Natural auburn hair, advice to cover grey/white

**Jeepchick99tj** · September 28th, 2009, 05:12 AM

I searched but did not find the answer so here goes:

I have auburn hair, and have never dyed it. I've found a few white hairs, and figure now is the time to research how to take action.
I'm thinking henna will be the way to go, but I want to keep my auburn hair the color it is naturally. Is there anyone who has proven this possible? Thanks in advance!

**AuntyClaus** · September 28th, 2009, 06:08 AM

Henna is so permanent, I think I would try catnip, first. It will stain your whites blonde and give you highlights. Check the catnip thread in this forum and read Ktani's article.

**Anje** · September 28th, 2009, 10:35 AM

I agree -- henna's really permanent, and it has definitely darkened and changed to color of my naturally light auburn hair. Catnip might be an option, and so might cassia, which will make the grays have more of a blond cast to them, but is probably too light to have a noticeable effect on your natural color.

**Elvi** · September 28th, 2009, 10:53 AM

You might even wait to see how the whites blend with your natural color. If you go from auburn to white directly, your hair might just get blonder highlights given by nature. My whitening strays seem to have yellowish tones (instead of gray), and I feel I have not got any need to interfere with the color at all.

**Jeepchick99tj** · September 29th, 2009, 01:58 AM

Thanks for the advice, I'll look into researching your suggestions.

A funny thing about one of my white hairs; I pulled out one of them so I could see what color it really was. No, I don't plan doin it with every one I get! Well the last 10" were indeed white, but upon further examination I noticed the 6" from the root on were back to auburn. I'll blame it turning white on stress, an once the stress was out of my life, my hair decided to make pigment?!?! I should have taken a picture of it.

**Elvi** · September 29th, 2009, 09:58 AM

Jeepchick99t: Your note about hairs whitening partially and stress is very intereresting. Maybe you were not eating enough what is needed for hair pigment when you had stress? I know that pigments in the human skin and appendages are some kind of melanin all. I have checked this topic for avoiding burning my skin and for strengthening my eyes (to have enough pigments in retina).

Vitamin A or karotenoids its precursors at least are essential for those melanin pigments, easily achieved in multivitamin tablets that I use

and carrots, some other red vegetables, too. I need to check this topic more carefully in the net, certainly there is more data concerning hair. For my precious eye pigments specific constituents available in blueberry and tomatoes are also needed, and vitamin E is beneficial for really many things in our body.

So happy growing hair and healthy eating for all of us!

**florenonite** · September 30th, 2009, 10:07 AM

What about a henna gloss? Depending on how dark your natural colour is, the gloss might just brighten it (whilst colouring the greys) without actually changing the colour.

**ademtce** · September 30th, 2009, 02:42 PM

does is it have to be with henna, are you open to using a demi-permanent dye?
cause really i'd suggest a demi, it would give you coverage and if you decide you don't like it you can remove it.

as always i suggest Wella color touch with 6/10 volume developer (deposits only no lightening)

**Jeepchick99tj** · October 21st, 2009, 09:58 PM

I'm trying to figure out what I could use that would cause the least amount of damage to my hair... I've thought about demi-permanent and that's actually what brought me to researching into henna.

Right now I'm researching into henna gloss, but can't seem to find any info about it where they hadn't hennaed already, or didn't mind a color change.

**SeaPhoenix** · October 22nd, 2009, 03:20 AM

Henna glosses can be quite subtle (see my avatar photo to the left ) - that's a henna gloss, applied for about 1 - 1.5 hours on normally medium brown hair... all the gloss did was perk the color up into something warmer, but when I let that grow out for a few months to test how the roots would look, my roots blended very very well into the glossed length. I imagine for someone with natural red tones, if they went with a diluted gloss, left on for a short period of time, it wouldn't be obvious that coloring had been done - and the whites would probably go a strawberry blonde (my white hairs are all a really lovely strawberry golden color with the gloss)