The Mehndi Event Planner

A stain at its deepest on the day: the safety check, the paste ordered from the design, the chair time, the wear, and two days to darken, all counted back from the event

HennaHand's calculators each answer one clock, and none of them meets the event. The Stain Time calculator says how long the paste stays on, the Pattern Time calculator how long the design takes, and the Dry Time calculator when to seal. None counts the day or two the stain keeps darkening after the paste comes off, none turns a design into the powder to buy, and none says that a patch test with the batch has to happen days before anyone sits in the chair. The Mehndi Event Planner puts the site's tools in the order an event happens, backward from the moment it starts. It begins with the safety check: natural henna only (never "black henna", which usually contains PPD), no henna on babies or young children (G6PD deficiency), and a patch test with the batch itself. Then it orders the paste from each design with a margin (a bride's heavy hands-and-feet design is 135 g in the cone calculator, 168.75 g and seven cones with the margin; with eight guests the batch is 255 g, from 93 g of powder), schedules the mix and the test days ahead, times the chair (5 h 20 min for the bride), lets the slowest skin set the wear (8 hours), and leaves two days to darken. For a Saturday 4:00 pm wedding the latest first stroke is Thursday 2:40 am, so the mehndi goes on the Wednesday evening; the night before leaves the stain 8 h 40 min. Every figure is computed by the site's own tools from examples you replace with your own; the 24 to 48 hours of darkening, the patch test's day or two and the 25% margin are rules of thumb, called that. It sizes no essential oil, gives no medical advice and recommends no brand. Included: 7 steps, four printable working pages (an event timeline, a paste order, a chair schedule and a safety card), a timeline reference, a quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from the figures you enter in the stain time, pattern time, cone quantity, dry time and paste consistency calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the planner, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Natural-Henna Rule: natural henna only, never on a baby or young child, and never a full design on skin that has not tested the batch
• The Design-First Rule: the paste ordered from each design with a 25% margin, in whole cones, and turned into the powder to buy
• The Rest-and-Test Rule: the batch mixed, rested and patch-tested days ahead, then coned and frozen until the day
• The Chair-Time Rule: the bride's chair time, the guests', and the artist's whole evening
• The Slowest-Skin Rule: the wear set by the slowest skin in the design, counted from the last stroke, with seal times by room
• The Two-Day Rule: when the paste must come off for a stain at its deepest, and what each start slot gives on the day
• The Backward Timeline Rule: the whole week written back from the event, with aftercare as cosmetic practice
• Four working pages: an event timeline, a paste order, a chair schedule and a safety card to keep by the cones
• A timeline reference: the latest first stroke and the paste with its margin for every design and level of detail
• A personalised sheet worked from the figures you enter in the stain time, pattern time, cone quantity, dry time and paste consistency calculators

The planner picks up where the free Stain Time Calculator leaves off. The calculator says how long the paste stays on; the planner adds the chair time from the Pattern Time Calculator, the day or two the stain keeps darkening after the paste comes off, the patch test and the paste's rest, and counts the whole timeline back from the event. It orders the paste from the Cone Quantity Calculatorwith a margin, and it starts with the safety check: natural henna only, never “black henna”, no henna on babies or young children, and a patch test with the batch itself. It sizes no essential oil, gives no medical advice and recommends no brand. The worked figures are examples.