Twenty minutes or three days. Both are booked here

Yes, at every hour we are open. There are no male staff and no men in the room, and the street window is covered above seated height.

We also take no photographs of anybody who is not in your own booking, which matters more in a small city than most places admit.

Yes, and most mornings there are two or three in the room. There is a mat and a box of things in the corner by the pedicure chair.

A threading appointment is twenty minutes and a child is fine for twenty minutes. For an hour of pedicure or henna, bring somebody to hold them if you can, because you cannot get up halfway through henna.

Because it is not henna with something added to make it darker, whatever the person selling it says. The thing added to it burns some people's skin, sometimes badly, and the mark can last for years.

We do not stock it, we do not apply it, and we will not apply it if you bring your own. Plain henna goes properly dark on its own in about two days if you keep it dry and warm, and we will tell you exactly how.

On hands, about ten days to a fortnight, and it fades rather than stopping suddenly. On feet it lasts longer because the skin is thicker.

The first day decides most of it. Keep it dry, keep it warm, and leave the paste on as long as you can bear. Washing up an hour after you leave is the single fastest way to lose it.

Three months in wedding season and six weeks the rest of the year. The room takes one bridal block at a time, so the days go before the hours do.

The booking is a date range on the form: the henna day first and the wedding day last. We ring you within a day of the request to talk through the trial.

A trial three weeks before at no extra charge, henna on hands and feet, a facial in the week before, hair and face on the morning, and one person from your family done beside you.

Not included: anybody else in the party, which we quote separately once we know the number, and anything at a venue rather than here. The figure is confirmed in writing after the trial and it does not move after that.