Ok, so in my recent post where we talked about my decision to chop off all my fried hair I talked a little bit about the color processes I’ve tried and what worked (or didn’t) work about them and my grey grow out which is, as I write this, still in effect.
One of the products I mentioned is henna; now, if the word henna sends you screaming for the hills you’re likely thinking of the extremely red/orange type of the 60s and you are not alone- what you might not know is that there are actually many formulas available in various shades on the market currently.
What I realized that I hadn’t specified in my post was the shade of henna I tried to use, nor that the fact that it didn’t turn out well was partially my doing (I didn’t read the instructions for grey coverage which were further down in the pamphlet than the full head application instructions were. My bad).
I had been using a light brown henna which was processing on my stripped hair and over my grey in an extremely red tone that 1) did not look natural on me and 2) did nothing to cover my grey roots and my very dark new growth of hair because henna does not lighten hair, never will.
So today I was going through a drawer downstairs and found an envelope of natural black henna from Henna Color Lab and paused to consider the things that I do know about color (limited though they have turned out to be), and then jumped online to look at the reviews to see what users had to say.
Suspicion confirmed; most of the customers who used Henna Color Lab’s Natural Black Henna to cover grey were people whose hair was dark brown naturally and they were now trying to blend their silver patches, but to do so you often have to go 1 shade darker than your natural color when blending grey new growth because the translucency of grey hair makes the color process a little bit lighter. There were overwhelmingly satisfied reviewers writing about this product; I may forfeit the grey grow out and give it a shot because, full disclosure, I don’t know if I’m ready to be silver all over my head yet.
I will wait another week or 2 until my scalp stops itching out of control (which I remember as a side effect of halting commercial hair-dye use when I stopped for 6 months last year- it was my scalp healing, but whoa is it uncomfortable).
If I decide to go for it and use the henna I will detail the process here, including what I mix it with and how to effectively do the henna double process necessary to cover grey hair- including pictures.
In the meantime, please do peruse the website of Henna Color Lab and see what you think!
Until next time!
Love,
The Chick and her Chickadee