Celebrity henna!

One thing that working henna artists do in the slower months of winter, besides updating the booth, is look at pictures. THOUSANDS of pictures. When I first heard about henna back in 1996, I could only find a handful of pictures on the internet of mehndi designs. Now you can find so many - especially on Flickr, where working artists often have portfolios, and places like Tumblr, weheartit, and numerous blogs devoted to henna designs.

When Madonna first wore henna onstage back in the late 90s, it sparked an interest in the West for henna body art. More recently, younger celebs such as Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Kendall and Kylie Jenner have posted pictures of their henna designs on Twitter, and a whole new generation of Americans are now aware of this ancient body art. Katy Perry and Russel Brand even had a mehndi celebration before their wedding (which didn't seem to bring their marriage good luck!) and Alanis Morissette had a Blessingway where she had a henna belly done, and her guests got hand designs.

Here are pictures I've seen around the web of these celebrities - even Camilla Parker Bowles got mehndi twice while traveling in Africa. Unfortunately, she didn't know the dangers of black henna and the photo of her with Prince Charles shows a smudged black henna design. Hopefully she didn't have a bad reaction to it!

Update: Found a picture of Beyonce with mehndi today!