Am I a good candidate for Henna?

marlee

I've been reading for several weeks now and am so enjoying all the info on this site and it's great to meet you all

I'm going crazy with my hair color right now I am naturally a medium brown with red highlights and I've been covering the grays with a medium red color. Several months ago I got all adventurous and let my stylist talk me into doing highlights. Not real blond but maybe strawberry blondish. My grays grew out and didn't blend at all with the highlights so I had reddish, blondish, brownish, gray hair :tongue10:

I got sick of it and grabbed a box of Loreal Light Ash Brown and it barely changed my hair color at all... didn't touch the grays a bit. That was about 3ish weeks ago and I'm pretty much back to the faded red now.

I would love to have pretty much my natural color back. My grays will not stay covered for more than like a week with any colors I've tried.

My hair is probably a 3a it's not curly on top but gets fairly curly as it goes into the length. I have to fight frizz constantly. :spiderman: I'm doing the whole CG thing and getting happier daily with the results.

Now, I don't want to re-damage my hair with all the good I've done with the CG thing. So, I'm debating Henna. I've read and read and read the info on it but I'm still wavering

My questions.... I read that Henna can straighten your hair and it might not be best for fine hair? What will happen? My hair is pretty fine and a little thin on top. Bad choice for me?

Can I actually get it more brown than red?

I am so totally hopeless with my hair that I can't use curling irons cause I injure myself... can I henna my hair without killing myself or others?

What if I don't like the color that I get? What can I do?

Is it expensive to do and maintain?

You all have such beautiful hair and I'm so envious! I just really, really can't stand my gray hair and want something that will completely cover it and stay covered Thanks for any help!!! :toothy7:

marlee

Riot Crrl

I didn't see this before...

marlee wrote: »

My questions.... I read that Henna can straighten your hair and it might not be best for fine hair? What will happen? My hair is pretty fine and a little thin on top. Bad choice for me?

I don't know what's wrong with using it on fine hair. It might make the individual hairs seem thicker.

Curl relaxing is something that some people report and others don't. Me, Kitara, SunshineGrrl, misfitcurls, curly girl fla, all have a curl type similar to yours and I don't think any of us got any relaxing. I have heard of people using amla to revive a pattern that got relaxed by henna. I don't know if it works in every case.

Can I actually get it more brown than red?

You can get it brown but that involves mixing it with indigo. Here's a page of a million different colors people got. http://www.hennaforhair.com/mixes/index.html

I am so totally hopeless with my hair that I can't use curling irons cause I injure myself... can I henna my hair without killing myself or others?

You might injure your bathroom... it doesn't seem to dye surfaces very fast so if it's cleaned up in a few minutes it's OK. If anything does get dyed it cleans off surfaces with bleach. I think some people have had their drain get clogged too, but I haven't had that problem.

It doesn't have picky timing or anything like chemical dyes really. It's just mud that you smush on and leave for hours.

What if I don't like the color that I get? What can I do?

Aye, there's the rub. Not a lot except make it darker. It is best to avoid making it too dark. Strand test. You can also build it up slowly with diluted glosses, but I think that may not be the best grey coverage.

Is it expensive to do and maintain?

No, it's cheaper to me than drugstore boxes.

marlee

Thank you SO much This is obviously going to take more thought and even more research lol. Your's is SO beautiful!!! :love2:

wild~hair

Is your name really Marlee?

It's such a rare name. I used to know a Marlee, but she didn't have curly hair.

marlee

wild~hair wrote: »

Is your name really Marlee?

It's such a rare name. I used to know a Marlee, but she didn't have curly hair.

No and I wish it was. I'd never heard it before till I was reading a crap horror book. The name was used in there and I hated the book but the name always stuck with me so it wasn't a total loss So, I did the next best thing and adopted it as my internet name

wild~hair

In my friend's case, it was a hybrid of her mother's and grandmother's names.

I don't really have anything to add to the henna discussion — Riot Crrl pretty much covered it — other than I did it for years and loved the results I got. Only stopped because I wanted a change of color.

Welcome to the boards!

Riot Crrl

wild~hair is another one, she's not a henna head anymore but I've seen a picture of when she was, it looked fantastic.

Thank you for the compliment marlee

marlee

wild~hair wrote: »

In my friend's case, it was a hybrid of her mother's and grandmother's names.

I don't really have anything to add to the henna discussion — Riot Crrl pretty much covered it — other than I did it for years and loved the results I got. Only stopped because I wanted a change of color.

Welcome to the boards!

Thank you! I know I probably should have started by introducing myself better but I've been agonizing over my hair color for months lol. I'm driving my poor husband crazy

wild~hair

You're welcome, marlee.

Riot Crrl wrote: »

wild~hair is another one, she's not a henna head anymore but I've seen a picture of when she was, it looked fantastic.

Thanks Riot Crrl. I still think about hennaing again from time to time ... maybe when I turn 40 next year.

RedCatWaves

I'm a 3A, and henna has not relaxed my hair, even after years of use. I use amla in my mix for it's acid qualities to help henna release it's dye (lemon juice is too drying), so maybe the amla helps me keep my curl. I don't know...I'm never going to stop using amla, because I love my mix exactly like it is.

Henna is not only non-damaging, it's actually GOOD for hair. I have the thickest, healthiest, shiniest head of hair of any 46 year old I know. I get compliments about my extreme shine every day.

I get awesome gray coverage with henna. It doesn't come off, ever.

You can get more brown by adding indigo to the henna mix. Catherine at hennaforhair.com is now selling something called buxus, which is another plant dye that is supposed to help henna achieve cooler/browner shades. I'll be trying it in the coming months.

Hair can become too dark if you use too much indigo though, so you have to be careful and start slowly and build with it.

Once you get the color you like, you don't need to color the length any more, just the roots. I only do a whole-head-henna once or twice a year. I do roots-only about every 1-2 weeks, so my hair always looks the same.

Henna is very forgiving. I don't have to be exact about roots application. I just smoosh it on there and it all just always seems to blend.

My tub clogged once while rinsing henna, and it was easily cleared. I think too much just went down at once. Extra water cleared it. I use a finely milled/sifted henna (Jamila), so it's not going to clog most drains.

I think it's pretty inexpensive to henna. Even with weekly roots touchups, I use less than $5 worth of henna/amla/indigo per month.

The only drawback to it is the inability to get henna out of your hair if you don't like it. It must be grown out. It's a committment...but so is any hair color.

marlee

Great info, thanks! It pretty much sounds like this is the ideal solution for me. Now just to get the nerve to try it lol. Thanks again