During any given runway season, there’s always one backstage beauty look—Givenchy’s spring 2012 glittering lash paillettes, Altuzarra’s spring 2013 navy liner—I’m compelled to try at home. This season, however, it’s a front-row beauty moment that I can’t seem to shake. When Rihanna got a tribal-meets-henna-inspired tattoo permanently inked onto her right hand in October, I didn’t pay much notice. But since spotting her at Balmain, Stella McCartney, Givenchy, and pretty much everywhere else in Paris this week—not to mention on the March cover of Vogue—I’ve been mesmerized by the traditional Indian pattern. So I did what any true beauty sleuth would do: Following a brief Internet search, and a few investigative Frenglish phone calls, I tracked down the nearest tatouage au hennéestablishment I could find in the City of Light and hopped the Metro to the seventeenth arrondissement. Thirty minutes later, I swung open the door to Eva Nails, a no-appointment-necessary “beauté indien” manicure spot near the Place du Clichy that also specializes in threading, facials, and Mehndi—the traditional Hindu henna tattoo practice—upon request. When I arrived at the tiny salon, located in an inconspicuous alley, it was immediately clear that I was the only one to have made a Mehndi request—in quite some time.
But no matter. As a line of women waited to get their eyebrows threaded, I flipped through a book of prefab designs. The two incredibly lovely proprietors, who seemed both confused and thrilled by my enthusiasm for henna tattooing, explained that I could only get a red henna drawing, since the black iteration can cause a serious allergic reaction and requires an advance patch test. This was fine by me; the dark cayenne color of the red dye—which darkens in response to the heat of your body—went better with the tan turtleneck-and-denim midi skirt look I had planned for the Chanel show the next morning anyway.
With data on my international cell-phone plan too limited to procur an exact image of Rihanna’s Bang Bang McCurdy and Cally-Jo–conceived pattern, I resolved to art-direct my way through an eight-euro hand design alone—a calculated risk, with plenty of reward. Following about 30 minutes of painstaking concentration during which my technician wielded incredible control of an aluminum cake-piping-like-tube filled with a dark-brown cream, I was left with a gorgeous piece of semipermanent art—and a great souvenir to take home from Paris.
Eva Nails, 26 Rue Biot, seventeenth arrondissement 75017, France; +33 1 43 87 30 37
But no matter. As a line of women waited to get their eyebrows threaded, I flipped through a book of prefab designs. The two incredibly lovely proprietors, who seemed both confused and thrilled by my enthusiasm for henna tattooing, explained that I could only get a red henna drawing, since the black iteration can cause a serious allergic reaction and requires an advance patch test. This was fine by me; the dark cayenne color of the red dye—which darkens in response to the heat of your body—went better with the tan turtleneck-and-denim midi skirt look I had planned for the Chanel show the next morning anyway.
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