A dream holiday to Bali turned into a nightmare for a young Bunbury family after Jackie Clarke’s two children received massive welts from supposedly harmless ‘black henna’ temporary tattoos.
Nine-year-old Aiden and five-year-old Georgina Clarke were on the last day of their Bali holiday when they decided to get temporary ‘black henna’ tattoos from the hotel where they were staying.
“All the kids there were getting them so I didn’t think that there could be any harm from getting it done,” Ms Clarke said.
Ms Clarke does remember something strange about the henna being used.
“I did think that henna wasn’t supposed to be black,” she said.
“But they came up fine. There was no burning or anything like that.”
The first signs of trouble for the Clarke family came two days later.
“Georgina woke up in the middle of the night complaining that it (the tattoo) was itchy and hot,” Ms Clarke said.
When Aiden woke up in the morning, his arm had become massively swollen around the tattoo.
“It was raised and had bumps over it,” Ms Clarke said.
The problem came from the chemical phenylenediamine, or PPD, added to red-brown henna to darken it and speed up drying.
The reaction even caused the regular henna tattoos Aiden and Georgina received earlier that week to reappear.
“Whatever was in the black henna has caused the other tattoos to react as well,” Ms Clarke said.
The traumatic experience has particularly upset Ms Clarke.
“If we knew that this stuff was in tattoos in Bali we would never have put the kids through it.”
“I feel like I have exposed my kids to a chemical that might cause them life-long problems ... something as silly as a temporary tattoo.”
Ms Clarke said she hoped her experience would serve as a caution to other parents travelling to Bali.
“I think a warning really needs to be out there for people,” she said.