Tin container of powdered henna pigment manufactured by S. B. Penick & Company. Henna is a dye prepared from the plant Lawsonia inermis, also known as the henna or mignonette tree. Whole henna leaves must be dried and ground to release lawsone, the molecule responsible for henna's staining properties. Commercially packaged henna as a cosmetic hair dye originated in India and remains a popular hair-dying option in many countries.

In the early 1900s, several companies, including S. B. Penick & Company, opened collection and processing plants in Southern Appalachia to industrialize wild and native plant use in pharmaceuticals, or crude drugs. Sydnor Barksdale Penick (1882-1953) was the founder and chairman of S.B. Penick & Company until 1967 when it was purchased by C.P.C. International, a food company in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. The illustrations of ancient Egyptian monuments on the tin were meant to exotify the product; however, while the henna plants used in this product may have been grown outside of the United States, the product itself was manufactured in New York and Illinois.