He ignores the commonsense element of my question and parries with, “Let’s go with the walnut hull extract.”
“Hell, this glop is looking kind of thick to me right now...think we need to add water?”
Yep, that was us in 1997. Back then, the concoction brewing on the burner was a paste, with the henna plant at its base, that stained the skin a deep reddish brown. Fast forward to 2009 and nothing has changed—except the color scheme. I should be used to this by now.
The Henna Back Story
A dozen years ago, my company, Lakaye Studio, introduced henna tattoos to Los Angeles, and the news spread as quickly as the seemingly insatiable desire for real tattoos. Back then, I thought permanent tattoos had reached the height of popularity, but it was only the beginning.
Some would argue that tattooing is nothing more than a fashion trend, right alongside baggy pants whose waistbands have to fall just under the butt to be in step with the times. Of course, by the time this book comes out, beltless baggies will have gone the way of the fedora—once the rage before baseball caps came along. Wait, you mean fedoras are back? Oh, hell. Thank God I don’t write about style. Maybe I should stop trying to figure out what’s hip, and get back to tattoos, which, as I write this, are still very much in—although I disagree that they are merely fashion accessories (more on this later).
After all these years, I can still say without hesitation that people love henna and its beautiful, organic reddish-brown color. But a temporary tattoo that looks like a “real” one has always been extra high on everybody’s wish list, including that of the henna lovers. So, as business owners, my husband and I kept looking for a way to deliver the goods in a painless, all-natural way.
And then we found out about the jagua fruit. We heard it was an edible fruit from the Amazon, full of medicinal properties, plus the ability to stain the skin blue-black—just like a real tattoo—and then disappear completely in 10–14 days.
What!?
It wasn’t easy, but after much investigation, following numerous leads that more often than not brought us to dead ends, sending a hundred emails and making a thousand telephone calls to friends, and friends of friends, and often complete strangers, someone finally put us in contact with an American living in Peru. I’ll call him Mr. X. This Mr. X had had dealings with a number of indigenous groups living in the jungle and, for a negligible fee, he offered to facilitate introductions. A couple of months and multiple conversations later, we decided to dispatch my husband and partner, Pascal Giacomini, on an extended trip to some of the most isolated villages in the world, deep inside the Amazon rainforest where jagua grows.
Are you going, too?
That’s what all my friends wanted to know.
Um, no thanks.
This journey reminded me of how our Moroccan affair began with the family of farmers who supply us with the henna we use in our Earth Henna Tattoo Kits. Pascal was the one who made the initial trip out to the isolated and inhospitable desert terrain where, before his arrival, the family had only once before in their lives been visited by a foreigner—and she was a scientist on research assignment for a book. I did eventually visit the family, and enjoyed myself tremendously—we were welcomed like royalty, and the stopover included an unforgettable traditional henna session administered by the loving matriarch. However, although I was thankful for the firsthand experience, and have been feeling the call to return, it wasn’t the kind of trip that was high on my wish list. It took a full day’s drive through utterly desolate country to get there (Please don’t let the car die out here, I kept thinking). The conditions are very harsh, with unbearably dry, gusty winds that made it difficult to see and breathe. There was no running water, electricity, or even a latrine (going to the bathroom consisted of digging a hole in the sand). And even though our hosts pleaded with us to stay awhile, after two days I worried that every scrap of food we ate was one less morsel they would have for themselves. After all, these are people with few means, and we were their guests. And there was no way they would take money from us for food. Pascal’s upcoming jungle adventure sounded like much the same—only humid.
In my book, Sex, Cheese and French Fries, which takes a humorous look at the challenges of a cross-cultural marriage between an American woman (me) and a French husband (Pascal), there is one chapter titled “I married Indiana Jones”—and I’m not kidding! Pascal is perfectly suited for this kind of trip. He thrives on exploring undiscovered territory. He is exactly the kind of guy you’d want to be stuck with on a desert island, because he’d figure out how to survive, somehow. And he possesses an internal navigation system that is hardwired into his genes. As for me? To find my way home, my instinct is to line the road behind me with bread-crumbs inevitably eaten by vultures that prey on idiots who don’t know how to read a compass. This trip entailed flying into Lima, Peru, taking another flight to a small town, then another flight to an even smaller military outpost, and from there taking an eight-hour canoe ride to the first of several tribal villages. I thought my husband should go first, and tell me all about it upon his return. In the meantime, I went shopping for a Temple of Doom-style hat-and-whip ensemble for him to wear.
Pascal’s trip established the groundwork for what we hope will be a replica of the mutually beneficial relationship and friendship we enjoy with our Moroccan farmers—a straightforward business transaction between a manufacturer and supplier that grew into so much more!—only this time, with the Indians who harvest the jagua fruit for us in the Amazon jungle.
Walking into Body Art
As I recounted in my book, Mehndi, The Art of Henna Body Painting (published by Random House in 1998), the world of henna tattoos arrived in our little ethnic art universe by way of a proposed photographic exhibition of henna-adorned bodies in our Haitian art gallery located in Hollywood, California. What in the world was my Caribbean art-focused gallery supposed to do with this East Indian art form? I debated with myself. Plus, we’d never had much luck selling photography (this was before art photography went from being a medium that catered to a niche market to one that now appeals to even small babies and their friends). People did and still do come to Galerie Lakaye for serious contemporary art by Haitian artists, but mostly, the staple that brought the masses to our door were inexpensive, brightly colored paintings and traditional Haitian cut-out metal drum sculptures. And, when I say “masses” I am exaggerating a lot. In fact, we had been scratching our heads trying to decipher exactly where the masses were lately. We wondered if there was some kind of evil ghost in our space, which, unbeknownst to us, was scaring away all potential clients the minute they tried to ring our doorbell. If you were ever in the art business, you would know that being plagued by such questions is standard operating procedure. So, maybe it was desperation that drove us to seriously consider hosting this exhibit, but I like to think it was heightened intuition, having a nose for good business opportunities, and being able to forecast trends! So, off we went to New York to see the proposed exhibit housed in an East Village gallery, where New York artists were raking in the dough tattooing the clientele.
Much to my surprise, it turned out that henna designs in India were, in some crazy, cosmic way, reminiscent of veves, the Vodou symbols used by Haitian priests and priestesses to invoke the gods (I am a Haitian native). I don’t practice Vodou or any religion, for that matter. But I’m pretty sure those spirits exist! Taking it as a magical sign that we should take a closer look, Pascal and I took the plunge, and before you could say, But how are we going