I like to henna my hair
I've been hennaing it for around 8 years now, ever since some well-meaning lady mentioned how brave I was to let my greys grow! I know, I'm shallow.
This photo is from the first time I ever hennaed my hair. I'm happy I documented it well. You can see how the grey blended in quite well when there wasn't so much of it, and it shows the colour change clearly. Henna takes 2-3 days for the colour to fully develop. I usually use Rajasthani henna powder on my hair, although I'm contemplating moving to hair quality Jamila
In my defense, I have tried to grow my grey back out as I'm approximately 90-95% grey over my crown these days. It looks wicked cool when my hair is down, but I'm not a fan of the salt and pepper on the sides as yet when I wear it up. I need more grey before I feel like I can rock that confidently. I let it get almost to jaw length before I caved and coloured my hair again.
I love the warm red colour of hennaed hair, I particularly love that it doesn't fade like regular commercial red hair dyes do. It stays vibrant and full of POW! I also love how it makes my hair feel, as long as I don't forget to do a deep condition every now and then. Henna adds strength to your hair shaft, and acts as a protein so if you have hair that is a bit sensitive to protein it is really important to get some moisture back in to keep that protein/moisture balance working for you.
I'm also prone to dandruff, and henna zaps that beautifully. It is only just starting to come back when my roots need touching up, so that's an additional motivation for me personally to not be lazy about regrowth! I usually just do my roots a couple of times in between doing the whole lot. It's faster to apply, easier to wash out, and saves on product. How often you do yours depends on how fast your hair grows, how marked the difference is, and how motivated you are!
I like to use a leave in conditioner regularly, and I mix my henna powder with coconut oil. My hair starts off beautifully with henna, but as it gets longer, and so the ends have had multiple henna treatments, the protein load gets a bit much and the ends go crunchy. That's when I know I need to pick up my hair care game and get the moisture back in there! Crunchies be gone! But then, my hair is around waist length. I probably wouldn't get crunchies at all if it was shorter. I also find that my waves come in stronger if I use a deep conditioner. I've recently started using shikakai in place of shampoo, which doesn't strip the natural hair oils so I'm excited to see how much of a difference this makes to the moisure/protein balance in my hair. Shikakai is awesome! I've never been so happy with a (not) shampoo!
I find that I can get excellent colour saturation on my grey if I leave the henna in for 4 hours. It will colour well with only two hours, but it is more to the ginger end of the colour range and I prefer it to be a stronger red. I look like I have extreme foils due to the colour difference between my 90% grey crown and my dark brown underneath.
It looks pretty cool. This is the near the end of my braid. One is in indoor lighting, the other outside.
LOOK HOW SHINY IT IS! That's one of the first things that blew me away when I first hennaed my hair. The shinyness. THE SHINYNESS!!!!
If you only had a few greys then it wouldn't be particularly noticeable like the first photo at the very top but I really like my two tone hair.
Four hours sounds like a really long time to spend colouring your hair, but I've found it is a good way to make sure that I stop and look after myself from time to time. I usually set an evening or a day aside, get the henna into my hair, wrap it up in cling wrap and a scarf, make a big pot of chai, TURN OFF THE RINGER on my phone, and watch a movie or two. Then I rinse it out in the bath.
Having such long thick hair makes it a bit of a challenge to wash out what is essentially a mud pack in the shower, so I lay down in the bath (I only fill it enough to get all my hair underwater), let it soak and soften for a few minutes, swish my head around, then drain the water and repeat a few times. I think it is more water efficient this way as it takes FOREVER to wash out this much hair in the shower. It isn't such a good look though! Let me know what you think of my festy bath photo by commenting below!
Want to know the differences and similarities of henna for hair, skin, and nails?
Have Questions About Hennaing Hair? Comment Below!
I love getting comments and I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about henna in hair, especially greys! I'm a sucker for attention so I check regularly.
Comment now!
PS the bath cleans up very easily.