Re: Cloves
Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on August 01, 1999 at 16:02:35:
In Reply to: Cloves posted by Kelly on August 01, 1999 at 04:09:11:
Cloves contain gallotannic acid, which is a companionable cousin
to hennotannic acid. The addition of clove in one form or other makes
the henna a tad blacker. You can boil whole or powdered cloves with
the tea or coffee (until it's intense and sludgy) to add to the henna
paste to fine tune the consistancy (after you've started your paste by
mixing in enough lemon juice with the henna powder to make a paste
like mashed potatoes) to that "softer than toothpaste, thicker than
stirred-up yoghurt" sort of consistancy. You can stir in a little
clove powder into your henna paste, but the granules may clog a
fine tipped applicator. You can also add clove oil to your mix, but
that may make your skin itchy or blistered. You can hold your
still-damp hennaed skin over cloves smouldering over a charcoal
brazier but that's REALLY bad for your lungs! You can seal your dried
henna down with New Skin which has clove in it. All the above have
clove. All the above work....choose whatever one seems to you to be
the least likely to cause harm and the most likely to enhance your
henna.