No, It's Not Black Henna, It's Jagua!

My yearly Burning Man shipment of fresh, finely sifted powdered henna came in the other day, and with it my first bottle of a new (to me) product called Jagua, which can be applied in a *similar* way to henna - though I found working with it to be a bit different it is still applied with the same little henna-bottle and tips.

Jagua is a safe dye - it is not the dangerous "black henna" we are warned of - which is a black hair dye which should NEVER be put on the skin.

It's from a South American plant, and while expensive, a little seems to go a long way.

This is the design with the gel all peeled and washed off, about 12 hours after applying it in a thin layer. It seems to stain very well even in small amounts so no need to go thick. At first the design looked dark because the gel remained on the skin and the gel itself is a dark indigo color. Later the gel (maybe 30 min after it dried) turned slightly greenish and started peeling off. Underneath was the faintest greeny stain - very pale. It darkened just slightly over the next few hours I was awake and then I went to bed.

NOTE - I think you can peel all the Jagua off once it dries - at least before bed. Though most of the design had peeled away on it's own, what remained DID transfer to other body parts. I think moisture re-awakened the staining capacity of the dried gel here.

When I woke up, the design was DARK. As dark as a real tattoo - darker even than the tattoo my fiance has which is 8 years old, and definitely darker than the gel itself.

I am very excited because I decided to try the Jagua as a way to mock-up additional tattoos he wants me to design, and I thought I might have to go over the design more than once to get a good dark color, but one seemed to be enough.

Now we'll just see how long it lasts and how it fades...