As a child, I was one of those kids with the bleach-blonde hair and blue eyes. As I got older, my eyes darkened, as did my hair. I started to be more conscious about tanning and skin damage and all that jazz, so I stopped spending as much time outside in the sun. As a result, the blonde in my hair faded and went to this dull mousey brown/ash blonde colour. My hair itself was very shiney and healthy, but the colour just wasn’t very exciting. I then spent some time browsing the internet, hitting forums, Google Images, Pinterest in search of advice about dying hair with henna.
I posted on my Facebook status that I was thinking about dying my hair with henna. Wow! What a blow up that turned out to be! I got a bunch of people all commenting and telling me how bad henna was and that I would regret dying my hair. A few people warned me that this was permanent and irreversible if I didn’t like it.
Between all these negative comments were one or two people saying that they never had any issues with henna and actually loved it. I was initially quite discouraged at this reaction. Not nice wanting to do something & have everybody tell you what a bad idea it is!
After getting over the initial discouragement I set about to do even more research about henna. I found this incredibly helpful blog post about henna: Click here I recommend reading that link as it talks about real henna vs other things that are dangerous and bad for your hair. I had dyed my hair previous in 2010, and the colour faded and just generally looked “blah” after 2 months, so henna sounded like a good option. One of my friends, Roxanne, helped me with doing my hair (she helped with the initial 2010 experiment, too). Roxanne and I have been friends for the last 10 years, and when I told her I wanted to dye my hair with henna & asked if she could help, she winced and then said ok, she’d help. A great friend – she knows telling me “no” would just make me more determined. ;) (I found out later she just winced because she had no idea how to use henna) As no post from me is complete without photos, here are they: Before hair. This was taken months ago. Around May 2013. These photos were from a shoot I did with a good friend & fellow photographer, Adele Kloppers for use on my website. She also curled my hair like this! (I’d have her curl it every day if I could…) Had my hair cut at Neil James salon. (nicest hair cut I’ve ever had!) Random back yard shot taken the week before dying my hair. VERY IMPORTANT: I did a test strand first! I took a tiny bit of hair & dyed it with the henna to see how it would react & to see what colour it would go. This was the result: It’s important to do this incase your hair reacts badly with the henna. You never know and it’s always better to be safe than sorry. I don’t have any photos of what the henna looked like in the pot, but mine came out quite brown instead of the green colour that many other’s reported. I looked this up & figured out that henna can go stale & can turn brown as it gets old. Since mine had the right texture and smell, didn’t burn my hair off, I figured it was alright. Henna goes the lovely texture of mud when you start to put it on. This makes it incredibly messy and difficult to apply. Get a friend to help out. I wrapped my head in the towel & cling film for 4 hours. We watched series, spoke crap and ate a lot of food. (I went to the shop in this towel… :/ ) I also smeared Vaseline all over my hairline to stop my head from dying. I checked on it every now and then to make sure it was ok. I then removed the towel & we washed my hair while kneeling in the shower. Not very glamourous. Roxanne then dried my hair with a hair dryer. And ta-da! (there’s Roxanne in the background!) Still slightly wet, in the sun immediately after: It was MUCH MUCH more orange than this. It was scary orange at first. However, henna does take a few days to “settle” and come to it’s true colour. The next day: And now, the truer colour: It is actually darker than this in person, but it’s SO difficult to get the colour right on camera compared to what my eyes see. Check out that shine!! A quick pros and cons list of using henna: PROS: * No chemicals! True henna doesn’t have any chemicals or additives. * You can use it repeatedly. Because there are no chemicals, you can use it a lot more often than conventional dyes. * Makes your hair healthier & shinier. Also strengthens hair. * It doesn’t make your hair darker/lighter, it just changes the colour of the hair by adding red/orange. * Cheap compared to conventional dyes. * Leaves hair feeling thicker & full of body CONS: * Permanent colour. This is both a pro and a con because it means you have to wait for your hair to grow out. I have heard you can dye over henna, but I can’t vouch for that. * Difficult to apply & very messy. * Time consuming. I had to sit for 4 hours with the henna on my head, but I didn’t really mind. * Can loosen natural curls (no idea why, I don’t have curls, but I have read that this happens.) So there you go! For the people that told me not to do it… oopsy! Looks like I didn’t listen ;) I love the way my hair looks now, and when I decide not to continue with the henna, I will just let my hair grow out. I’m not fussed about that. Have any henna experiences? Let me know below! Here’s the pin-able photo: (Or click here to repin my pin)
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