My Henna'd Hair: Day 1

Okay, so I dyed my hair with henna last night, and of course, I have Ronald McDonald orange hair at the moment. I'm not concerned about it, since henna takes 3-5 days to oxidize. I know this isn't what my hair will ultimately look like, and if need be, I can always henna again to deepen the color some.


I am concerned however, with the fact that my hair feels ridiculous. It's tangling, and feels just weird. So, I looked all over the Henna For Hair forum, to make sure my hair wasn't having some awful reaction to the henna. It turns out, that it isn't all that uncommon for your hair to feel like this at first, especially if you already had dry hair, or chemically-treated hair. Both of which I have. It probably also didn't help that I used almost all lemon juice as my liquid, when mixing the henna. I could be experiencing two things; either I didn't get all the henna out of my hair, and it's causing the aforementioned problems. Or, my hair is super ridiculously dry from the lemon juice. I don't think that it's the first option because I have literally low-poo'd my hair 5 times, and co-washed with Suave probably 10 times, maybe more. I should've known better than to use the lemon juice. So, next time I henna, I'm going to use straight tap water to mix it, and then add some more conditioner to my mix before it goes into my hair.
 
So the upside, my hair does seem somewhat thicker, and has more volume. Also, I don't seem to have lost any of my curl pattern, which I was concerned about.
 
Besides the tangles and dryness, I'm happy overall with how it's coming along. I'll continue to update on my journey into henna!
 
Happy 2010!!

Coloring my hair with henna......A new journey

I've been reading everything that I could find, literally, about coloring your hair with Henna. I'm not talking about the crap you can buy at Sally's, that comes in a variety of colors. Real henna is only red, there are no other options. Real Henna is great for your hair, it thickens the individual hair strands, conditions, and gives amazing shine. The stuff sold at Sally's, that's trying to call itself Henna, is a mix of Henna, and potentially dangerous chemicals. It is actually worse for your hair that plain hair dye.




Henna is really intriguing to me for numerous reasons, the most obvious being that it is good for your hair. I've been coloring my hair, with box hair color and pro color, for more than a decade. It has left my hair in less than optimal condition, and I'm sick of using it. Now that I'm wearing my hair curly, I want to take care of it more than ever. I can't go back to blonde, and have healthy hair, as I would have to bleach it again. My other favorite color, for my hair, is red. I am very fair-skinned, and red hair looks great on my skintone. Unfortunately, with red hair out of a box, it will fade quickly and look like crap.



Henna is the ultimate, permanent hair dye. It works completely different than regular box color. Box color works by stripping your hair of color, and then depositing color. The process leaves the hair cuticle rougher, and the color is easily faded. Henna is a plant, and it works by depositing color into the hair cuticle. Once the color is deposited, it is nearly, if not completely impossible to remove. Once Henna has been put on hair, it essentially has to be cut off in order to be removed. For someone like me, who changes their hair color almost as often as my clothes, this can be a drawback. However, I want healthy hair, and I think I'm ready to commit to one, atleast for quite some time.



Henna can be used to dye hair brown and a few other colors, when mixed with other plant dyes. Henna itself is only red, but there are other dyes that can be mixed with Henna to get brown and black hair. Indigo and cassia will both alter the color of Henna, however, the hair will still have some sort of red to it. Henna can be used pretty much as often as you want, although with each application the color will deepen or darken.



I am so excited about using Henna to color my hair, and I will update several times throughout the process. Henna takes several days to oxidize, until it's finished oxidizing you won't know what your final color will be. I will also talk more about Henna and your hair, because there is so much to learn before making a decision about it.



Have any of you ladies used Henna? Did you like it?