BUXUS faded within a week...indigo questions

[redneckprincess]

Before I ever even got around to taking pictures of my henna/buxus (katam) hair from one week ago, it has faded completly leaving me with rusty colored orange hair again..AHHH!!!

I've had it!! I mixed up some henna with water let it sit for an hour and threw it in the deep freezer yesterday...I'm thinking about mixing up some indigo and blending the two and slapping it on tonight or tomorrow. I just don't care anymore if it goes black, well at least its no longer orange!!

Can indigo from a one step fade out?

What would happen if I mixed in katam AND indigo with my henna?

Any advice?
And please don't tell me to leave it alone, because I won't, and its my hair and the most important thing is I like it, right?

I also plan to add amla and shakikkia in the mix.

If you can point me to some (NON-BLACK) hindigo pics with recipes that may help too..thanks

And sorry to be so bothersome all the time, but I'm just trying to figure all this out!! :)

[kdaniels8811]

Yes, indigo can fade but become more permanent with more applications. I use a 50/50 mix of henna and indigo, but I was starting with brown hair. I would certainly strand test, you can test a strip from underneath your hair. I have heard a two step - first henna, then indigo - is more permantent but would try the hendigo first. I mix a tablespoon of amla in to make it more brown. Why mix in shikaki? It is for shampooing hair, you may be adding too much stuff to make the dye effective. Go real easy on the amla, more than a tablespoon and it made my hair way too dark. Also, you know henna has to dye release and you mix up indigo and amla with warm water and stir right away into the henna? Indigo loses it dying properties if it is allowed to sit. Good luck!!

[caribou55313]

Can indigo from a one step fade out?

Yes, it could. Or not.



What would happen if I mixed in katam AND indigo with my henna?That's fine to do. Typically it's done because someone wants a color not quite as dark as they'd get using just henna/indigo, so they're using katam, but adding a smaller amount of indigo too, so the brown color doesn't fade away as much. You'd be expecting the buxus/katam to fade and not build up as much with repeated use as indigo.


Any advice?
And please don't tell me to leave it alone, because I won't, and its my hair and the most important thing is I like it, right?

I also plan to add amla and shakikkia in the mix.Amla is acidic so it needs to be mixed into the henna paste (either before or after dye release), and then the buxus/indigo powders can be mixed together with water (I use warm water) and then that paste gets added separately to the henna/amla paste at the very last minute. If you were to mix amla *directly* with buxus or indigo, you'd weaken them a lot.

[caribou55313]

One more thing ... indigo cannot be bleached out or removed. It may fade but if it doesn't fade completely you're stuck with it. Blondes sometimes find this reality hard to bear :) (former blonde speaking here)

Buxus isn't quite so intractable.