how to get a light brown color

[butterflycayton]

Hey everyone, I have a question, I have hennaed twice and had three henna glosses. Wondering how to do a light to medium brown color over my red henna. Or if its not possible. I mainly wanted to henna my permed ends while growing out my hair. I like the red but I think I would like more of my natural color and don't want to grow out years of henna. So if I start doing my roots to more my natural color it will be easier to grow out I think. I have some cassia, indigo, and lots of henna. Any good recipes? Thanks

[MandyBeth]

See, I think you'd want a henna/bruxus - maybe alma depending on how much red you want in your hair- to get the brown shade, but I don't know how dark you'd get over the current red, since you can't lighten with henna. Since you currently have henna in your hair, unless you bleach it in some fashion, I don't think a cassia dye is going to show up.

What very little I know - I'd not use the indigo as you say you want a light color and I take indigo to be used for the darker browns and bruxus for the lighter ones. While it is possible to bleach out henna - damage to your hair being unknown to me - you can NEVER remove indigo other than what it naturally fades out - and it may not fade. Indigo is a blue dye and if you try to bleach it, it will turn green in some fashion. So, given as you (I assume) don't want to cut off all of your hair if it goes haywire - I'd leave the indigo out.

However, I must say - I'm in love with your pretty red color!

[caribou55313]

Lexie got a beautiful light brown by using an indigo/cassia gloss over hennaed hair - see her Fifth Experiment in the post below (the entire thread was a revelation for me, years ago when she first posted it at H4H):

http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showpost.php?p=25230&postcount=2