I couldn't find my favourite brand of henna (see my sig) so I had to buy another product. It's the "Henné nature natural copper" by Hennedrog (http://www.hennedrog.com/htgb/0002.htm) and only lists Lawsonia Inermis as the only ingredient. I've used their "blonde highligths" before (which is really henna/senna/chamomile/rosemary mix) and it has worked just fine.

So yesterday, I opened the bag. The powder looked really fine and it was of the correct colour. I boiled some water like I always do, waited a bit before adding it so it's not exremely hot and then stirred the paste until I was satisfied with it. I marked that the colour was much more darker green than with my usual brand (which comes from Tanzania). I thought that this might result in a darker colour than I'm used to, so I boiled some more water and made chamomile "tea" which I let steep for a good 20 minutes at least before adding it in the mix to possible lighten it a bit. Then I covered it and let it sit overnight... and nothing happened. The colour was the exact same dark green. This afternoon, I added fresh juice from a lemon, just to see if it would make any difference but no such luck. After 24 hours the colour is still the same dark green and it doesn't leave any stain (I have a white plastic fork that I use that usually gets brownish quite soon).

I've been hennaing for almost 2 years now, and making the paste has become sort of routine. Now I just can't figure out what I did wrong - or is it possible that there's something wrong with the powder? I've read that some types of henna are slower to release the dye than others, but since the instructions in the bag don't even mention a waiting time before applying the paste to one's head, I doubt that's the case. Any help would be appreciated! Is there anything I can do to make this particular paste work, or should I just throw it away?

//ETA: I forgot to mention that the package has a use before date of Dec 31 2008 so I guess that shouldn't be an issue either.

Even if it's not old, maybe it has been subject to temperature abuse at some point. It should still work for the conditioning properties I think.

Honestly , I just don't know. Does it stain your skin?

I went to the site, and couldn't find proper ingredients listed for any of the colors. The implication is that they just use henna/cassia and probably indigo though, so it should be ok.

I would contact them and see if they will send you another one - for free!

Does the box actually have any ingredients information on it?

after 24 hours the dye is gonna start to degrade... i would never leave a bag of mixed henna out that long

Riot Crrl - I guess that's always the possibility. Never happened to me before though, and now that I think back, the last time I hennaed, I wasn't too impressed with the dye release then either (it did happen, but not as strongly as usually). I blamed it on being hasty myself then, I only let it sit for a couple of hours. I'm leaning towards thinking there's something in my water...?

Celebrian - it doesn't stain anything. It just keeps green that doesn't stick to anything at all. :/
The package lists the ingredients simply as Lawsonia Inermis and I do believe it's what it says because I've seen the other packages for the "colours" they have, and those do list things like cassia, indigo and chamomile very clearly. :)

I think I'm going to mention this at the shop where I bought it - they import it themselves. There seems to be some sort of a batch number in the bag too which might help if this is a known problem for the manufacturer.

One idea is that perhaps somewhere during the process they've mixed henna with cassia and you got only cassia. That would explain the thick, green paste and lack of dye release.

I wonder...

Does cassia smell similar to henna?