How can I achieve this color with henna?

[Hanamizu]

Hello everyone.. I'm new hair though I've been lurking a while. :)
I've done alot of henna research lately and It's just so gorgeous! I really want to start hennaing my hair!

So question my question is, what starting color/level of lightness do I need to achieve this kind of color?:
http://mtblog.allure.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/12/19/coco.jpg


My natural hair:

Outside (cloudy): http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc1/hs272.snc1/9922_137366736021_664966021_3064096_7402793_n.jpg

Inside with flash (sorry for the giant pic):http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/6060/p1000919.jpg




I realize I probably need to lighten my hair.. I just need to know how much.. I don't want to go lighter than necessary..

Would really appreciate any help at all. :) Thank you!

[Hanamizu]

new hair = new here... lol

[Lady Danger]

I would say you will need to lighten to at least light brown to get the result you want. Also, I used the Punjabi Prime from mehandi.com and got a nice, pure red, if that helps.

ETA: I see since you are new, not sure if you can see pics and albums yet. I Henna'd over the weekend and my avatar shows my result - I had dark dishwater blonde hair to start (which some people call light brown). Reason I say this is, my hair lights up like in my avatar, but in lower lighting situations, it looks more like the pic you included of your desired color.

Read up on doing strand tests, because they are essential before Hennaing!

[amaiaisabella]

I don't know, your hair isn't that dark. My hair was dark brown and got to a solid red color pretty quick- maybe after the 6th app? And with a reddish length, I'd think it would take more color. You could try some honey lightening first, but I wouldn't risk bleach (JMO).

[Hanamizu]

I would say you will need to lighten to at least light brown to get the result you want. Also, I used the Punjabi Prime from mehandi.com and got a nice, pure red, if that helps.

ETA: I see since you are new, not sure if you can see pics and albums yet. I Henna'd over the weekend and my avatar shows my result - I had dark dishwater blonde hair to start (which some people call light brown). Reason I say this is, my hair lights up like in my avatar, but in lower lighting situations, it looks more like the pic you included of your desired color.

Read up on doing strand tests, because they are essential before Hennaing!

Thank you, very helpful. :)
I can't access albums yet.. Would you mind posting a picture of your natural color? Just to make sure I'm on the same page..

Also, I'm not too familiar with chemical dyes, as I've only done it once before and it was to go darker.. To achieve a lighter color, would my hair need to be bleached like totally white and then color it from there? Or can I simply go a few shades lighter and not totally fry my hair?
Should I do it at a salon or is there an easy way to do it myself?

[longhairedfairy]

Maybe you should try using honey for lightening. Honey contains hydrogen peroxide, but is apparently much less damaging than other methods of lightening.
By the way, I like your user name.:)

ETA: Honey Thread (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=148)

[Hanamizu]

I don't think honey lightning will get me to the shade I need though..

[Freija]

I don't think honey lightning will get me to the shade I need though..

In my experience, honey lightening doesn't really work - especially not on darker hair and/or in a colder/less sunny part of the world. At the least, it would take a number of applications to lift the lengths noticeably. At the same time, though, it can't hurt to try it! The one thing I would advise against is dabbling with bleach if you want long hair. I've been there - I used peroxide for about six months on my mid-brown hair to lift to a light gold-brown and then used Jamila on top of that to give an orange-toned red similar to the picture you've posted (edit - a picture (http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/9594/hairk.jpg)!). It worked, but even at shoulder-length my ends felt a bit dry and weren't as silky or shiny as my hair is now (I chopped back to chin-length off as part of my attempt to grow out the henna - which is another consideration: if you can't get the shade you like, or you grow tired of bleaching, you'll have to cut your hair to get rid of it. Henna is probably about the most permanent dye available, aside from chemical black, so be very sure it's what you want!).

It was also a very time-consuming process: I had to mix up the henna, leave to dye-release, sit with peroxide on my head for half an hour, wash my hair, apply the henna, leave for six hours and wash again. And because the colour was much lighter than my natural colour, my roots would show badly each month and so I'd have to redo the process frequently. I adore the colour henna gives and I'm not trying to tell you not to henna at all - though your hair is beautiful in the photos you've posted! - but it is a big commitment and may not always go according to plan.

[Lady Danger]

Thank you, very helpful. :)
I can't access albums yet.. Would you mind posting a picture of your natural color? Just to make sure I'm on the same page..

Also, I'm not too familiar with chemical dyes, as I've only done it once before and it was to go darker.. To achieve a lighter color, would my hair need to be bleached like totally white and then color it from there? Or can I simply go a few shades lighter and not totally fry my hair?
Should I do it at a salon or is there an easy way to do it myself?

Sure, I will post my "before" pics either tonight or tomorrow morning (depending on how late I get home). I'm still a newbie to Henna myself - having only done my 1st this past weekend, so other Hennaheads may want to weigh in - but I did a lot of research and I can tell you that many hairdressers and salons are trained to think Henna is "bad" because a lot of the Hennas are compound and have metals and chemicals mixed in. It's not too hard to do yourself, so you should be able to! Also, henna is translucent, so it literally binds with your hair strand and reflects the red + your underneath color. You wouldn't want to go too too light, or else you'll have neon orange hair!

Hennaforhair.com is a great resource as a starting place. There's also tons of pictures of before and after people! I found them first before I found the forums here, and now between the two I was able to learn just about all I could in order to do Henna myself. I was always afraid of chemical dyes, but the results with the Henna are fantastic. :)

[longhairedfairy]

Eh, the honey lightening depends on the person (or the person's hair, anyway). I've heard some members say they saw little or no lightening and some say it lightened their hair a lot.:shrug:

[Wavelength]

Some people had good luck with cinnamon for lightening hair when honey didn't work. Just throwing that out there.

[longhairedfairy]

Some people had good luck with cinnamon for lightening hair when honey didn't work. Just throwing that out there.
Oh, I remember someone who said she bleached her hair quite a lot with cinnamon by accident. I can't remember who it was, though.:hmm:

[Hanamizu]

- but I did a lot of research and I can tell you that many hairdressers and salons are trained to think Henna is "bad" because a lot of the Hennas are compound and have metals and chemicals mixed in. It's not too hard to do yourself, so you should be able to!

I was thinking if I should do the lightning/bleaching myself or if I need to go to a salon. :)

[Hanamizu]

Forgot to mention that my hair still has some chemical dye in it.. It's almost faded but it's there, It's not far off from my natural color though.

[Lady Danger]

Thank you, very helpful. :)
I can't access albums yet.. Would you mind posting a picture of your natural color? Just to make sure I'm on the same page..

Here you go, as requested. This is my virgin color both with and without flash.

http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz324/putaryngonyt/Red/beforeflashXS.jpg http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz324/putaryngonyt/Red/beforenoflashXS.jpg

And here's immediately after, with and without flash. It's calmed down a little since then (still pure red, just not as "bright orange").

http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz324/putaryngonyt/Red/afterflashXS.jpg http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz324/putaryngonyt/Red/afternoflashXS.jpg

Hope that helps you some! :)

[Hanamizu]

Wow! Your virgin color looks totally different in the 2 lights! That's crazy..
I think i'm going to take the plunge and lighten my hair at least 1-2 shades...
Does anyone know if I need to bleach it totally blonde first, then dyed again?
Or can it simply be lightened a couple shades?

[Lady Danger]

Wow! Your virgin color looks totally different in the 2 lights! That's crazy..

Totally agree, which is one of the reasons I wanted a change in the first place. When it was lit up like with the flash, it was very pretty. Unfortunately, most "everyday" lighting made me look like the non-flash photo. I felt like my hair was so dull; I'm also really pale, and I hadn't realized, until I'd Henna'd, how much the virgin color in everyday lighting was washing me out. My eyes and skin look so much more awake now that I have the warm red!

[Hanamizu]

Will using a box-dye a few shades lighter than my hair work?

[lapushka]

This might help:
http://www.hennaforhair.com/mixes/index.html

[Lady Danger]

Will using a box-dye a few shades lighter than my hair work?
Not sure as I am totally unfamiliar with box dyes...hopefully someone else knows!

[halo_tightens]

Hi Hanamizu,

One thing to keep in mind:

If you lighten your hair and then use henna to color it red, there will be some extra effort involved in keeping up your roots as they grow in. If you keep just using henna, your new growth will be darker than the length, because it will be just henna over your natural, unlightened color-- so you'll have a line of demarcation between the new growth and the lightened hair.

To keep everything the same, you'll always have to lighten your roots first, exactly the same amount as you lighten your hair this first time, and then henna over it. It could be tricky to make sure everything matches perfectly each time.

I'm not saying this is a terrible thing, if you're willing to keep up with it. I just wanted to make sure you were fully aware of what you'd be starting by doing this!

Maybe you could start off by doing a strand test of henna with a hairball of your natural color, just to see how it looks to you. If it turns out not to be too dark for your tastes after all, it would be much easier to do just henna than the two-step lightening+henna.

Just my :twocents:

[Hanamizu]

Wouldn't repeated applications of henna eventually blend everything together? Especially if I don't go too much lighter than my natural color?

[halo_tightens]

Yeah, henna will help a lot in blending the two shades together, especially if there's not a huge difference between the two.

I just didn't want you to NOT think about that first, and end up having regrets in the future. :blossom:

[Hanamizu]

Ok. :) I've never lightened my hair in my life and I want to have the bright red I've always wanted at least once.. Then just let it grow back natural. ^^
Thanks for all the help guys! I'll post some pics after the henna! ;)

[klcqtee]

If your hair is virgin (i.e. no hair dye on it) you could try doing some Sun-In applications. It's a peroxide lightener, but it's a fairly weak concentration, as far as I know. Nightshade was able to lightener her hair without much damage (she of course was in a different situation, it still lightened her hair). If you have dyed your hair before, you need to be careful. Sun-In has very bad affects on metallic salts that might fry your beautiful hair! Not all dyes have metallic salts in them, but it is very important to look up the ingredients of the dye you used, just in case.

This might lighten you up enough. My hair is very close in colour to yours, and in the sunlight, my hair glowed a bright red (less orange than the picture you posted, but just as bright) after many full head applications. Of course, indoors it was more of a dark red-auburn. (I'd post pictures for you to see, but I don't have any uploaded right now, and need to find them.)

PS: Your hair is beautiful the way it is, and looks very healthy!