From my mother's henna paste to the country's biggest festivals.
Kia ora, I'm Saarah. I have been drawing henna since I was ten. This is the short version.
Placeholder portraitChennai, the early years
I grew up in Chennai, where henna is part of every festival and every wedding. I have memories of gathering henna leaves for my mother, who ground them with a little tamarind into paste, and pressed a circle into the palm with her fingers, dots around it, caps on the fingertips. That is how it was done before the cone.
At ten, at a wedding, there was nobody to draw the henna. So I picked up the cone and did it myself. I practised on every hand that would sit still, and by my teens I was drawing for friends and family at their weddings.
Wellington, since 2014
I moved to Wellington in 2011. Saarah's Henna became a registered business in 2014, and our very first event was the Newtown Festival. Since then the gazebo has been to WOMAD, Rhythm and Vines, Homegrown, Bay Dreams, One Love and Sound Splash, and I have drawn for hundreds of brides, mothers-to-be, birthdays and quiet appointments in between.
My husband Sam runs the business side so I never have to put the cone down. Every design on this site is mine, drawn freehand for the person in front of me. No stencils, no repeats.
Festival season, a henna crown, and a queue that never stops.
A short clip from a festival day. Henna crowns are among the most meaningful work I do, and I gift them to anyone who has lost their hair.
Henna, oils, sugar, lemon. Nothing else.
I mix my own paste from henna powder, essential oils, sugar and lemon. It is natural, it smells like a garden, and it gives a stain that goes from orange to deep red-brown over 48 hours. I never use so-called black henna. It contains a chemical hair dye that can scar skin, and no design is worth that.
Consult first, then draw.
Brides get a proper conversation before the day: outfit, jewellery, family motifs, and whatever you would like hidden in the design. Parties get a design menu and a fast hand. Everyone gets the same paste, the same care and the same aftercare card.
What brides and families say
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Placeholder testimonial 1"A real client quote goes here. Two or three sentences in their own words about the day, the design and how the stain came up."Client first name, suburb
Placeholder testimonial 2"A real client quote goes here. Two or three sentences in their own words about the day, the design and how the stain came up."Client first name, suburb
Placeholder testimonial 3"A real client quote goes here. Two or three sentences in their own words about the day, the design and how the stain came up."Client first name, suburb
Tell me about the day.
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