henna & manic panic

[Kirin]

First off, i'm terrified of indigo. Just throwing that out there.

i use henna, and though i love it oodles it is a bit flamingly red especially where my natural hair is WHITE/SILVER. Where it isnt white, my hair is a basic mouse dark blonde/brown. The line of demarcatin with roots is blazing, and often yellow FIRST then white in my greys (I have NO idea why this is).

the general consensus is to dull down the red making it a reddish brown color, though i dont want to go ultra dark. People have recommended indigo, but i know once i go there, there's no going back, basically. Also, i have had "green " trauma in my past and would never, ever want to go back to the green hell of my chemical days.

So I wondered, my daughter uses midnight blue manic panic to dye her bangs blue....... what if i added like a teaspoon into a henna mix? Has anyone ever tried that before?

It would/should wash out over time, as thats what manic panic does, but i'm curious to know if anyone thinks it would work?

[EvilPigeon]

It won't dye your hair blue,but it could have an effect on the final color you get from the henna,and whatever color it turns out will stay as long as you henna. I added red special effects(similiar to manic panic) to mine,and it doesn't wash out.

[iris]

First off, i'm terrified of indigo. Just throwing that out there.
You're very wise :)

Yes, manic panic in blue does work to tone down henna to a more brown shade. And it's much less of a risk then indigo - indigo is very, very unpredictable in my experience. It also darkens much more than manic panic type dyes do. Because the manic panic type dyes are a more pure blue, I guess - indigo is quite a muddy color.

I've experimented a lot with blue stuff to tone down henna orange. I used to use blue shampoos when I still hennaed, to try and tone down the orange I'd get on my naturally light blonde bits. Never found that the shampoos had enough pigment to really tone the orange down to where I wanted it, but it did work to some extent.

I've been using stargazer dye in violet and blue lately to tone down the henna on my length, and that works as it should: violet cancels out the yellow tones, blue muddies down the orange.

You can just play with it and see how much you need and what tone specifically gives you what you are looking for.

Iris

[DotDotDot]

You could try doing a strand test to see how it turns out before doing it on your whole head.

[Kirin]

thanks for the replies. Yes, indigo still terrifies me. Sadly i tend to jump in without actually strand testing lol, i'm really horrible with that, i think i'll try the teensiest amount and see how it goes, using more if it works.

[physicschick]

Indigo fades on many people, though NOT everyone. If you can establish that it will fade from your hair, that can be very handy. When I do my roots with henna and indigo, the indigo tones the color down nicely. It's faded within a few months, but by then the henna has oxidized and probably had another layer or two added (from overlapping during the next root job), so the color is less scary.

[iris]

Indigo fades on many people, though NOT everyone. If you can establish that it will fade from your hair, that can be very handy. When I do my roots with henna and indigo, the indigo tones the color down nicely. It's faded within a few months, but by then the henna has oxidized and probably had another layer or two added (from overlapping during the next root job), so the color is less scary.
That's approximately how I did it, too, for a couple of years, except I did a two-step. I used to henna all my roots, and then follow it up with indigo just on my light blonde bits, for fifteen minutes or so. Usually the indigo would only stick for about a week, and by the time it had washed out my henna would be oxidized to a more or less acceptable shade.

It was unpredictable though; sometimes the indigo wouldn't take at all, and there was one time it took way too well, resulting in a greenish black that, atypically, turned out to be permanent that time, too. I think that one time where it suddenly took too well and permanently, may have been because it was warm weather when I did the indigo.


i use henna, and though i love it oodles it is a bit flamingly red especially where my natural hair is WHITE/SILVER. Where it isnt white, my hair is a basic mouse dark blonde/brown. The line of demarcatin with roots is blazing, and often yellow FIRST then white in my greys (I have NO idea why this is).

Do you mean it's yellow closer to your scalp and white further away? If so, it could be the heat of your scalp making the henna take better close to the scalp.

Iris

[wintersun99]

hey there, I found my problems w/indigo started about the time catherine's (from H4H) changed. originally, the indigo did seem to fade out nicely and the big BUT, I remember distinctly that fading seemed to change and I began to see very little to no fading. about that same time, people started posting about this on H4H and catherine stated that her "new" indigo crop had "definite staying power" (my quote, not hers) and ever since, I have had very poor results w/indigo (i.e. going almost black on me and NOT fading, ever). I have since stopped using it.

[Kirin]

what i mean by that is, when i first henna, everything is red..... as the roots grow out, they are YELLOW first, orangy yellow, going to yellow, then white. I kind of attribute this to some of the lawsone going into the follicle, but not a lot, vaguely staining whats under the skin, so as it grows out, its this yellowy color for like, 1/8 of an inch.

[wintersun99]

what i mean by that is, when i first henna, everything is red..... as the roots grow out, they are YELLOW first, orangy yellow, going to yellow, then white. I kind of attribute this to some of the lawsone going into the follicle, but not a lot, vaguely staining whats under the skin, so as it grows out, its this yellowy color for like, 1/8 of an inch.

this isn't just you, I've noticed the same thing happening to me on my "grays" although I don't have many, they are sprinkled through my hair pretty evenly and although I don't really notice henna color fade like this on my light-med brown hair, I definitely have been noticing this lately on the grays. It's an unflattering color, isn't it? :)

[kwaniesiam]

There is a member here (Hypnotica, I think. Correct me if I'm wrong!) that uses Special Effects dye in her henna mixture to brighten up the red, so it is only logical that a small amount of a contrasting color would tone it down. Manic Panic is pretty close to special effects dye, they're both temporary dyes that come in crazy colors.