henna during the seventies

[Chamomilemaiden]

My grandma told me once that she hennaed her hair once (that was probably sometime in the 70s) , but her hair turned out bright orange so she never tried it again.

[Mitzy]

My grandmother (not the one with hair long enough to sit on that I talk about all the time, but the other one!) AND her twin sister used to henna each other's hair. They started way back when they were in their teens (so what? in the 1920's, I guess) and I know my granny was still doing it in the 80's because it drove my mother (who had both of my grannies live with her as they got too old to take care of themselves) crazy and she hated the smell.
She used that Egyptian brand that came in a yellow tin with a picture of Cleopatra on the side. Her hair was originally sort of a ginger brown (according to my grandpa) and when she finally stopped it was snow white, I mean blindingly white! Gorgeous! Anyway, she used some mix of brown and red and her hair was a nice color but she did complain about it making her hair dry, so she used to put castor oil on it for a couple of days after. I think she henna'd about once a month. Her hair was very, very strong, too.
She tried to get me to use henna in the 70's but like I said, my mother hated the smell, so I didn't. My cousin and I did used to mix some with lemon juice and put it on our fingernails and toenails to try to dye them red, but we didn't have much patience, so it didn't work most of the time. We used to try to dye our fingernails with blackberry juice, too, but mostly we just ate the berries. LOL

[khyricat]

I know mom and I both did it in the early 80's and 90's... I stopped when I moved to the midwest.. back then we had dark hair and hers was greying, she stopped sooner than I did because it was getting too orange for her.. I remember using lemon juice and water with it... but not the brand name, it came in paper packets that we mixed up in a bowl. now I know that the lemon juice probably hurt my hair and limited the dye uptake... that and I don't ever remember leaving it on more than an hour or 2...

[jel]

Another literary source that mentions henna (though doesn't give a detailed recipe, IIRC) is Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud. It's set in the early 70s (or it could have been the 60s actually).

[Liluri]

My Mother hennaed her hair most of my childhood she had a red and a brown tub and mixed them both were green powder and smelled like the henna I use now. I am supposing that the brown one had indigo in it. They were bought from a health store and there used to be a few brands.

[Kuchen]

Another literary source that mentions henna (though doesn't give a detailed recipe, IIRC) is Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud. It's set in the early 70s (or it could have been the 60s actually).

Off topic, but there's also a play called Henna Night by Amy Rosenthal, although it's not set in the 1970s

[Dulci]

I found a picture of the Cleopatra henna tin:



I think this was pure henna, but it was not ground finely like BAQ, it had twigs and stems in it. I lived in the southern US in the 70s, there were lots of free spirit, back to the earth hippie type women who hennaed their hair, and there were also older ladies who hennaed their white hair to brilliant orange. They also usually wore slashes of bright red lipstick and too much jewelry LOL.

[Isilme]

wow, dulci! You found a pic!
Well, twigs and leaves doesn't sound like BAQ
I would have loved to see the brilliant orange

[quendelyn]

I used Nestle Egyptian henna in the late 60’- and 70’s to brighten up my strawberry blonde hair. It was very finely ground. I still have a tin of it.

[EggLover]

I used to henna my hair in the early 80s. As I recall it was a greenish powder that I mixed with water and it smelled like grass clippings. The color was pretty natural looking, I think. I have dark brown hair, so the red on top of it made it look like a pretty natural auburn color. People were usually surprised to hear it wasn't my natural color. I stopped because it dried out my hair too much, and when I started going grey, the greys would be bright orange!

This is where I'm at...my dilemma. I was a natural bright auburn as a youth, but now at almost 50 my hair has browned mostly, BUT with some whites (5-10%)! So when I henna gloss, these whites turn BRIGHT ORANGE, but the rest doesn't. IF the whites were more evenly distributed it would be nice looking (like highlights), but they are mostly at the temples and top. A clump of orange against auburn doesn't look good natural imo.

So I'm considering Redken Shades EQ. I'm currently growing out my short hair, so I have to decide. If it weren't for the whites I'd henna gloss the roots every 6 weeks for a nice natural look. UGH.