Who's hennaed their hair brown?

[emsahib]

Not sure if I want to henna or try and grow my natural colour out, but henna does keep popping up in my mind and tempting me, especially when I see lovely chocolatly coloured hair. It seems alot of people henna their hair red, who's tried brown, and what colour was your hair before? And is it really difficult? Was it the colour you were expecting?

[chrissy-b]

I hennaed my hair with an equal mix of Rainbow Henna's Persian Dark Brown and Medium Brown (my natural color is a med brown). I liked the results at first, but as it would fade, it turned more red than I preferred.

[emsahib]

also I did have my hair chemically dyed red before so the ends of my hair are warmer than the top do you think they'd be likely to go more red?

[ellen732]

I use Henna Hut brown and I really love the color, better than any chemical color I have ever used, but yes it does fade, not terribly but enough that you end up with more red than brown. Your ends may pick up more red on the fade but you could always do a gloss with the Henna Hut brown to tone.

[Anje]

My DH has done it a few times, using a 50:50 mix of henna and buxus or indigo. (Indigo's the more recent thing, darker results.) Be aware that the henna often still flares in the sun a bit. Also, buxus seems to fade pretty quickly, at least from his beard, leaving the henna.

[Una]

In my experience, if you use a henna dye with a very high Lawsonia inermis content (>3%) you are more likely to see a (darker) brown colour. But, of course, the orangey red will always show up in the sunlight, albeit subtly. I think it is beautiful!

[Veer666]

The brown in a henna mix is mostly caused by mixing with indigo....

Unfortunately indigo fades after a while, but henna doesn't (unless it's your first application).

So inbetween dyes you could end up more red than brown, untill you dye your hair again

[dropinthebucket]

I've had hendigo about a year now, and haven't experienced too much fading. Initially, I did have fading with the indigo, but after a few applications, it stuck pretty well. I used BAQ henna and indigo, and although I was discouraged at first by the fading, I'm glad I hung in there and got it to stick eventually - it's not going anywhere now! Indigo is pretty permanent once you get it to stick. More recently, I used Lush Caca Brun, to blend the hendigo and the five inches or so of medium brown virgin hair growing in. Liked the colour a lot, but it has faded almost completely after a month. Think I kinda like that, I can reapply it if I want, or just leave it now. No commitment. Either way, I'm sure you can get a brown you'll like if you're not going for anything ashy, but are fine with a rich brown.

[emsahib]

I've had hendigo about a year now, and haven't experienced too much fading. Initially, I did have fading with the indigo, but after a few applications, it stuck pretty well. I used BAQ henna and indigo, and although I was discouraged at first by the fading, I'm glad I hung in there and got it to stick eventually - it's not going anywhere now! Indigo is pretty permanent once you get it to stick. More recently, I used Lush Caca Brun, to blend the hendigo and the five inches or so of medium brown virgin hair growing in. Liked the colour a lot, but it has faded almost completely after a month. Think I kinda like that, I can reapply it if I want, or just leave it now. No commitment. Either way, I'm sure you can get a brown you'll like if you're not going for anything ashy, but are fine with a rich brown.

Thanks fot the advice, I've got Luch Caca Brun on my head now, aparently caca is french for poo lol. Shall see soon how its come out. So far I haven't made a mess of the bathroom or bedroom. And hopefully I haven't made a mess of my hair either.

[Intransigentia]

I did Lush Caca Brun about a week ago, and so far I really like it. I wanted to go just a smidgen darker, and even out the colour where I've gotten sunbleached, and it seems to have worked exactly as I hoped it would. I'll get around to posting pictures this weekend.

[ddiana1979]

I've also used Rainbow Henna's Persian Dark Brown. My hair is naturally medium dark-ish brown with red highlights (my profile pic is virgin hair), so it wasn't terribly different from my normal hair color. . . darker brown, that's all. It was exactly the color I expected. It does deepen with each full-head application, so after using it 3 times I ended up with a really pretty *extremely* dark brown with red highlights (the henna binds much better to grays than indigo does). I was very pleased.

[Avital88]

I used Lush caca brown, i just did the ends first and now im trying a full application again.My startcolor is allready medium brown but its for sure a beautiful color i get from Lush.

[thisischristine]

I bought Lush Caca Brun this afternoon. I'm going to apply it tomorrow afternoon, you guys have me so excited about it!

[T.L.T.]

On Saturday I used 50/50 henna/indigo. It came out a really lovely dark brown, with areas of reddish brown highlights.

Before my hair had about 1.5 inches of grown out virgin hair that was med to dark brown. The ends were dyed med. brown with blond highlights. But the farther down my hair, the more faded the brown was, almost a reddish color.

I really love how the hendigo covered my new growth and the chemically treated hair. My old highlights are the part that shows up a lighter reddish brown.

I should also say that I left on the hendigo for 3 hours. I left the mixed henna sit out for about 8 hours, and mixed the indigo right before I put it on my hair. I used about 60g of each (eyeballed just over half of each pack). Any my hair is just past my shoulders.

I havent got to see it in the sunlights yet, it has been raining here for a couple days. But I'm really loving it indoors. I'm sure I'll love it in the sun too.

I hope this made sense, I'm sick right now lol.

[Intransigentia]

No chance for picture-taking here. We got more snow this weekend than we normally get in the whole month. So much snow that the pile of shovelled snow got too high to shovel more snow onto, and I had to climb into it and shovel the top away onto a different part of the lawn.

[thisischristine]

I have the Lush Caca Brun on now. Will let you know how it comes out....

[Zaane]

I hendigoed my hair about a year ago (maybe a little more than that) with BAQ henna/indigo from mehandi.com, and had a very interesting experience with it, to say the least. >_> I did mine in 2 applications, because I started with bleached highlighted hair and wanted it all one color to try to match my roots when they came in. The first application I put on I didn't mix it to the right consistency so it was a total NIGHTMARE trying to get my thick mixture on evenly....but the next application i got down just fine, and my hair was a really nice brown after it washed out. The only downside to this was that my hair now glistened GREEN in the sun. I'm not really sure why this happened, I know henna has a tendency to have a green stain for a few days or weeks but mine lasted months. Now that the hendigo faded (a year later) the green is less prominent, but still kind of there. Maybe because I had added a little bit of amla in the mix, or that my hair was bleached and previously colored??? But I did like the color it gave me in the end :).

[Varney]

When I started using herbs to color my hair it was to make it brown. I used caca brun, then caca marron and then caca rouge. And after that I simply started using plain old henna :) So it was a gradual process from brown to red for me (I'm a scaredy-cat, I didn't dare go red in just one step).

But now I want to go brown again. I used ordinary hair color to make it brown again but the red is starting to show in the lower parts of my hair again, at least in sunlight. I have ordered katam now and will try to gloss the red out with that. After I have succeeded it will probably be henndigo or henna + katam from then on.

[NouvelleNymphe2]

Thanks fot the advice, I've got Luch Caca Brun on my head now, aparently caca is french for poo lol. Shall see soon how its come out. So far I haven't made a mess of the bathroom or bedroom. And hopefully I haven't made a mess of my hair either.

lol, it is french for poo! women say (in french of course), i really like the product, but luxurious brown poo??? hmmm...

[dropinthebucket]

It does kinda have the colour and consistency of soft dog poo!!

(usually, I'll say "ask me how I know" - this time, I'm just gonna say, "Please don't ask me how I know!" Puppies, worms - no more need be said :D)

[GlassWidow]

also I did have my hair chemically dyed red before so the ends of my hair are warmer than the top do you think they'd be likely to go more red?

I haven't done brown, but I did straight Jamila for Hair henna over chemically dyed blonde that was several different shades. Afterward, I couldn't see the lines of demarcation at all. It was pretty bright at first, though.

[Intransigentia]

OK, I finally have pictures for you!

Here is a picture that shows my natural/before colour:
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=6596&pictureid=93988

And here's my hair a few weeks after putting Lush Caca Brun on it (8 hours, distilled water as the mix):
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/picture.php?albumid=6596&pictureid=93986

A bit of the difference could be caused by the fact that the first picture is pre-LHC hair taken without flash, and the second is Movie Star Shampoo hair taken with flash, but the colours are still roughly accurate.

ETA: My few silvers didn't take any colour at all, and the contrast with my darker hair really makes them shine. Which makes me happy.

[emsahib]

ok I was going to get round to taking a photo of my "hennaed" hair but kept forgetting, and actually I think even if it did go darker its either faded or I've realised that there's not much difference at all lol. I did only leave it on for 2 hours when the women recommended 4 but it looked so much darker before I'd washed it off. Anyway for now I think I will stick with the colour that I've got, but at least the next time I feel like a change I'll have a better idea of what to do.

[fairystar32]

looks lovely :)

I used hendigo for a long time and the the indigo never faded after the first few applications. Whilst it glowed red in the sun my hair stayed realyl dark infact got too dark and started going black.
It was still on the ends of my hair 2 yrs later, when I grew it out during pregnancy and breastfeeding.