Using henna over bleached (and purple) hair?

[Quezie]

My hair is bleached, and coloured purple with a vegetable-based dye on the "under" part of it.

First of all, I understand that hennaing over bleached hair often leads to very bright, orange hair. :hmm:
The colour I'd like to see, is the colour of the braid on this page.
http://www.hennaforhair.com/mixes/ccj.html
More red the orangey.

And secondly, half of my hair is purple, so I'm not even sure what would happen if I hennaed over that. :confused:

And last, this would be my first time even attempting henna. However, I will have a bit of free time in the next few weeks, so I'm up for the challenge. :)

Any advice would be so greatly appreciated. :)

[Gothic Lolita]

Difficult.... It's right that you might end up with a really bright orange. If the purple is only semi-permanent, I'd wait until it has washed out, otherwise I think it's pretty unpredictable what color it might turn. It probably would be much darker than your bleached hair.
I don't think you can get the red you want with just one application. You'd need several relly long ones since henna builds up and gives darker color over time.
And: since yur hair is already chemically treated make absolutely sure, that you use Body Art Quality henna. Henna with metallic salts is likely to react with your hair and in the best case, you will just get an ugly color. In the worst your hair will be severly damaged.

What I'd do is collect shed hairs (out of your brush/comb) or colect those that you shed in the shower. And then sort them bleached hair - purple hair. When you have some, mix a henna mix and apply it to see what happens. Defintely make strand tests, it will help you to know how the color might turn out!

[Gothic Lolita]

Sorry, double post, I'm having some problems with the site.

[Quezie]

Difficult.... It's right that you might end up with a really bright orange. If the purple is only semi-permanent, I'd wait until it has washed out, otherwise I think it's pretty unpredictable what color it might turn. It probably would be much darker than your bleached hair.
I don't think you can get the red you want with just one application. You'd need several relly long ones since henna builds up and gives darker color over time.
And: since yur hair is already chemically treated make absolutely sure, that you use Body Art Quality henna. Henna with metallic salts is likely to react with your hair and in the best case, you will just get an ugly color. In the worst your hair will be severly damaged.

What I'd do is collect shed hairs (out of your brush/comb) or colect those that you shed in the shower. And then sort them bleached hair - purple hair. When you have some, mix a henna mix and apply it to see what happens. Defintely make strand tests, it will help you to know how the color might turn out!
Yeah, I was thinking that I would need to wash it out as much as possible. I wouldn't mind it being a bit darker than the bleached parts of my hair though.

How often can henna be applied?

And how can you tell if its Body Art Quality? There is a natural-health/beauty shop close by that sells henna, I'll have to check what brand it is and such. Oh and Lush has henna too I believe?

I'll definitely have to do the strand test. Thanks a lot for the advice. :)

[Gothic Lolita]

Henna can be applied as often as you like, but the color builds up over time and will get from orangey to burgundy. And it is very hard to get out again. That why most to root-only touch-ups, otherwise their length would get too dark. If you do henna, make sure that you want it. It is almost impossible to get out again and is still "there" even if you can't see it anymore.

Yes, Lush sells henna, but I'm not familiar with it. I'm in Germany and buy my henna from a little shop. Many people around here buy henna online, there are many places which sell high quality henna. If you would like to buy yours at your place, check out the brand and the INCIs. If there is something else than "lawsonia inermis" listed, it is not pure.

If you don't mind the purple part being darker, it's okay but I'm more concered about the reaction of the dye with henna. Even if it was a plant-based dye there can still be some nasty incidents about the outcome of the color and your hair reaction to it.

[GRU]

I don't think PURE henna will react with anything -- it's when using a "henna mix" that you have to worry.

I second the strand test. Make two different piles of your shed hairs -- one purple, one bleached. That way you'll get a better idea of what they will look like together.

And I agree, you can henna as often as you want. I would just make sure that you also do a deep conditioning treatment of some sort after each henna application.

[redtea]

When I first hennaed, my hair was colored dark golden blond with near platinum highlights. The darker parts took the henna okay and the color looked decent but the very bleached parts never looked right, no matter how many applications. Also, if the bleached color isn't close to your natural color, you'll get a line when your natural color grows in. I'm not really sure how it'll take over purple, but like the others said, be sure to strand test.

I've since stopped using henna and gone back to being a bottle blond, but if I had to do it again, I'd definitely dye my hair close to my natural shade first and then use the henna. I ended up dying over my hair several times with dark brown haircolor just to get the color to tone down to something I could live with.

[Quezie]

Thank you so much for all of the info ladies. :)

I think that the best thing for me to do is to dye my hair closer to my natural colour first, and then try henna in the future. ):

And whenever I do try henna, I will be sure to try strand tests!

[Beesweet]

I have pictures of my head with henna at a few different stages. My avatar is of what my hair looks like with multiple applications of straight henna over light brown/dark blondish hair. It got very cherry. I didn't like it and eventually cut it off.

This thread here shows my hair bleached with blond highlights, then with a henna/cassia gloss.
http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=46317

There are two gloss applications a few months apart. They might be able to illustrate what bleached blond looks like with henna gloss. The highlights are an obvious red/slightly orange. The photos of the last application are on page three.

Even though it is just a gloss, I used a lot of henna and it got purdy durn red.
The second application is darker, more auburn, probably because I used amla in there, too.

I can't say what the purple will do and I am not clear if it is highlights or all-over.

You might be able to do something with buxus or some other "browning" additives to get your hair to be a color that will be predictable with the henna.
henna for hair (http://www.hennaforhair.com) site has a forum and a lot of folks over there do things with cassia, indigo, buxus and amla.

If you can get your hair to be light brown/blond, you might be able to reach that red braid color you were looking for. I definitely got that when I was doing multiple applications of straight henna. I have some non-sunlight pics that are amazing if you want to see them.

[Evilynn]

I've used henna over violet hair before (Directions, not Manic Panic, but they're pretty much the same) and got a lovely dark red out of it. Ironically enough I got tonnes of compliments on the colour, and people kept being disappointed when I said "Well, bleach your hair to an inch of its life, and then apply violet dye on it, notice that it goes grey on your still orange-y ends and then slap henna on top of that". :laugh:

[Beesweet]

I've used henna over violet hair before (Directions, not Manic Panic, but they're pretty much the same) and got a lovely dark red out of it. Ironically enough I got tonnes of compliments on the colour, and people kept being disappointed when I said "Well, bleach your hair to an inch of its life, and then apply violet dye on it, notice that it goes grey on your still orange-y ends and then slap henna on top of that". :laugh:

You are a Balboa of hair color.:bowtome:

If I ever did that my hair would have looked like this:
:trainwreck:

[Quezie]

Thanks Beesweet. :) And yes, I'd love to see the pictures!

So what I ended up doing is dying my head all over with a reddish-browny dye. It's a little bit dark right now, so I'll be doing a lot of hot oil treatments and clariying to fade it, and in a few weeks, I'll try my first henna-ing hopefully. :)


Evilynn - Ahaha, I've had experiences like that before, when people ask how I managed a certain hair colour that was actually a fluke. :b I used to have my entire head pink, and then purple, and a bunch of shades inbetween. :D

[Kome]

Check out my pictures. My hair was bleached before I henna'd. It has been bleached 7-8 times and been every color of the rainbow before I henna'd. It's taken me 5 applications to get it this dark, but I also didn't shampoo before hennaing the first 3 times, so it should be much darker.

I don't know how it will look over purple hair. I'm guessing once you do it 3 or 4 times it would look a purple burgandy. You could always shampoo the crap out of your hair, like 5 times with a clarifying shampoo, to fade the purple out before hennaing. I'd do a test strand to make sure you like the color, but I think it will come out nicely. :)

[Quezie]

I can't check your pictures, I don't believe I've made enough posts yet or something?

I ended up dying my whole head to a natural colour before trying henna, see above post. :)

I'm still unclear right now what to mix the henna with. Everywhere I look says lemon juice, but then in Nightshade's article about henna, it says an acid like lemon juice actually isn't needed. :confused:

[GRU]

I'm still unclear right now what to mix the henna with. Everywhere I look says lemon juice, but then in Nightshade's article about henna, it says an acid like lemon juice actually isn't needed. :confused:

You don't need much acid to get the dye release. I use *some* lemon juice or apple cider vinegar, but it's mostly water that I use to mix with. If you put a splash of your acidic ingredient in a big cup of water, you can then use that as your liquid.

[Kome]

I can't check your pictures, I don't believe I've made enough posts yet or something?

I ended up dying my whole head to a natural colour before trying henna, see above post. :)

I'm still unclear right now what to mix the henna with. Everywhere I look says lemon juice, but then in Nightshade's article about henna, it says an acid like lemon juice actually isn't needed. :confused:

I found that lemon juice made a huge difference in the oxidation for me. The dye release was a lot stronger. I used red wine and lemon juice. Check out the different mixes on the site you were on and just experiment and you'll find something you like. :)

[Quezie]

Hmmm

I think I'll try maybe half vinegar, half water? It shouldn't make a difference if it's lemon juice or vinegar, should it?
I'm afraid to dry out my hair, but I suppose it won't be a huge deal, if I do a few extra moisture treatments afterwards.