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Info about hennaing your hair, colour coded too!
If you
henna YOUR hair, what color will it be?
Every woman's hair
will come up a bit different with henna, because henna is
a natural vegetable tannin, that stains your hair. If
your hair is blonde, henna may make it
"Lucille
Ball red" or
strawberry blonde.
If your hair is mousy brown, henna may
make it rich red
or
copper penny red.
If your hair is medium brown, your hair may come up
the color of an Irish Setter Dog.
If your hair is dark brown, it will be
deep chestnut
with red highlights in the sunshine. If your
hair is black, it will be very
dark chestnut with
red highlights.
If your hair has gone all gray, henna may make it
orangey.
If your hair is brown streaked with gray, it may be
rich auburn
with
red threads.
Totally gray hair may go
Bozo the Clown Tangerine if you don't use
the best possible henna! To get a beautiful natural
looking
red or auburn over
gray hair, get body art quality henna from one of the
sources linked below! Mix it fresh, and apply it
generously, leave it in for 2 hours or so, and reapply
every month. Your hair will gradually become beautifully
silky and deep rich natural looking red! Work the henna
clear to your scalp; it will help your hair be stronger
and thicker, and it's good for your skin!
You are free to make your
own associations; define your own beauty!
Henna doesn't really
lighten your hair. It leaves a translucent stain on your
hair. It's like coloring with a bittersweet crayon on
black paper, brown paper, or manila paper. Hennotannin
molecules lodge into the keratin of your hair ...
and those molecules are orange-red.
They catch the light in the sunshine, so your hair
will be somewhat reddened and will have glossy red
highlights with henna.
Henna
always leaves my hair silky, easy to brush, thick and
well conditioned.
Yummy!
Who
should NOT use henna in their hair?
You should
NOT put henna on hair that has been straightened, permed,
dyed or bleached before. The results can range from
peculiar to catastrophic. Frog
Butt Green and
offshore sewage outflow
black are the two most common color results.
If in doubt, harvest your hair from your hairbrush and try
some on that before you try a headful.
A very
small percentage of people are allergic to pure henna. If
you put a bit of henna paste on your forearm, and leave it
..... if you have intense itching, chills, hives and a
tight chest within 3 hours, you are ALLERGIC to henna and
don't go near the stuff again.
If you're fine
at 3 hours .... you are fine with henna.
Go for it.
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How do
you henna your hair?
Get plain bulk
henna powder. Mix up the henna with
lemon juice,
until it's the consistency of yogurt. Some ladies
use red wine or vinegar to mix ..... use anything that is
acidic and smells good to you.
No need to stink up yourself or the house.
Let that sit overnight. You do that to let the dye
release from the leaves. That's really all that's
necessary.
However...
There are as many henna
mixes as there are ladies hennaeing their hair .....
some add:
water
from boiled pomegranate husks for bright reds
Red
Zinger Tea for red highlights
coffee for less red
Arabic spiced coffee for darker red
Tea
for golden highlights
Chamomile for blonde highlights
Turmeric for gold highlights
Paprika for REAL RED
clove
for darker reds
indigo for near black
yogurt for protein and less color
walnut powder for darker brown
eggs
and olive oil for protein and less color
rosewater for brides
orange flower water for brides
a few
drops of rosemary oil for silkiness
make up your own brew
...
if it's fragrant and harmless, and acidic rather than
basic you should be fine.
Be a kitchen witch. It's
cool.
Mix up a 1 pound plastic
margarine tub size batch of henna paste for neck length
hair.
Mix up an additional tub
for every 12 inches of hair beyond that.
If you are a henna
artist, save up your leftover paste in the freezer and add
that to the mix.
Getting the henna muck into your hair:
This is like trying to
plaster a big hole in the wall.
This is very messy.
You will have to completely clean the bathroom after
you're done with this.
This DOES look
like goose poop.
Send people
who cherish illusions about your feminine perfection
elsewhere for a while.
Put on plastic gloves of
some sort, (or you'll have ORANGE hands) and work the
thick henna paste into all of your hair, down to the
scalp, out to the ends. A big spoon might help or it
might not. I just grab whole handfuls and work it in.
It doesn't seem to matter
if your hair is wet or dry. I do dry. Some people put
the henna paste into a big leftover mustard squeezer to
get the henna down on the scalp and everywhere.
When I've got ALL my hair
totally slathered in goop, I sort of sculpt it into a pile
like a child playing with mashed potatoes. I cover it
with a sort of saran wrap turban to keep it from glopping
around the house. Gloops can go flying everywhere, and
will stain the cat if it lands on her.
Henna can
stain silk wool, or other fibers if it lands there and
goes unnoticed for a long while.
Don't
sit on your best chair and don't wear your favorite
clothes.
It doesn't stain bathroom
fixtures ...
or if there seems a little stain, just blast it with
bleach and it'll be gone.
Leave the paste in your hair for an hour or two, If you
can add some warmth, as in wrapping this in a towel and
sitting in the sun in the garden, you'll get more
color.
This all looks absolutely gross, but if you sent
everyone else away, who cares?
then.....
Rinse
it all out.
Shampoo with a gentle shampoo to get the last out if you
like.
Cleaning up the bathroom
is going to be a job, as it will look like a heard of
geese invaded and pooped over the place, but it all goes
away with rinsing.
Some people have a
problem with the henna scent that lingers in the hair a
few days. It smells a bit like fresh hay. It's not near
as bad as perm smell. It goes away.
That's it.
The henna color fades
gradually over weeks, but if you henna your hair every
month or so the color will keep building up until it's all
a lovely rich red.
Henna is also very good
for averting the evil eye and thwarting demons that like
to infest women's hair. Your regular hair dye never did
that for you!
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Warnings......
You should NOT put
straightener, perm, dye or bleach in your hair AFTER
you have hennaed it. The results can range from peculiar
to catastrophic. If in doubt, harvest your hair from your
hairbrush and try some on that before you try a headful.
Some
people who have bleached over hennaed hair have ended up
with green or blue hair, and been absolutely unable to get
rid of the color.
Others who've dyed over
hennaed hair have gotten pitch black or frog butt green
hair and their hair texture sorta turns (into something
really bad- we omitted it!) These reactions are due to the
chemical reaction between the acidic henna and the base
commercial dye. Acid + base = strong chemical reaction.
Remember vinegar and baking soda? I've heard of two
ladies who had chemical reactions so strong that their
hair incinerated in the heat from the reaction.
BAD IDEA!
Really bad idea.
If you
want to do henna, it's a commitment.
If you
think all the henna MIGHT have washed out of your hair,
harvest your hair from your hairbrush, or the drain sieve
in your shower and try some on that before you try a
headful.
Why is henna better than
commercial hair dye? Nearly all commercial hair dyes have
P-Phenelynediamine. ( or a variant). That is proven to
cause delayed hypersensitivity reactions (blistering, and
sores on your scalp) , is a transdermal toxin, is strongly
linked with
asthma; and the dark brown and black commercial hair
dyes may be linked to Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma. Check out
these warnings by the
government and industrial safety standards if you
want a wake-up call on dying your hair with that
commercial stuff. If you want to cover your gray and love
your liver, bladder, or unborn children, try henna.
It works. It
won't hurt you.
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