Did I add too much lemon?

[Misha]

I have a henna awaiting dye release (to be used tonight) and am wondering if I added too much lemon.

I used Jamila henna, 100 gram package with water, and I squeezed in juice from almost half a lemon. Now I am wondering if this is too much, and if so, what will be the result? Did I just wreck my henna?

I will be doing a one step hendigo with this mixture. This will be my second full hendigo application, the first hendigo I did not add any acid, only water.

Any info you can provide on lemon amounts in henna will be appreciated. :)

(My signature is of my virgin hair without henna)

[Veer666]

Well, juice of half a lemon isn't much if you ask me...so it certainly isn't too much...

I used lemon juice a few times in my henna mix, but switched to white natural vinegar, because it works better for me (less drying and better colour).

Depending on the amount of henna I use about 1-2 cups of vinegar. When I used lemon juice, it was about the same.

For 100 grams I suggest a few good squeezes of a lemon juice bottle or at least a whole lemon's worth of juice.

But thats just me. I like the effect of the acid component on the colour. Maybe other people use less, but it is certainly not a problem for your henna mix.

[Misha]

Well, juice of half a lemon isn't much if you ask me...so it certainly isn't too much...

I used lemon juice a few times in my henna mix, but switched to white natural vinegar, because it works better for me (less drying and better colour).

Depending on the amount of henna I use about 1-2 cups of vinegar. When I used lemon juice, it was about the same.

For 100 grams I suggest a few good squeezes of a lemon juice bottle or at least a whole lemon's worth of juice.

But thats just me. I like the effect of the acid component on the colour. Maybe other people use less, but it is certainly not a problem for your henna mix.

Thanks Veer666, I feel much relieved! And your henna color is stunning! Such beautiful shine.

[Veer666]

Thanks Misha !

Enjoy your henna!

[fairystar32]

some people make up there whole henna powder with just lemon, so no its not too much :)
Lemon is drying thats why many dont use it.
I always add a few good squeezes of lemon to my henna infact I made up 500g last night and added around 4 big squeezes of bottled lemon (in a huge jug of cooled chamomile tea).
I find too much dries my hair ...

[Marjolein]

I always only used one squirt of one of those lime bottles, and now I only use chamomile tea as the acidity component in my hennamixes. So from my standpoint you did use quite a lot of acid stuff.

That doesn't have to be a bad thing, though. Yes, it might be a bit too drying for your scalp and hair and it make take the hennamix a bit longer to release it's dye (more acidity means longer dye release time) but that's really all that there's to it.

Your hair will still turn red and perhaps next time you'll try something different in your mix. That's the fun of the experimentation!!

[Misha]

Thank you fairystar32 and Marjolein. :)

My hendigo is done and turned out well. The lemon juice amount was fine, and did not produce any dryness for my (but this time I did do a heavy overnight oiling before the hendigo, and washed out well of course, maybe that counteracted any possible dryness).

What's interesting is that this time I got a different result then the first time I hendigoed a month earlier.

Both times I used Jamila henna and indigo. This first time I used 40/60 mix with no additives, only water to mix. The result was a very reddish brown. This time I used a 50/50 mix, and added lemon for the henna, and 1 tsp salt with the indigo, and the result is very dark cherry color (pretty, but I hope the indigo fades a bit because it's really dark right now! But still, I like it). I'm not sure what the result of the lemon was, but the salt seems to have made the indigo stick more.

Thanks for your responses, you both have very lovely henna color!

[Marjolein]

Aw, thanks for the compliment! I'm happy everything turned out just fine. But that is indeed an interesting difference between the two applications.