Allergic to indigo?? Lots of Questions.

[Aliped]

I am planning to henndigo my hair in the future and have been reading about possible ratios for a one step mix. During my research, I have noticed that several people seem to have become allergic to indigo over time.
I would like to know how long you have been using a henna-indigo combination, if you use a one step or a two step procedure. If you did develop an allergy to indigo, what were your symptoms and how long had you been using indigo before they developed?

If you did become allergic, did you resort to box dyes and did you have any reaction to those?
Thanks in advance.

[Aliped]

Sooo, nobodies allergic to indigo then? I guess the lack of responses means its unusual to become allergic to indigo after a while, well that's good news!

[ktani]

Sooo, nobodies allergic to indigo then? I guess the lack of responses means its unusual to become allergic to indigo after a while, well that's good news!

There are threads and posts:

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=58385

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=15845

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=57317

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=1208840&postcount=2

[Catia]

I have been using indigo since '04 or early '05 (someday I should really get this figured out :rolleyes:) anyway, I henndigoed up until 3 years ago when I switched to two-step.

I didn't have any problems until the fall of '07 when the indigo suddenly started making me itch (I was still doing henndigo at this point). I remember I even started a thread about it asking if anyone else was suddenly having a problem with the indigo from this particular supplier. The answers were uniformly "no"... so I just dealt with it.

A few months later is when I started two-step (unrelated to the itch, just wanted black hair) and then as time progressed the itching became more intense until I was having to take benedryl if I even thought about coloring my hair lol. That worked somewhat but not completely.

Then in a last ditch effort I purchased from a different supplier. Viola. MUCH better. I think that the mixes I buy from Henna Hut are for some reason more comfortable (vs their 100% indigo). I haven't updated my experience with their indigo and while it is 99% better then what I experience before I can still get a couple itchies. I know that indigo is a bit alkaline and am not sure if it is inevitable regardless of supplier to have irritation. However their 'mixes' have a number of other things like clay and herbs in them that may be counteracting this issue. I don't honestly know.

I want to reiterate that switching brands really did help immensely. My original supplier is of the utmost quality but as someone pointed out to me before - every brand's source may have different harvesting/processing components that come into play with individual sensitivities.

Did I contemplate switching to conventional dye? Heck yeah. Constantly. But I'm really glad I didn't. I'm glad I was stubborn and kept searching for an alternative even though it was slowly driving me insane lol. Henna/indigo make my hair look better then [my]average healthy hair and conventional dye would probably take me in the other direction. Plus. My hair is quite coarse and very difficult to cover. I remember using conventional dye many years ago when I only had a handful of white strands and the dye could barely touch it. Henna/indigo two step covers 110%.

ETA - I still use henna from Catherine's but get indigo/indigo-heavy mixes from Henna Hut for second step.