This Prom Queen's Henna Tattoo Turned Into A Total Nightmare

    Beware of black henna.

    Julie Gerstein
    by Julie Gerstein

    BuzzFeed Staff

    This is Mary Bates, a 16-year-old from St Albans, Hertfordshire, U.K.

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    Here she is on her way to prom, where she picked up the title of prom queen.

    On a recent vacation to Turkey, Mary got a black henna tattoo of a dreamcatcher on her left ankle.

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    You can see it here.

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    But a few days after she got the tattoo, it began to scab up and burn.

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    That's because the ink in the tattoo contained p-paraphenylenediamine, a substance that is not regulated by the European Union or the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

    Linda Katz, director of the FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors, told the Washington Post that black henna can cause redness, blisters, lesions, loss of pigmentation, and permanent scarring.

    Where traditional henna is made from a flowering plant common in Asia and Africa, black henna is synthetic.

    According to the FDA, black henna is sometimes traditional henna mixed with other ingredients, or it may simply just be coal tar hair dye.

    fda.gov

    This is a photo of a 5-year-old who developed a severe reaction to a black henna tattoo.

    For Mary, the black henna tattoo resulted in a horrible burn.

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    As a result of her reaction to the tattoo, and the p-phenylenediamine (PPD) in it, Mary's been warned to stay away from hair dye (which contains PPD) for the next year.

    The aspiring model and makeup artist says she's hoping one day to be good enough at theatrical makeup to be able to cover up her scar.

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    Until then, she told the Daily Mail, "I had aspirations to be a model in the future and I do enjoy it a lot so it's going to be hard."