Help please, information wanted on Henna with Sodium Picramate

[pelirojo]

Dear All,
I wanted to wrack your brains about Henna with Sodium Picramate.
I have been looking up alot about Henna before I use it to dye my dar brown hair, which is currently a mahogany type shade through chemical dyes. I mainly use it to colour grey hairs (eep at 20!)
I read that I should only use pure Henna, without metal salts added to avoid irreversible disaster. So I went to a shop and asked for some (it is my local 'hippy' shop selling all sorts of organic and natural brilliant things for skincare etc) I was told that what they sold was, but on closer inspection at home it also includes this Sodium Picramate stuff, but doesn't say how much. The henna I have is 'Henne El Cahira from Hennedrog.
I tried to google the Picramate but all i discovered is that dry it is a low level impact explosive, which was less than helpful!
I'm on a very limited budget so don't really want to buy different stuff if I can get away with it this once, without ruining my hair!
Also, can anyone suggest somewhere I can get value pure good henna in the UK, for next time?
Many thanks in advance for any help you can offer on this!
Pelirojo x

[CindyLea1]

http://www.cosmeticsinfo.org/ingredient_details.php?ingredient_id=906

Here's what I found. Seems to be a red dye probably to enhance the Henna red. I don't know anything about the safety of this material. Others with more experience should be along to help shortly.

[ChloeDharma]

The henna i use for colour has this in it. I've used mostly the same brand for about 6 years now and to be honest not had a problem with it. I'd prefer not to use it ideally but it's the only time i get a decent colour result with henna.....plus i'm a bit lazy.

If you wan't pure henna then Baldwins sell it, i don't know where in the UK you are but the Baldwins shop is on Walworth Road in Elephant and Castle (London) but they do have a website you can order from

[lastnite]

I think Sodium Picramate is a metallic salt. It's supposed to damage your hair if you ever go back to chemical dyes, and it can melt your hair off, but this is just info I got from the hennaforhair site which tends to scare people off of other brands of henna so they can push sales for their own... It seems like people do use sodium picramate hennas with no problems. There's a girl over on the henna thread here that uses it and has excellent results.

[Nightshade]

I think Sodium Picramate is a metallic salt. It's supposed to damage your hair if you ever go back to chemical dyes, and it can melt your hair off, but this is just info I got from the hennaforhair site which tends to scare people off of other brands of henna so they can push sales for their own... It seems like people do use sodium picramate hennas with no problems. There's a girl over on the henna thread here that uses it and has excellent results.

Catherine (owner of H4H) and I may have our differing opinions on henna, but I'll back her to the hilt on this one... she is NOT putting quality information out there to drive people to her henna. She's doing it because so many people hear that "OMG Henna is the DEVIL" from the hairdressers all the time and turn away from henna in general.

And the reason that hairdressers think henna is evil is because of metallic salts like sodium picramate.

Someone buys "natural henna" and then realizes that you don't get the uniform color that you do from a box dye, ditches it, and goes back to chemical color. Or gets a perm. Or gets their hair relaxed. And then their hair dissolves into a smoking green mass and they're freaking out. Then the hairdresser asks the fateful question of, "What did you use on your hair?"

*sob* Henna!


It happens all. the. time.

I've seen it on the H4H forums and I've seen it here. It happens and there is no saving hair that's had that level of chemical reaction happen to it. :no:

I realize a bunch of us sound like henna nazis with the chants of BAQ BAQ, but there's a reason for it.

I guess if someone was 150% sure that they were never going to use another chemical treatment on their hair ever again a henna with metallic salts would be fine, but in the real world people change their minds. Hairdressers screw up and put the wrong things on people's heads. Bad things happen.

(And in my time on LHC and H4H I've seen a TON of people who were really really honestly totally and completly sure they wanted henna and then ask how to get their henna out and their old color back within three months. So I don't take assurances of "I'll never go back to chemical dyes, it's henna only for me!" very seriously unless someone's been hennaing for years.)

I realize you're not going to get BAQ henna for $2/100g, but honestly, there's a reason for it.

The good stuff is worth the cost and worth the fact that someone has checked it over for purity.

:soapbox:

[lastnite]

Nightshade, I appreciate all the henna info from Catherine and her site, I have learned alot from it and my post wasn't directed to her personally. It is good to have someone look over the product since I read imports aren't regulated or checked here in the US, but alot of people (on this site and elsewhere) are already using imported Indian and different hair oils and herbs and taking the chance the product is what it says it is and the ingredients list is true. so in a way henna products aren't that much different.

Please don't be offended or take my post the wrong way, I guess it just confuses me to educate people on henna, but then sometimes say all the other brands can possibly be lying about the ingredients. I know H4H has good quality henna and have seen over on the henna thread people getting beautiful color from the Yemeni henna. I understand the sift is finer and dye content has been tested to have higher dye content.

Maybe I'm naive in believing that companies are honest and put all the ingredients on their labels. Like the OP's product lists the metallic salt so they can make a decision to use it with caution or not use it. If the $3 box of henna from the Indian store says it's for body art/mehndi and lists henna as it's only ingredient or 100% henna, it's supposed to be considered BAQ since it can be used for body art... it just seems unethical to me to claim that it's not safe to use simply because it wasn't bought from a specific site.

[pelirojo]

Thanks for the help!

Nightshade, I know that there is a reason that you all chant BAQ, I knew that when I bought my henna, I was given bad information at the shop! That i what I was trying to buy!
ChloeDharma I will look into the baldwins site. thanks!

Does anyone know of any other UK based Henna sellers? I am split between Hampshire (south coast) and near Edinburgh. Most of the recommended sites I can find seem to be for the US meaning my Henna would be out of my budget simply due to the added high cost of posting it half way around the world!
Pelirojo x

[Unofficial_Rose]

;

Does anyone know of any other UK based Henna sellers? I am split between Hampshire (south coast) and near Edinburgh. Most of the recommended sites I can find seem to be for the US meaning my Henna would be out of my budget simply due to the added high cost of posting it half way around the world!
Pelirojo x

You can buy henna from Lush, in the solid bars with cocoa butter. They are good quality Persian Henna, I know there are no metallic salts because I've successfully had foiled highlights in my hair after using it. You have to grate it first, but once it's on it's very conditioning and doesn't drip! The stain is very pretty, some find it weaker than powdered BAQ.

And also Rennaissance henna - excellent quality and super fast service, online only (AFAIK): http://www.renaissancehenna.com But beware, she also has lots of tempting goodies like cassia and bhringraj oil available to buy. ;)

[Lemur_Catta]

Hi! I use henna with sodium picramate. It helps obtaining a cherry shade, instead of an orange shade. I choose to use it because I have very dark hair, and pure henna doesn't show much. I also think that the orange halo in the sun clashes a bit with my natural hair color.
I am quite sure I will not go back to chemical dye, since I have been hennaing for almost 5 years on and off...anyway, I can tell you that even if you use chemical dye on sodium picramate henna, it will be fine.
It is true that hair dyes react with (some) metallic salts. And it is also true that sodium picramate is a metallic salt, because sodium is a metal. It is the salt of picramic acid with sodium. I am sorry if I am not explaining this correctly, but I have never talked about Chemistry in English :P
Actually, it's not the dye that reacts with the salts. It's the lightener, ammonia + peroxide, so if you are using a dye that doesn't contain those, you are safe.
But as I have said, not all metallic salts react with hair dye. As far as I know, and as far as I have read, sodium salts do NOT react with hair dye. Copper salts do. Lead salts do. But NOT sodium picramate.
And please don't say that everybody's hair is different and we react to the same things in different ways or anything like that.
It is true that everybody's hair is different. It can be straight or curly, porous or not, fine or coarse, etc. But everybody's hair is made of keratin, and that's what the lawsone molecule bonds to.
So, chemically speaking, all hair works the same. All hair lightens when you use bleach. And so on.
So, if sodium picramate doesn't react with ammonia, it will never. It's not like it can react with ammonia one time, and not another.
It's like saying that baking soda and vinegar doesn't always react, it depends, you have to do a test first. Everyone would think this is absolutely crazy! An acid and a base react and form hydrogen, period.
Anyway, if you want to color your hair with henna with picramate, do it. In case you want to color with regular dye after that, do a strand test. Not to see if your hair melts or not, just to see if you like the color outcome, which, as you know, depends on the starting color.

In my personal experience, the only con to sodium picramate is that it fades. A lot. I hennaed my hair 2 weeks ago, and still when I wash my hair the water comes out orange. I have stained a lot of things. So I would not advice you do use that if you like white bathrobes or if you are going on vacation in a hotel (it could be embarrassing to stain all the bathroom orange :D). And you might not like the result, in sunlight is quite a "fake" red.
I will post a picture as soon as possible. Right now my hair is a mess :D

[halo_tightens]

I don't know if this matters to the OP, or if it's not an issue at all...

For me, part of the allure of using henna is the knowledge that I am basically using ground-up plant leaves to color my hair. There's something special to me about using a pure plant product, unaltered by artificial means, to accomplish something that so many in the mainstream believe can only be done one way: with the chemicals at their local salon.

I do understand that this might not be a big deal to many people; the end result may be the only consideration for some. It's just a little thing that's important to me, and I thought I'd mention it. :flower:

[caribou55313]

Thanks Lemur Catta, that was very interesting! I've always wondered about sodium picramate, but haven't heard any personal reports of anyone having trouble using ammonia/peroxide on their hair post-sodium picramate use.

I cannot find any statement by Catherine of H4H saying sodium picramate causes problems in hair use, though forum users there have posted their belief (again, no personal experiences or documentation) that it does. Here is her info page describing metallic salts - salts of sodium are not mentioned:

http://www.hennaforhair.com/science/whatsinit.html

Just now I Googled and found a Dr. Nasiruddin Khan of Karachi sounding rather critical of its inclusion in henna products:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:STe0TLMOu6YJ:www.dawn.com/2008/09/29/local12.htm+mehandi.com:+sodium+picramate&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

[Fractalsofhair]

You can buy inexpensive, "BAQ"(Pure, semi fine sift.) henna at most Indian grocery stores, if you're on a budget.

[Lemur_Catta]

Thanks Lemur Catta, that was very interesting! I've always wondered about sodium picramate, but haven't heard any personal reports of anyone having trouble using ammonia/peroxide on their hair post-sodium picramate use.

I cannot find any statement by Catherine of H4H saying sodium picramate causes problems in hair use, though forum users there have posted their belief (again, no personal experiences or documentation) that it does. Here is her info page describing metallic salts - salts of sodium are not mentioned:

http://www.hennaforhair.com/science/whatsinit.html

Just now I Googled and found a Dr. Nasiruddin Khan of Karachi sounding rather critical of its inclusion in henna products:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:STe0TLMOu6YJ:www.dawn.com/2008/09/29/local12.htm+mehandi.com:+sodium+picramate&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Yeah, I knew about that. Sodium picramate was used as an explosive and also as a pesticide. But the % contained in henna is usually no more than 1%, so I doubt it will blow up our heads :D
It is also dangerous during pregnancy, but many things are, so I don't think it's a way to judge. Even lavender EO is dangerous during pregnancy.

[little_cherry]

I think Sodium Picramate is a metallic salt. It's supposed to damage your hair if you ever go back to chemical dyes, and it can melt your hair off, but this is just info I got from the hennaforhair site which tends to scare people off of other brands of henna so they can push sales for their own... It seems like people do use sodium picramate hennas with no problems. There's a girl over on the henna thread here that uses it and has excellent results.
Yes...Sodium picramate is a metallic salt..and it will eventually trash your hair. I'll find a photo of me after using the henne brand...it seriously damaged my hair- made it look like wine coloured straw that took around a year of deep treatments and micro trims to fix.... not worth it.


A quote from http://health.dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/public_awareness/message/653

........Another substance found in the mehndi samples was sodium picramate, the salt of picric acid. “That is a very strong and dangerous chemical,” said Dr Khan. “Before trinitrotoluene became popular, sodium picramate was used as an explosive and is still sometimes put to that use. It reacts with body protein to develop colour, and it is one of the main ingredients in ‘instant’ mehndi.”

[Nightshade]

Please don't be offended or take my post the wrong way, I guess it just confuses me to educate people on henna, but then sometimes say all the other brands can possibly be lying about the ingredients. I know H4H has good quality henna and have seen over on the henna thread people getting beautiful color from the Yemeni henna. I understand the sift is finer and dye content has been tested to have higher dye content.

Maybe I'm naive in believing that companies are honest and put all the ingredients on their labels. Like the OP's product lists the metallic salt so they can make a decision to use it with caution or not use it. If the $3 box of henna from the Indian store says it's for body art/mehndi and lists henna as it's only ingredient or 100% henna, it's supposed to be considered BAQ since it can be used for body art... it just seems unethical to me to claim that it's not safe to use simply because it wasn't bought from a specific site.

No offense taken :flowers:

The problem is that imported products that fall under the Health & Beauty banner imported from other countries, such as India, are not legally obligated to label their ingredients accurately. :(

They can say "henna hair color" and list (or not list) whatever they want on the back. So a box can say "Henna" as the only ingredient, but there could be other chemicals in there that are simply not acknowledged in the packaging. There's a frightening amount of "black hennas" in boxes that list only henna, and yet there's no way that henna can create black. So what isn't disclosed is that there's indigo (if someone is lucky) or PPD in there (if they're not lucky).

There's no oversight from a government organization or otherwise to make sure that these lists are accurate, and many times fillers, chemicals, and metallic salts are added without these being reflected on the packaging. Which can lead to some terrible results when someone who thinks they were using pure henna goes to do a chemical treatment on their hair.

I wish all companies were ethical enough to honestly label their products, but since that isn't the case I feel the best we can do is to work with reputable suppliers who check their henna for these additives and to keep trying to educate people on the potential dangers of boxed henna :)

[Gothic Lolita]

I belong to a German board and someone askedthere about picramates, not because of the color, but because of health issues. And it turned out that you can't buy henna with picramtes from regular stores in Germany, because it is highly suspected to be carcinogenic. If people want henna with it, they need to go to these little Indian stores where they are able to sell un-labeled stuff.
I'm not judging anyone who want to use it, everyone would like an easy way to get a nice even hair color. But it is not that easy with plant-dyes. But I'd rather use box-dye than henna with Sodium Picramate, if I wasn't sure I'd never change to someting else.

[lilalong]

I used it once accidently and really didn't like the color I got with it. My hair turned out much darker and cooler than the natural henna.

[Smiirkwood]

Thank you so much for this. I have been planning to bleach out my henna for a while now and I finally got all the ingredients. I had an extra box of henna laying around and went over the ingredients list. Lo and behold I saw sodium pictamate and almost had a heart attack. I will strand test for 30 minutes anyway but I’m glad to hear your comment. I’ve seen on other forums that silver, lead or copper are the real culprits here when it comes to metallic salts in the henna…

[Smiirkwood]

Hi! I use henna with sodium picramate. It helps obtaining a cherry shade, instead of an orange shade. I choose to use it because I have very dark hair, and pure henna doesn't show much. I also think that the orange halo in the sun clashes a bit with my natural hair color.
I am quite sure I will not go back to chemical dye, since I have been hennaing for almost 5 years on and off...anyway, I can tell you that even if you use chemical dye on sodium picramate henna, it will be fine.
It is true that hair dyes react with (some) metallic salts. And it is also true that sodium picramate is a metallic salt, because sodium is a metal. It is the salt of picramic acid with sodium. I am sorry if I am not explaining this correctly, but I have never talked about Chemistry in English :P
Actually, it's not the dye that reacts with the salts. It's the lightener, ammonia + peroxide, so if you are using a dye that doesn't contain those, you are safe.
But as I have said, not all metallic salts react with hair dye. As far as I know, and as far as I have read, sodium salts do NOT react with hair dye. Copper salts do. Lead salts do. But NOT sodium picramate.
And please don't say that everybody's hair is different and we react to the same things in different ways or anything like that.
It is true that everybody's hair is different. It can be straight or curly, porous or not, fine or coarse, etc. But everybody's hair is made of keratin, and that's what the lawsone molecule bonds to.
So, chemically speaking, all hair works the same. All hair lightens when you use bleach. And so on.
So, if sodium picramate doesn't react with ammonia, it will never. It's not like it can react with ammonia one time, and not another.
It's like saying that baking soda and vinegar doesn't always react, it depends, you have to do a test first. Everyone would think this is absolutely crazy! An acid and a base react and form hydrogen, period.
Anyway, if you want to color your hair with henna with picramate, do it. In case you want to color with regular dye after that, do a strand test. Not to see if your hair melts or not, just to see if you like the color outcome, which, as you know, depends on the starting color.

In my personal experience, the only con to sodium picramate is that it fades. A lot. I hennaed my hair 2 weeks ago, and still when I wash my hair the water comes out orange. I have stained a lot of things. So I would not advice you do use that if you like white bathrobes or if you are going on vacation in a hotel (it could be embarrassing to stain all the bathroom orange :D). And you might not like the result, in sunlight is quite a "fake" red.
I will post a picture as soon as possible. Right now my hair is a mess :D

Thank you so much for this. I have been planning to bleach out my henna for a while now and I finally got all the ingredients. I had an extra box of henna laying around and went over the ingredients list. Lo and behold I saw sodium pictamate and almost had a heart attack. I will strand test for 30 minutes anyway but I’m glad to hear your comment. I’ve seen on other forums that silver, lead or copper are the real culprits here when it comes to metallic salts in the henna…

[lapushka]

Thank you so much for this. I have been planning to bleach out my henna for a while now and I finally got all the ingredients. I had an extra box of henna laying around and went over the ingredients list. Lo and behold I saw sodium pictamate and almost had a heart attack. I will strand test for 30 minutes anyway but I’m glad to hear your comment. I’ve seen on other forums that silver, lead or copper are the real culprits here when it comes to metallic salts in the henna…

Whatever you do bleaching out henna? Keep it to 1 time only. I made the mistake of going in 2 times full strength bleach (and still had orange staining left). So I threw on a light brown dye (because there's a red molecule left, you can't go blonde) and called it a day, but the next time I tried touching up my roots? My hair slurped up the dye like no tomorrow, got soot black instead of my light brown, melted off in a chemical cut from bra strap to chin (in a kind of diagonal) and also, I burned my scalp pretty badly.

So be careful!

If you can grow it out... please do so!

[Of the Fae]

I used henna with Sodium Picramate in the very beginning of my hennaing days (Waaaaay back), and it was the same brand as OP's!
I bleached over it once, back then. My hair turned mushy. Be careful!
I did manage to save it, but it did not look well for a long time afterwards.
I don't know where you are situated, but where I live there is cheap 100% henna available at many herbal stores (the sift is crude though, but I use it often especially for root touch ups). I also found cheap BAQ henna in ebay once, and especially ordered in bulk it is a good way to save on money.