15 Latest Arabic Mehndi Designs to Inspire from

With back to back festival that are celebrated every year, followed by wedding season, every woman and the bride herself are all geared up to make their events special. And nothing could be more jazzing up than decorating your hands with Arabic mehndi designs that give conventional edge to the brides and the women celebrating the auspicious festivals.

While the carefully curated henna art always features the typical patterns and designs, these days the artists give a modern twist by adding in new age elements like sparkles, stones etc. to make the design look more appealing. Moreover, the body artwork involves an array of options from full hand elaborate designs to a single stranded free-flowing structure. Apart from the beautiful Rajasthani mehndi, the Arabic designs are much in demands these days which motivate women to put these designs even if it’s not any event or occasion.

Unlike Rajasthani mehndi, the Arabic design is usually identified by the distinctive floral art depicted in a vertically continuous pattern. The mango gota work or floral motifs recurring in geometrical template covers a large part of the palm and hand. While the huge motifs are filled with varied intricate designs, the surrounding space is also covered with branches flanked by leaflets and buds.

Go through these top 15 curated Arabic mehndi designs to inspire from –

Arabic designs have veils and flowers drawn across diagonally across the palms and the arms. This is what makes this a unique mehendi design.

Even if all design is repetitive, in this types of mehendi, it does not look bad.

Modern twist in Arabic mehndi design

I had already mentioned in this post that artists are today giving a modern twist to this age-old henna artwork. The new age interpretation of Arabic mehndi design involves addition of contemporary tapestry designs to the traditional middle-eastern body art. These contemporary tapestry designs not only complement the bridal mehndi look but are now looked upon as an essential body tattoo by the fashion forward women. And when artists add in crystals and sparkles to their artwork, they then create a strong style statement evoking ethnicity at the same time.

If you have by chance come across Arabic art ever then you can understand how the Arabic mehndi design is never the pure middle-eastern art form, instead it is hugely inspired from Indian mehndi art form. While the original Arabic art is usually in geometrical forms, the Arabic mehndi involves floral and animal motifs such as peacock that are of Indian origin.

History of Arabic mehndi design in India

While it’s quite difficult to track down the origin of mehndi in India, it is believed that henna had probably originated in the desert areas of Rajasthan, Punjab and Gujarat. The story goes as this – the people dwelling in the Thar Desert used to cover their hands and feet with a paste made from crushed henna leaves in order to keep themselves cool in the scorching sun.

Previously, the entire paste used to be applied on the palms and soles of the feet, but as years went by, people started getting creative, by making designs using match sticks and safety pins.

Although the spacing out of the Arabic mehendi designs is far more scattered, unlike the punjabi or marwadi, it still seems to look detailed and delicate.

Or give it a mirror effect.

By applying henna all over the exposed areas of their body, their body temperature remained low as long as the color held. The women especially were soon bored of the monotonous reddish-brown palms. So, they started experimenting with henna by putting a single central dot, surrounded by several smaller dots, which eventually led to the complexity of henna designs we see today.

However, it were Mughals, who had brought Arabic mehndi designs to India in 12th century A.D. And by 16th century it was commonplace in the country during Akbar era.

Hope you loved these 15 latest Arabic mehndi designs!! Stay tuned and stay inspired!