What's it like to get a henna design done in Morocco?

You sit down — on a stool in a square, on a cushion in a riad, at a small table edged with bottles — and offer up your hand, palm or back, and the artist takes it in hers with the unhurried confidence of someone who has done this ten thousand times. She loads a little cone or syringe with paste, leans in close, and begins, and there's no stencil and no hesitation: the lines just flow out of her, paisleys and vines and fine geometric webs blooming across your skin faster than you can follow.

The paste itself is a small surprise. It comes out cool and slightly wet, laid down in raised ribbons that you can feel sitting on the surface of your skin, and it smells green and earthy, a little like cut hay and eucalyptus. You're told, firmly, not to move and not to touch, so you hold your hand out like an offering while it sets, and the stillness becomes oddly meditative — there's nothing to do but watch the design grow and let the noise of the medina blur around you.

Then comes the waiting, which is where real henna proves itself. The paste has to stay on as long as you can bear — an hour at the very least, ideally longer — to stain properly, so you carry your decorated hand carefully through the rest of your afternoon, not quite able to dig in your bag. When the dried crust finally flakes and crumbles away, the skin beneath is a pale pumpkin orange that looks faint at first, then darkens over the next day or two into a rich russet brown. That slow deepening is how you know it was the real plant.

A genuine warning, because it matters: only ever accept natural henna, which is that green-brown paste staining orange then brown. Anything jet-black going on as black paste is 'black henna' laced with a chemical dye that can cause nasty burns and scarring — refuse it flatly, however pretty the sample. Done properly, though, it's a lovely, gentle thing: a woman's hands on yours, a pattern that's been drawn on Moroccan skin for weddings and festivals for centuries, fading slowly over a week or two like a souvenir you wear instead of pack.