Vendor Review: Sonia’s Henna Art

You might recall how excited I was to find a mehendi person for our wedding – I love mehendi so I wanted it to be nice. I’m not sure where to start with this review so I’m going to cut straight into it:

I was disappointed with Sonia.

About 2 weeks before my wedding, I received a message from a previous client of Sonia warning me not to use her. The clients experience was not good because Sonia was late and had rushed the bride and her family. After hearing that, I was a little nervous but thought I’d give her a try anyway. We had another lady coming to do Mehendi for my family, so the worst case scenario would be to rely on the backup person.

The day before my Mehendi, Sonia was scheduled to be at my house for 7pm – this gave me enough time to get home from my nail appointment, change my clothes and eat. However, as I walked in the door at 6:30pm, we received a call that Sonia was here. I thought, wow… a desi person, who’s EARLY? That’s awesome! When Sonia entered, she thought my appointment was scheduled for 6pm and that she was late – not a good sign if my appointment been for 6pm. Anyway, I told her I’d be about 15-20 minutes as I needed to change. As soon as I said this, she asked if I could be ready in 10 minutes since she needed to get back home. Ummm… what?! A little annoyed, I let it go because she seemed somewhat flustered.

I changed super fast, didn’t bother eating and rushed to get started with the mehendi. I’d rather that she take her time than charge through our mehendi session. I sat down, told her the style I wanted (not heavy and very bareek/traditional mehendi) and we got on our way.

For about 2 seconds, that is.

Almost as soon as we started, she received a call from one of her friends. Without getting too negative this is what happened: The entire time Sonia did my first hand, she kept getting calls – she would swear at receiving the call, ATTEND the call, hang up and then apologize to me. This happened 3 or 4 times and it was really distracting.

When she finished my hand, I told her I didn’t like it and that it wasn’t what I had asked for. She started apologizing and telling me that she doesn’t like it either and that she ruined my hand. She even went on to say that if people ask, I shouldn’t give out her name – she might have been joking about that. I must have looked upset because she said something along the lines of: “You’re not going to cry, are you?” Apparently, another bride had cried because she didn’t like her mehendi design.

As she started my second hand, the mehendi artist for my family came in. Once Sonia saw the second mehendi artist, she started getting visibly nervous. She kept saying that the other lady is “so good” and “so much better” and that I should have just gotten it done from her instead.

Definitely not something a client wants to hear!

Long story short, she ended up only doing the insides of my hand and I got the outside done by the second mehendi person. As she was leaving, she said she got nervous because of the second mehendi person and that’s why she couldn’t do a good job.

Below are the major setbacks:

• Lack of Professionalism: Attending personal phone calls and swearing around your clients is just not acceptable.
• Disregard for Time: In my case, Sonia was early but that was a fluke; she had thought she was late. Similar thing happened to the blog reader who messaged me – coincidence? I hope so. In addition, if you have booked an appointment with someone, the last thing they want to hear is that you need to leave soon
• Inability to Follow Client’s Request: I might be an isolated incident but I felt as if I wasn’t heard. Maybe it was because she was distracted/nervous, but she had a hard time delivering the type of design I wanted
• Colour: Bluntly put, the colour of Sonia’s mehendi was bad. Since Sonia doesn’t make her own mehendi (which she tells everyone upfront), she relies on someone else to supply them to her. I have seen the mehendi of the supplier on numerous people (including myself) and it is always very light. Sonia told me that if I take care of my hands (she gave me instructions), that the colour would come… but it didn’t.

As an aside note, I did think that the “party” mehendi she applied was okay. The designs weren’t the greatest – they were pretty average – but definitely nothing that warrants a negative review.

The first hand – Nice design but completely not what I had asked for

Second hand

“Party” Mehendi Design – the hand on the left, palm facing you, is by Sonia.

Overall, I was disappointed with Sonia because she didn’t give me what I wanted and lacked professionalism. I did think her design was nice, just not what I had asked. Based on my experience, I would not recommend her. Sonia does have potential but there is alot of room for improvement. She has a long way to go if she wants to excel in this competitive industry.