Uneven color - henna / indigo mistake - need your help!

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 10:27 AM

Hi everyone!
I will try to make it short, to tell you my hair journey so you can understand my problem now...

For 6 years I have been using henna successfully, I had at this time very beautiful and healthy hair, hip length, auburn color..
Then one day I was fed up with the color, so, I decided to bleach it after knowing the risk and reading a lot on the subject (but you know, there is always a small part of you which think that disaster won't happen to you, yeah, it only happens to others... lol) So i bleached once, I was carrot, I bleach 2 times, I was carrot and yellow, I used a color box of ash blonde right after but it didn't come out even, so I bleached again (I think I bleached at least 4 times

) I know it's crazy....
Well, as you might guess, I ended cutting like 15 inches because of the damage and the uglyness of the color. LOL Then I dyed in light brown for a while, then I made a tie and dye, then I made highlight (my hair was very resistant though when I think about all the treatments I did..

) But it was always unsatisfying to me, I constantly thought it was too yellow, too brassy, too light, too dark... I don't know why I got this hair obsession, it was crazy...

Well, maybe I just tried to fulfill some deeper unhappiness feeling in my heart .. you know, some do shopping, some smoke, some drink, I bleached my hair...

After that, my hair was so damaged that I started to get elastic hair, and that's when I really started to get conscious that if I didn't stop I would end bald.
I cut the damage as much as I could take it, I did like a short bob myself, which wasn't that bad after all. But the lengths were still very fried... So I thought, "let's return to henna... " I had nothing to loose.

Between the beginning of the story and that point, 1 year and a half passed.

So, I bought a box of pure henna mehandi, which turned orangy red, it didn't bother me but beause my lengths are damaged, the color on them was lighter.
The day after I did an other henna on the whole head, my hair felt less damaged and in better condition but the color was still not what I wanted.. Cf picture

Well, one week after I bought a box of Reshma toffee henna (I read good reviews on it, so I thought a caramel toffee color would be very nice) I checked carefully the ingredients first, no indigo, no chemical...

I did it..left it for 3 hours, And.. BIGGEST mistake ever, my hair was BLACK with dark kaki hues

(the smiley on the left is what I wanted to do to the indian grocery store's owner at this time... LOL... because I really think it was a packaging mistake, eventhough it was sealed with plastic wrap, there is no other explanation for that, because the ingredient did not say indigo at all!!! and the expiration date was ok)

This is the pic after:

So right after I try to use vit C for hours, baking soda, cheap shampoo, lemon, coconut oil and olive oil soaking overnight etc etc... In 3 days it was way lighter, like a medium brown BUT with kaki hues.. SIGH

Like this:

My hair was very dry and I wanted to do a henna (pure afshan ) to cancel the red..
I left it over night and I didn't get any red hue... Only a little on the roots, which was now very different from the lengths.
The day after I did an other one, a nupur henna, I left it 5 hours, I got slight red hue but still some kaki through the red
The following night I did an other pure henna (reshma natural henna) and I felt it was better after that.

Now, my hair condition is good (I feel my hair is soft, silky, I love that) but as you can see on the pics, it's uneven.. I wanted to try color oops but honestly I tired of experimenting everything on my hair and being disappointed.. I don't want the green strike being worse... What's your advice? Here is the final picture:

THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR READING ME

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 10:30 AM

shout I forgot that I could'nt edit before having 25 messages... I will post the pictures below, sorry..

**lapushka** · December 2nd, 2016, 10:47 AM

At this point, I would shave it all off, or be content with what you still have on your head... and grow it out. There is nothing that will correct this, I'm sorry. You don't want to bleach with indigo on your head, and you for sure can't dye over it or it will be even darker (and the green, the green... will get worse).

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 10:56 AM

here is the 1st and second henna on bleached / damaged hair

as you can see it wasn't bad, just a little too orangy but that's normal because of the bleached/damaged parts of my hair...

Here now is after this henna "toffee" which I clearly think was a black henna in the wrong box...
you can see the kaki/blue hues

Here is after having tried to remove the indigo by oil, vitamin, baking soda etc...
you can't probably see on the picture but it did have light kaki hues...

Then this is after 2 henna treatments on it, now I'm like a calico cat (in less cute...)

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:03 AM

Originally Posted by lapushka

At this point, I would shave it all off, or be content with what you still have on your head... and grow it out. There is nothing that will correct this, I'm sorry. You don't want to bleach with indigo on your head, and you for sure can't dye over it or it will be even darker (and the green, the green... will get worse).

hhh... I wouldn't like to shave it off as they aren't really bad now (I mean, they look pretty healthy as you can see on the last picture) I would just like to minimize the green and even the color... sigh

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:09 AM

here is 2 ideas (maybe stupid...) that I had in mind:
-1 dying chemically over it in red to cancel the green a little BUT I heard that there is peroxide in all boxed hair dye, and I'm sure of the composition of my hennas but not of the "toffee" that turned black because the result obviously isn't possible to happen with henna only... SO I don't really know if it's a good idea...
-2 Color oops on it to try to remove the rest of indigo then henna again over it
-3 praying for the green and indigo fading with the time and keeping hennaing over once a week....

What do you think?
I heard tomato paste could cancel the green but I have very few hope on this... it doesn't hurt though...

**Anje** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:13 AM

Honestly, I'd think the easiest way to even the color out would be to take it all a shade darker. Maybe that's with another pure henna application, if you want red, maybe it's with a more conventional dye. Either way, strand test that a LOT, because your hair is clearly absorbing lots of dye and the results aren't likely to be as advertised. (And because who knows what was in that "toffee" stuff, which might do all kinds of awful things when combined with conventional dye.)

OTOH, I don't think it looks too bad in the last pictures. Uneven, sure, but the colors are kinda cool. Maybe you could just put a few streaks of bright colored semi-permanent (no developer) dye through and make it look more intentional, then rock it.

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:19 AM

Originally Posted by Anje

Honestly, I'd think the easiest way to even the color out would be to take it all a shade darker. Maybe that's with another pure henna application, if you want red, maybe it's with a more conventional dye. Either way, strand test that a LOT, because your hair is clearly absorbing lots of dye and the results aren't likely to be as advertised. (And because who knows what was in that "toffee" stuff, which might do all kinds of awful things when combined with conventional dye.)

OTOH, I don't think it looks too bad in the last pictures. Uneven, sure, but the colors are kinda cool. Maybe you could just put a few streaks of bright colored semi-permanent (no developer) dye through and make it look more intentional, then rock it.

Thank you so muche anje for the advice, I thought to get darker (with more indigo???) But because of the disaster I got with only 1 indigo, I don't want to push it farer... Naturally I'm light ash brown, which means that if I get darker, I will be constantly bothered with my roots..
I loved henna for that because I didn't get a big color change with the regrowth..
Thank you for telling me that it doesn't look too bad.. it makes me feel a bit better.. The problem you know is that I did already 2 henna on it and I washed my hair yesterday and it seems very close to the picture I did after having removed indigo with oil, vitamin etc... So it means to me that the henna doesn't really stick.. I'm scared that it won't stick really more if I do an other one. Isn't weird that it doesn't stick anymore as it used to stick before doing indigo???

**Anje** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:26 AM

Might be an old batch of henna? Normally I think that henna sticks pretty well even to damaged hair, though I don't have a whole lot of personal experience with that. (Like, my hair was lightened for literally the first time ever, earlier this week.) What's your usual supplier? I tended to buy my henna locally, and while the stock was generally great stuff, doing that can be seriously hit-and-miss.

**Fancyfrenchy** · December 2nd, 2016, 11:32 AM

No I'm sure that it wasn't an old batch because I always check the date on the packaging, and if there is no date I don't buy. All the hennas I bought were far from the expiration date.. I buy everything locally from an Indian grocery store which has an amazing choice of everything! And the owner was nice though because he refunded me the box of ****ty toffee henna (even-though it won't make my hair nicer, lol, at least he refunded me and apologized...)