Cancun Today

By Melissa Dahl, Health writer, MSNBC

Debbe Geiger has never been one for tattoos. But when her daughter Kim begged to get a henna tattoo on a family vacation to Cancun a few years ago, she thought it couldn’t hurt. After all, it’s only temporary, and Kim would have something to show off to her friends back home.

But just two days later, the tattoo of a cute little bug had swelled into an itchy, bubbling blister on Kim’s upper right arm.

The American Academy of Dermatology recently issued a warning that a chemical found in black henna tattoos can cause a severe allergic reaction, causing the skin to redden, swell and blister — but only where the henna is applied, leaving people with bubbly blisters in shapes like suns, stars and flowers.
Kim Geiger’s blister faded away within a month, and her mom says she hasn’t had any allergic reaction to medication since. But Debbe Geiger often wonders how anyone could ever tell the difference between safe, natural henna and black henna.

“This was a little booth set up at the hotel pool, and I didn’t think anything of it,” she says.

Experts say there are a few easy ways to tell the difference between true henna and black henna. For one, henna is never black — it’s red, which darkens to a brownish color on the skin as it dries. Real henna starts to fade away within a few days, so be wary of a henna tattoo artist who boasts of tattoos that will last any longer than that.

But both mom and daughter Geiger aren’t taking any more chances; they’re staying far away from all things henna. “It looks so harmless,” Debbe Geiger says, “but you have to watch these ingredients they’re using.”

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