Indigo help

[seethruugirl]

Hello! I've been a henna head for about 4 years now and LOVE it! I have 2 people in my life who have approached me about helping them with their hair. One wants jet black/blue black hair and one wants a dark chocolate brown. They are tired of using color and want the healthy benefits of henna/indigo. I always use straight henna from Catherine. (www.hennaforhair.com (http://www.hennaforhair.com)) so I've never used indigo and its not my own hair so that puts extra pressure on me to do everything perfect. I really don't know much about indigo. I know for the one who wants to continue to keep her hair jet black I can just use straight indigo...but, I really have a hard time understanding how to use indigo with henna to make the dark choc. brown. (her hair is already that color using hair color) so, I'm not trying to make drastic changes....they both want to keep their hair as it is now just not use chemicals anymore.
Is there anything about indigo I should be warning them about? And I will take any tips about using indigo and the process of applying it you can give. I have shed hairs from the one wanting to do choc brown so I can do a strand test first. Would I be better off using a mix like Lush for her? I don't know anything about that henna as I've always used Catherines. Thank you so much for any help you can give!!! Robyn

[whitestiletto]

For jet black hair you have to do henna, then indigo, in a two-step process. The indigo needs the henna to bind to it. Here's a recipe (http://www.longhaircommunity.com/forums/showthread.php?t=55634) from another LHC member.

As for achieving a chocolate brown, without reddish tones, you might need to add another herb such as amla to tone down the red in the henna. I'm not sure where a thread is about this so maybe someone else can refer you. I think you will have to do a one-step henna+indigo for dark, not black tones.

[seethruugirl]

thank you so much for that help....it seems like so much work! I'm so nervous about doing someone elses hair for them. I don't want to screw it up! Its so much pressure. If it was just henna I'd be fine. I might have to back out on this. I really don't want to mess things up. Thanks again for the help. Robyn

[moralita]

Hello! I second what whitestilleto says!
In order to get a dark chocolate brown color I'd definitely recommend adding amla to your henna mix, and perhaps a bit of coffee... this is what I do, at least! Sometimes I'll intentionally give myself more red one month, less the next... etc, but I've found amla to be very good at toning down the red from the henna, and it makes my hair very soft. My hair certainly doesn't feel as dry after a henna treatment with amla as it would have without it. Also, sometimes I've mixed a bit of indigo into my henna mix, but only a very slight amount. If the hair you're working with doesn't already have henna on it, I definitely wouldn't recommend this because even a little bit of indigo without henna beneath it to bind to has the potential to fade rather oddly (think greenish/blueish tint), or at least this has been my experience when dying over virgin roots. On my hair, a henna + indigo mix doesn't look at all chocolate brown, but rather a deeper red/black, which tends to fade fairly quickly, back to just a very red brown on top of my already henna'd hair.

And just so you know, when I began doing my henna + amla, I was dying over chemically dyed medium/darkish-brown hair. :)