pickled octopus...

[pesky_piskie]

Firstly...i love henna. I was dubious at first, but since i'm starting to make my own natural beauty products with the aim for total conversion away from mass-produced chemicals it made sense to try out the natural alternative to hair dye.
I actually think it  must be magic, it's completely transformed my hair and its never been in such good

Comments

[pesky_piskie]

lol yep i'm a natural blonde!
I know, i don't like my natural colour but i hated all the chemical dyes, especially as they fade nastily and you have to do it so often!
The reason for the worries with putting henna over chemical dyes is because the ammonia in the chemical dyes reacts badly with metallic salts in some henna compounds (i.e henna dyes marketed for hair but actually contain other crap as well) BUT if you just use pure henna (BAQ- body art quality) then its fine as theres no metallic salts.
The colour you get can vary a lot depending on your natural colour as its a translucent dye (so it can go more ginger the lighter you are like me) but you can get deeper reds if you mix it with a tiny bit of indigo or leave it on longer etc.
have a look at www.hennaforhair.com which has a lot of info and cautions etc and peoples mixes so you can see the sort of colours you can achieve depending on your hair:). also lush do henna mixes that are pure ingredients , caca rouge is good for bright red apparently but i haven't used it yet.
Plus its fun messing about with the mud and feeling like a witch making brews!:D

[jillie_b]

ooooo thank you so much for that advice i'm feeling all inspired now!

[mendees]

Oh lord look what you have started :D, there will be lots of people with their heads covered in mud soon enough :D

[pesky_piskie]

hehe i might attack you with an indigo and beer mud mix:P

[mendees]

Huzzah!

[mendees]

Ale and hair dye it's a northern Goth's dream :D

[pesky_piskie]

hehe glad to help. It's not for everyone as it can be a bit unpredictable and will never give quite the same red colours as some artificial dyes (although some people do get very close!) but personally i think the trade off for hair that glows and peace of mind is worth it. Let me know if you do decide to give it a go at some point and i'll bombard you with more tips!:)

[jillie_b]

i love my slightly mad colours but the benefits of switching to natural dyes would out weigh that
i wanted to try the lush cacas but then read about someone wrecking there hair when they switched to henna but now i know what to avoid i'm all excited
i was going to go for a red and black mix if possible
might wait til new year though as a messy kitchen just before xmas won't make me popular
but yes lots of tips would be good

[pesky_piskie]

sorry for the late reply! Just a warning with the lush, it is technically a compound (but according to the company its pure without metallic salts) so just make sure you test a little bit on hair from a hairbrush or something first. better safe than sorry!
Yeah i think thats possible, might end up more plum i think, since the indigo used to produce the black has blue tones.
And it does get very messy if you're a clutz like me! I somehow managed to get it on the ceiling:S