Illustrated A new entrepreneurial opportunity
With consumer groups, some henna teachers have also opened special stores. More practitioners choose to set up stalls or cooperate with tattoo parlors and beauty salons to reduce costs. Nowadays, henna painting has also become a new business, and it has also become an indispensable part of some fashion markets, travel photography and other scenes.
Although there are templates that can be used to draw simple shapes by coloring, the classic henna painting is still sold with intricate ornamental patterns.
A henna teacher told a reporter from Beiqing Daily that the most difficult thing about henna painting is to achieve "one-stroke molding" and cannot be modified. The paste is squeezed out and pulled into a line, which is controlled by the direction and shape of the line with the rise and fall of the henna's brush, and finally forms a pattern on the skin. Since it is dyed almost as soon as the pen is written, it is difficult to correct.
As a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts, Ms. Wang now works in her studio and paints henna in her spare time. "At that time, there were no henna paintings in our neighborhood, but I was very interested, so I went to find out." Ms. Wang said that out of her own interest and professional sensitivity, she began to teach herself henna hand-painting, and it can be said that there is still a certain threshold for this industry. "My customer base is mainly young professionals and college students, and occasionally parents bring their children to experience it."
Xiaoge told reporters that the henna paintings she consumes are generally 5 yuan to 25 yuan, depending on the complexity of the pattern and the use of dyes.
Ms. Wang said that a henna painting in her store is priced according to the size and difficulty of the pattern: a 5-square-centimeter pattern costs 9.9 yuan and takes about five minutes. Ms. Wang said that the most expensive work she ever painted was to draw the pattern on the entire calf, which cost 120 yuan and took more than an hour. "The maximum price of the painting is 40 to 50 yuan, and it can receive more than 20 customers a day."
The raw material has few Chinese labels henna-painted dyes are unidentified
This new thing of henna painting not only brings new fashion, but also brings new problems.
In an interview, a reporter from Beiqing Daily found that many henna masters use extruded dyes that are mostly packaged in foreign languages and similar to ice cream buckets, and many painters can't tell what kind of material is made of them. "I bought it online, and the merchant said it was pure plant, but I don't know exactly what it's made of." A henna master who set up a stall said frankly.
Another henna master interviewed said that this kind of dye is extracted from a plant called "henna", and the plant itself is not poisonous and can fade naturally. "It's like dyeing your nails with nail grass when you were a kid."
A reporter from Beiqing Daily searched for the keyword "henna painting" on the e-commerce platform, and there were thousands of results, most of which were henna painting dyes. Although the prices range from a few yuan to dozens of yuan per stick, the outer packaging of these dyes is also similar to that on the stall - there is neither a Chinese logo nor an explanation of the composition of raw materials. Although some sellers said that the materials were made by themselves on the product page, they did not answer when asked what was used.
A reporter from Beiqing Daily has several stores with good sales on Taobao as a consumer. A shopkeeper said that he had a test report, and the product was pure plant-based and did not contain chemicals such as phenylenediamine and flavor. The other shopkeeper avoided the reporter's question about the test report, and only said that people with allergies should use it with caution. However, as for what is in the ingredient list of henna dyes it sells, few merchants can clearly tell them.
One-off or permanent henna painting carries a certain risk of allergies
In fact, there have been people who have turned the fadeable henna painting into a "permanent tattoo" because of the dye problem.
When Mr. Wang was traveling in Bali, he tried the local henna painting, and soon after returning to China, he noticed that the skin on the tattoo on his arm was itchy and peeling, thinking that it was sunburned, and he didn't pay much attention to it. Later, the whole arm was red, swollen, and extremely itchy, so he immediately rushed to the hospital, where he learned that it was contact dermatitis caused by an allergy to the dyes in the painting.
Regarding this case, Chen Liuqing, director of the dermatology department of Wuhan First People's Hospital, said in an interview with the media that it was not an isolated case. The traditional henna tattoo is supposed to be reddish-brown, and almost all of the people you encounter in the clinic are black dyes, probably with a chemical called p-phenylenediamine (commonly known as "PPD") added to them. This preparation is mainly used for staining, and when applied to the skin, it is easy to cause chemical burns, leave marks on the skin that are difficult to eliminate, and even anaphylactic shock, especially for people with allergies and children.
Coincidentally, a blogger has posted a video on social platforms before, saying that a customer had a large number of blisters on the painted skin when he was doing henna hand-painting in Melbourne. When I went to the doctor later, I learned that the skin tissue was infected with bacteria, and I suffered from cellulitis, and some of the skin even became grade 2 to 3 burns.
When a reporter from Beiqing Daily visited, it was found that in addition to the stores, more henna paintings were active in various markets and stalls. There are certain deficiencies in the supervision of merchants in this type of business premises, which also leads to problems, and it is difficult to find merchants in the future.
"Before I did henna, the stall owner told me that it was completely harmless, and he didn't ask me about my allergies. I also recently learned that people who are allergic to mangoes, alcohol, etc. can't do henna hand-painting, but fortunately I'm not allergic. Xiaolan said.
Some analysts said that unlike skin painting, henna painting requires a certain reaction between the dye and the skin or deep into the skin, regardless of whether the raw material is pure plant extraction, there is a certain risk of allergies. In the case of unknown raw materials, children are advised not to try it lightly. Even if adults want to try it, try to choose a small area of pattern, or apply a small amount of dye to the skin first to see if you are allergic. And when choosing a henna painting merchant, it is best to give preference to qualified merchants.
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Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Zhang Xin Intern Zhao Zihan Seed Tianyi
Editor/Fan Hongwei