Thursday, May 22, 2014

Henna Adventure

It's been a while.

A long while.

Since my last posts, I've run off, gotten married, and have been keeping occupied as a freelance professional pet sitter. But anywhoo, last year I had gotten into using henna for a natural hair color. I missed my bright red Loreal HiColor Highlights in Magenta, so at the beginning of 2014, I reverted back.

About a month ago I rocked dreads (using the twist-knot method) before thinking I wanted to go back to henna. I really wanted to try the henna from Mehandi but it was a tad too expensive than what I wanted to spend (we're on a budget due to buying a house!) so the hunt landed me online at Swanson's where I picked up two 100gm bags of Color by Nature henna in Red.

While this is not PURE henna, I figured I would give it a shot since the price was good, and if anything it would be a deep conditioning treatment if it failed.



The packaging

So the instructions clearly state to mix and use immediately, which is odd since most henna you mix and leave overnight to release the dye. Also, it says it should only be mixed with water, no teas or citric acid like you can with normal henna. So, I decided to follow their directions and let the water boil, and mix



Green goodness!

I had to use almost a cup and a half of water per the 100 gm bag.




I applied it and let it set for about four hours. You can leave it on as little as one hour, but since I love the smell of henna I just go about the house doing housework and rinse it when I so choose to!



So, I will show you the before and after pictures. I tried to take them in the same lighting at around the same time each day (henna takes 24-48 hours to fully oxidize, so the color you have after first washing will change....the epicness of henna!)

Before (HiColor Highlights in Magenta about 5 weeks of grow out)




After rinsing and applying only conditioner:


Outside:


My phone's camera is very odd with how vibrant it shows red...this is a bit more accurate of the color


24-ish hours later



note you won't have roots like I do, the old dye has a pre-lightener in which you don't have to bleach dark hair before hand, so I will have an almost ombré effect once my hair grows out.


Henna isn't exactly for the faint of heart. Being as it's a red plant-based dye, if you have highlights already, it is NOT meant to dye over all your strands for a uniform look--you will still have highlights! If you observe in my pictures, there are some strands that look really orange and some a cherry red. I love that no strands are identical, however if you want your hair all one color, this isn't for you!

Thanks for reading, I plan to become more active with beauty, health, and maybe some tutorials =)

posted from Bloggeroid