Tips on mixing mendhi

Even though there are so many brands and ready made mendhi cones on the market these days, sometimes its nice to mix your own. There are a thousand different methods of mixing mendhi, everyone has their own but I'd like to share the one that has worked best for me. The darkness of your mendhi primarily is dependant on the quality of the raw mendhi you have used because if you use old mendhi, once its mixed it may not stain as well. So the mendhi powder that you use must be fresh and of good quality. When I first started to do mendhi I never understood this so I would just use leftover mendhi found lying in a cupboard and always used to just add water. Never quite understood why it wasn't staining as well as the ready made cones.

The Basic Recipe

The amount of liquid absorbed by the mendhi powder depends on the type of powder used. The recipe given below is approximate, and the important thing is to achieve a paste with consistency of toothpaste.
Ingredients:

5-6 tb spns Mendhi
6-8 Cloves
5 drops Eucalyptus oil
2 Tea bags
2 tsp Coffee
2 tsp tamarind paste
425ml Water
1 tsp ground cloves

Equipment:

Old Saucepan
Sieve
Mixing Bowl
Spoon

Instructions:

1.Place the tea bags, coffee, tamarind paste, the ground and whole cloves in the saucepan. Pour in 425 ml ( 3/4 pint) water, mix the ingredients together and bring it to the boil/ Allow the mixiture to simmer for about an hour and then leave it to cool. ( the more you boil the water, the stronger the mix will become.)

2. Sieve the henna powder into a glass, ceramic or stainless steel mixing bowl. Strain the cooled mixiture, add a little and stir it well. Gradually add the rest of the liquid, stirring all the time, until the paste is the same consistency as toothpaste.

3. Make sure there are no lumps in the paste, then add the drops of eucalyptus oil and mix well to form a thick lotion

4. Cover the mixture and leave it for about 12hours to allow the natural dye to precipitate from the henna.

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