Beware 'Henna' tatoos !

[gary]

thankyou wiser diner. ive been coming out in these "rashes" periodically for over 20 years and never knew what it was. i always assumed it was a reaction to cleaning products (so have to agree with dr farrell on the environmental trigger) but am very curious on the feet aspect - ive always assumed i had atheletes foot and treated it accordingly but have never seemed to get rid of the bugger, and unfortunately end up tearing my feet apart. at least now i have something to research. once again many thanks.

sorry polensa for going off thread.


best regards

gary

[stephenhayes]

Hi. I am a medical doctor with an interest in skin disease, I just signed in here tonight as I booked a holiday in PP this April. I noticed this item on henna tattos.

I have seen 2 horrible 'black henna' (actually PPD) reactions in children, in my practice in Southampton. One was acquired in Greece, another in Turkey. The reaction usually comes up after you come home from your Mediterranean holday so the chance of catching let alone claiming damages from the street trader is close to zero. Very strong steroid creams are necessary to treat it, and it can scar.

I did some research, spoke to some dermatologist colleagues and yes this a common but not widely appreciated problem. PPD in henna is already illegal thoughout the EU, but the law is not adequately enforced. I wrote something about it and published my photos in a specialist UK medical magazine, but the issue is still not widely enough known about. Any publicity can help raise awareness.

PPD is quite legally present in hair dye, and as such is usually OK, but if someone becomes sensitised though a 'black henna' tattoo of the skin, they must NEVER use hair dye for life, or they may get an extreme PPD reaction involving the head and neck which I have read may even be life threatenting. There are some awful pictures on the web.

The henna page (someone already posted the URL) is an excellent source of information.

This mainly goes on in Mediterranean holiday resorts, may I humbly suggest that if everyone who has had a child affected kicked up a fuss, wrote to authorities, travel companies and newspapers-send a photo of the rash at its worst- something might get done. But PPD in 'black henna' tattos is already banned throughouit the EU, the issue is enforcement. It should be simple enough for the local authorities to pick up the people who are harming children in this way, but perhaps they don't know as the rash usually comes up 2 weeks later when they have gone home.

kind regards

[RobnAnna]

WOW, sorry to all those who have suffered from these tattoos, i wondered where you get the fake tattoos from? as for years now all our children ranging from 3-12 have had henna tattoos done by a friendly lady in the market in PP on wednesdays. The tattoos are protected from sea and swimmingby regular vaseline applications and last about 2 weeks. They fade normally to reveal shape left under the suntan which the children enjoy having, like a lasting reminder of fun times. Im concerned for next time now!

[SaraSmile]

Wow! We get these done when we go to Mexico, everyone in the family gets one and we love taking pics of the better ones..

I did get a spiel from my mother that the black henna was bad, but after seeing so many people get them, and then getting our own, I told her she was nuts.

Time to apologize to her?

[sws97sdg]

As we are talking about hair braids I thought I would bump this back up as it has useful advice in.

[LK1960]

Thanks for this SWS. Although my son will never get a henna tattoo again, I had forgotten the advice contained in this thread regarding hair dye and must remind him of that for the future. When we were in PP last week we walked past the place on the beachfront where he got his tattoo and had a long chat about what happened. It's still quite upsetting even now. Parents beware.