Henna/Indigo ruined my hair... but I still want to darken it?

[heathen]

My hair is naturally a medium chestnut brown (don't know if you can tell in my sig pic, that was a while before my chop about a month or so ago) and I have always wanted to have it a very dark brown/black coffee color. I have done a 2-step henna and indigo process twice... while initially my hair felt ok, over the past year and a half or so, it ruined my hair.

I recently had to cut back my approaching hip length hair to bra strap length because the entire length of my hennindigo hair was destroyed. I tried to oil and deep condition to no avail over the months, never used heat, etc. but, my hair became increasingly dull, tangled, and almost the entire under-layer of my hair was so dry it was breaking off and split like nothing I have ever experienced with my hair and NOTHING I did helped...

Not even in the days that I used chemical dyes and would straighten it weekly was my hair ever that damaged. It was SO dry, dull, and tangled towards the end that it would take 20 minutes at least just to work out the knots every time I took a shower and had almost no shine. It also seemed like the individual strands felt rough and thicker than my normal hair.

Now that I have about 6+ inches of roots grown out of virgin hair, I remember what hair is supposed to feel like, but from the chin down my hair is still the residual henninidgo, which, for the moment is not damaged.

I am wondering if y'all think I did something wrong in my process. I added nothing special to the henna/indigo when I did my two-step, just water. I continued to oil my hair and tried to treat it well afterward, had minimal fading... but, otherwise it felt like the worst thing I ever did to my hair.

I still crave brown/black hair, I just love the way dark hair looks and I think it suits me.

Anyone have suggestions of what I can do? I wonder if I am crazy to trying hennindigo again after this experience and huge setback in growth. If it weren't for the damage it incurred, I would definitely have long been at hip length by now...

Thanks for reading!:)

[allmixedup88]

Are you sure it was pure henna and did not have any metallic salts added?
There is biegen dye, but it has PPD
Commercial hair dye
manic panic (it dried out my hair when i used it to make my hair black)
coffee rinses

[heathen]

Positive.

I used excellent pure grade Yemeni Henna and Indigo from HennaSooq.com

[heathen]

Are you sure it was pure henna and did not have any metallic salts added?
There is biegen dye, but it has PPD
Commercial hair dye
manic panic (it dried out my hair when i used it to make my hair black)
coffee rinses

Oh, I wanted to try to go natural, but mostly I am concerned with the least damaging option!

Whenever I've used commerical/box dye it washes out of my hair in two weeks or so.

The best thing about henna/indigo is that almost 2 years after the initial dye, my hair is still a soft black!

[allmixedup88]

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