Lupita Nyong’o Instagram – THE STORY OF MY HEAD: I met @hennabysabeen last year at a wedding in Pakistan. She did the #HennaDesign for the bride and I was ASTOUNDED by the INTRICACY and BEAUTY of her work. There was something unique about the way she expressed herself in henna art. And I promised myself, “One day I will have a reason to work with Sabeen.” : 1.5 years later, when I got the invitation to attend the opening night of my dear friend, Mira Nair’s @monsoonmusical, I was scrambling at the last minute to find something to wear. I borrowed a sari and jewelry from @mishajapanwala, the bride from Pakistan, but the look didn’t feel complete… : And then, in the middle of the night, an image SHOT into my mind of a henna design covering my bald head!!! I could do something special and different, to celebrate the culture using the canvas readily available to me! I was so excited by the idea that I could not go back to sleep. Misha connected me to Sabeen, and we were ON OUR WAY… : Sabeen had NEVER designed for a head before; I had never done such a thing before either. My only prompt to her was that I wanted a widow’s peak (homage to the bindhi, borla / maang tikka), the rest was ALL HER INNOVATION. She suggested #jagua, a natural dye from the jagua fruit of South America that would be dark enough to give good contrast to my dark skin ☺️. : We were both excited and terrified. What if it went wrong or looked funny??? Well, I thought, I can always wear a head wrap…. : But Sabeen BROUGHT IT! We stopped now and again so that I could give her feedback because she was DETERMINED to leave me a happy client. And Sabeen was METICULOUS. She did not stop until it was perfect. When we looked at the finished head… we were both GRINNING! : It takes about 24 hours for the dye to really show up. And when it came in, in FULL CONTRAST the next day, I was simply MOVED. It was beautiful. It was bold and elegant; it had a point of view. We had not played it safe, and it had paid off. And I had found a new way to express myself without hair! : So the moral of this story is: DARE YOURSELF TO SEEK OUT BEAUTY IN NEW WAYS. And, Sabeen, thank you for bestowing on me the beauty of your hand and history!