Demystifying Beauty

When somebody said "Practice makes a man perfect", surely they must have had the art of Mehndi in mind! I still remember those days when my mom and myself would try to squiggle out some random designs out of the store-bought cones. As I had said in my previous post, we had a lovely Mehndi tree in our home and were never short of leaves. So cones were not our cup of tea and we were quite satisfied with the usual little Polka-dot patterns!! Occasionally mom would sneak in a few grains of rice or chana dal under the regular polka to achieve a pattern! She is so creative and excellent in Kolams and Rangoli's and it is probably that gene of her, that I have inherited to sketch out decent mehndi designs.. Now if you let me, I'll go on and on..

I had put Mehndi last weekend, and this time I took step-by-step pics of how it turned out. Before going out to the mehndi desgins, I just wanted to give you an idea of the main parts of a complete mehndi design.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional Mehndi designer nor a teacher. Whatever I have presented here are born out of my own imagination and I don't claim that these are the rules of Mehndi designing. Your imagination is the best guide and let it lead you to play around! :)

1. Motifs or the Main shapes: These are the basic shapes that adorn all over your hand. Usually you draw them big and extend them to join another Motif to make a pattern.

Some of the often-used and famous motifs are peacock, mango shaped, a mandap-shape, floral designs, etc.
2. Fillers: After you draw these motifs or the main shapes, you start filling them with recurrent patterns, curves, or lines. You can alternate with as many filler designs as you want to achieve the most complicated design.

Some of the commonly used fillers are curves, checker-board designs etc.
3. Enhancing designs / Accentuators: These designs are not enough by themselves to create a design. When they are used along with the exisiting pattern, they beautifully enhance the whole design. While these are not a part of a regular design, adding them makes your design stand out. (like biting into a cashew when you are enjoying a sooji halwa or kesari!)
Now that these are the essential components, it only takes our imagination and play around with different combinations.

As and when the mehndi dries up, use a dash of lemon juice mixed with sugar to wet them again. You can leave this on for about 2 to 4 hours, depending on your patience. When you are removing it, use the back of a spoon to scrap the dried mehndi off. Do not wash with water; instead apply a little coconut oil and leave it on for an hour for better results.

This is how the color turned out to be!
Hope you all enjoyed these!! See you soon with another interesting post!