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Photographer: Tara Noelle
Saira Hussain is a Holistic Henna Practitioner, Artist, energy worker, art director award recipient & radical self-worth advocate. She is an annual donator and affiliate of Parkinson's Canada and Sunnybrook’s Alzeihmer’s division. She is deeply motivated by creative choreography and freedom of self-expression.
As a holistic henna practitioner and vessel of creativity, she has integrated the ceremonial ways of henna, aromatherapy and energetic modalities to help her clients evoke their own self-compassion while addressing their emotional blockages. While avidly learning TCM & shiatsu practices, Saira is a highly-enthused life-long student where she is often seen researching about the human brain, alternative medicine and reversing the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
She commits 30 hours a week to help her clients vocalize their need of emotional support by offering holistic health guidance through an individualized combination of guided meditation, chakra assessment and henna meridian work. A practice she developed in 2021. Since 2006, she has committed over 400,000 hours to womens well-being through art. Since 2006, Saira has helped over 25,000+ women (including trans and non-binary identifying women), mothers, brides, athletes, widows, refugees, entrepreneurs find relief during transitional periods of their lives.
Some of the areas that Saira focuses on include: stress relief, anxiety relief, grief counseling, spiritual dissonance, self-esteem, love and worthiness, independence and her favorite self-identity and self-worth.
Currently, Saira is offering 1:1 and corporate event holistic health workshops where she integrates medical intuition, meditation, energy work and art therapy, virtually and in person. As of 2022, she has facilitated workshops with Sakeena Homes and the Women’s Council of Erin Mills featuring members of parliament and 100+ women. Fusing elements of expressionistic art, spirituality and meditation to help others find healing, relief and restore balance in their bodies and minds.
Art is powerful! 'It has the ability to weave all our senses (sight, touch, smell, taste and hear) collectively with the act of presence. Art helps us build confidence to address our emotions while in solitude. While we are alone, we are able to witness our truths and become our compassionate witness. We are able to face fear with compassion..it is a life long journey..' Saira mentions.
As a second generation immigrant, Saira's mission to elevating henna as a medicinal, alternative healing modality now feels possible as she grows her art practice with community, education and research.
She is presently on her chosen journey in furthering her studies in alternative medicine as a Certified Holistic Health practitioner (2022), Registered Clinical Counsellor and Art therapist (2024). She is an entrepreneur, a companion, a free-spirit and an avid supporter for womxn migrating through their transitional life paths and adversities. Having spent countless nights, months and years on improving her own mental health, she evolved her approach to Henna while experimenting in her university classroom and as a street Artist while meeting with other womxn who had or were experiencing poverty, immigration issues or homelessness.
She developed her self-esteem with the earth-bound medium in times of scarcity as her family suffered significant financial losses, which delayed her graduation, but gifted her her individuality and time to develop her own voice. She followed her intuition and became a full-time Artist in 2017 reaching a 6 figure income. Taking on appointments far and wide (destination weddings included), she is acknowledged by hundreds as an energetic vessel to help womxn celebrate their life transitions in marriage, relationships, health and work achievements.
She discovered that the power to healing was not only in the therapeutic process, but the practitioner and the plant itself. She reached out to her colleagues in the wellness community to grow and furthermore began to offer 'holistic henna readings' in 2016 within schools, community spaces, which led her to offering her Henna meridian sessions involving shiatsu, reflexology and art therapy. Henna is ancestral as is her purpose to help womxn resurface their powers through this sacred art form. She has been on this journey of exploring henna as a modality since she was 18. She is now 34.
When she is not helping others release toxins (emotional blockages) from their body with henna or helping a client alter their limiting beliefs, she is expressive in her work as a multi-dimensional art director while working with other colleagues and artists. Having collaborated with photographer Tara Noelle in 2019, she co-curated the 'DNA PROJECT' . which was first exhibited at a fundraiser with Soch Mental Health in addressing the mental health of marginalized south-asian and Tamil womxn. The event raised over $10,000 in sales featuring other speakers and Artists.
Her first, self-developed and virtual event; SISTERHOOD SUMMIT featured two panel discussions (with 16 facilitators in well-being and the arts), a full-moon meditation, a spoken word segment and visual-energetic bath within the pandemic. 200 womxn had attended this event in September of 2020.
She facilitated and launched the Love Letter Community in 2020 with daily hand-written love letter workshops for 25 weeks during the pandemic and pivoted from solely being in the wedding industry to healthcare communities, and shelters for womxn. Weekly workshops were conducted, complimentary to all who were able to join including women of all ages, cultures and identities. Adversity has always fuelled Saira as she grew up in Hamilton, ON where she was marginalized on her appearance, religious choices and expression. It wasn’t until OCAD University (2007) where she found her voice, individuality as a Canadian-Pakistani womxn through the medium of henna on canvas, body and textile design in galleries and group exhibitions. She has been published in Toronto Life, Vogue, Toronto Star, Zardozi, MASHION, and many other publications while featuring her own directed works on biculturalism and identity. She is a public speaker on self-worth and womxn’s health.
She described her experience ...'as a mock-tail of a deeply-wounded womb, painted with thick slacks of intergenerational trauma and grease - the grease you can't wash out, even after cutting your hair. Their fibers now rest above my scalp and I’m learning how to live with them. Each day, a new fiber is shed as I learn to integrate new learned habits and holistic modalities into my day.
Henna has helped her share a new opportunity of living with over 25,000 women to help them mitigate symptoms of depression, adhd, fear, loss, anxiety, and dismantle the patriarchy from their roots in the last 10 years. Her future plans are to have a Holistic henna clinic and sanctuary where women can come together for safety, a new skill, learn new healthy habitual practices that they can then take home and share with their families and communities. A space for alternative healthcare and art to coexist. She’s changed the narrative of henna.
In her interview with Preim beauty, Saira shared ... “We haven’t looked at henna holistically,” she says. Indeed, most of us don’t perceive henna to bear such healing powers, but perhaps that is due to a lack of education, as Saira points out.
She describes the multi-faceted experience one can have if we shift our perspective and begin to view henna as a form of therapeutic healing – starting with the actual henna powder.
“The henna plant has cooling properties”. Now, imagine combining this with water, lemon juice, essential oils, and physical touch. The result? “A beautiful sensory experience.”
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