A few months back, my mom and aunts asked me to start dying their hair at home rather than shell out the big $$$ at the salon. My mom and one of her sisters are very gray, while my other aunt only has a spray of gray in the front with a few grays throughout. I talked my aunt with sparse grays into letting me henna her hair instead of dye it (she was using semi-permanent dye anyway). We used the [names of other commercially available “henna” removed] henna with inconsistent results. Then I started searching the net and found Henna for Hair and WOOHOO! The world of REAL henna opened up.
My mom finally agreed to let me switch her over to henna from standard nasty hair dyes (better for the both of us!). She was really really scared, but I scared her with all the PPD talk more. She’s got some chronic migraine stuff going on right now so I think the possibility that the PPD was making her migraines worse was scarier for her than the possibility of her hair being bozo the clown orange.
She’s about 50%+ gray right around the front and on her crown, less so as you go back towards the nape of her neck (barely any gray there). Her natural color is dark brown. The last time we dyed it with PPD dyes was about 6 wks to 10 weeks ago, I can’t remember exactly. She had about 1-1.5 inches of roots and her top layer of hair was very oxidized and brassy strawberry blond. Her hair is quite damaged from all the regular dying with commercial dyes.
I started with mixing 1.7 oz (~ 50g) of Catherine’s henna (www.mehandi.com) mixed with a mildly acidic liquid. Let that hang out in the baggie for a while until the paper I wrapped around it stained. Then I mixed .9 oz (~ 25g) of Catherine’s indigo with water, then mixed the henna and indigo mixes together. Slopped them on my mom’s towel dried hair. Her hair is chin length and thin (but very dry and damaged from all the dying) and I used about 2/3 – 3/4 of my mix (froze the rest for next time!).
It went on so lovely and smooth (compared to the [other brands of commercially available “henna”] I’d been used to using to henna my aunts hair). I wrapped her up in saran wrap and a head band to catch any drips. This was about 8 pm. I convinced her to sleep with it on (she wasn’t very happy about that) and ended up washing it out at about 5 AM. I was totally paranoid, couldn’t sleep, so I got up when I heard the shower running (we had stayed the night since we live about an hour
away) and I was relieved. It’s a bit more orange than I had hoped for, but I think it will mellow out.
Notes and references
Products
Ancient Sunrise henna for hair kits with everything included – https://www.mehandi.com/page/kits
Henna indigo and cassia: https://www.mehandi.com/Henna – Indigo-Cassia-Powder-s/287.htm
Publications
Ancient Sunrise “Henna for Hair” Book – https://www.mehandi.com/page/asbook_chapt1
Chemical hair dye allergy – https://www.mehandi.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/chapt1b_epidemic.pdf
Don’t have fruit juice on hand? – https://www.mehandi.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/chapt6f_around-house.pdf
Mildly acidic liquid – https://www.mehandi.com/Fruit-Acid-for-henna-dye-release-s/299.htm
More info on mildly acidic mixes – https://www.mehandi.com/page/asbook_chapt6
Link to time/temperature dye release chart – https://www.mehandi.com/v/vspfiles/downloadables/chapt7_mixing-testing.pdf (pp. 10-12)
Video How-To
Mixing Ancient Sunrise Henna – https://youtu.be/bnuIHSffukQ
How to apply henna – https://youtu.be/7jVmq6MIoVk
Using henna for root touch-ups – https://youtu.be/bjZd1gzd7cw
