Tahirih was definitely somewhat of a cult leader

MacEoin's Messiah of Shiraz has details, my recollection of it is that since the Bab was almost immediately arrested the Babi community for the most part had no access to anything written by him. Because of this his disciples basically just invented their own religions, so Tahirih's Babi Faith was entirely different to Quddus's Babi Faith and arguably neither really had much to do with the Bab beyond using his claim to be the Qa'im to justify breaking from established Islamic theology (unless one subscribes to the idea of the Bab communicating through telepathic dreams as Dawn-Breakers suggests). The Conference of Badasht was called to try and unify the Babi religion under a single theology since it had become a loose collection of almost unrelated revolutionary movements aiming to reform Islam.

Quddus and Tahirih were the most prolific writers out of the Letters of the Living so had the most vested interest in the Conference of Badasht endorsing their opinions on the reformation of Islam. Tahirih remained highly controversial even after the conference (perhaps simply due to being a woman) so it is conceivable to me the henna story (wiping men's faces with henna-covered breasts) is polemical propaganda that was used to damage her reputation, or it could be true. MacEoin's book does note surviving writings of Tahirih do state she had Babi's present food to her to be blessed before eating and other odd things so she was definitely somewhat of a cult leader regardless of if the henna story is true or not.

https://old.reddit.com/r/exbahai/comments/1jzew2x/reincarnation_of_fatimah_etc/