First Time Henna- questions

[Nymeria]

Okay, I need some advice for a complete hair coloring newbie please! About three or four months ago I wanted to get my hair colored red. My hair is naturally a light, mousy brown color. I went to a salon and showed the girl a picture of a light, natural looking red hair color. It was more on the strawberry blonde side, but with deeper red tones.

Well, when she was done with my hair it was such an unnaturally dark copper that I was shocked. It was DARK. If I was going for an unnatural maroon color it would have been fine, but it's not what I asked for! I washed my hair three times when I got home to get some of the color out. Thankfully that lightened it up a little bit, and now it's faded to a more natural, light brownish red color.

I did some research online and learned about henna, and I've ordered some samples of the Twilight from Mehandi. I'm going to do a strand test, but I have some questions.

If I henna, will my roots that have grown in look way different than my chemically colored hair? I've read that people have used henna on their colored hair before, so does it even out?

I've also read that you can mix with cassia to get a more coppery red instead of a darker burgundy. Is that true? Should I mix with some cassia or just stick to a regular henna mix?

Any advice you can give me on using henna for the first time, especially on chemically colored hair would be great. Thanks!

[CopperHead]

I just used the Rajathani Twlight yesterday and it is a very beautiful red! Nice and dark. I have hennaed over chemical dye many times with no problems at all. Henna is very good for your hair, including the dyed part. My roots are white and I keep them a dark red by applying henna every two weeks. The more henna you use, the darker it will get and go more towards burgundy. Mixing cassia will keep it on the coppery side, if that is what you want. Do some strand tests and see what looks best to you. You can always go darker with henna, but not lighter. Once you have that burgundy, it is there until you cut it out, so starting lighter might be best. Henna is very permanent.

[Nymeria]

Thanks! Maybe I should try a different henna to strand test besides the twilight. It seems it gives more burgundy toned red. Has anyone used Yemen Light on Mehandi? I guess I'll be experimenting for a little while :D

[coffinhert]

Hi, I used Yemen on hair that had been dyed light copper red. My natural hair color is medium brown. I ended up deciding that the best thing to do would be to dye my roots with henna, then match the dyed part by henna+indigo until it was the same shade of darkness. There is a little bit of difference between my roots and the dyed part (they are both hennaed) but the henna helps blend it together and people dont notice - I've even asked and other people can't tell where the difference is.

Importantly, is your roots lighter or darker than the dyed part? If the roots are lighter, it will be harder to match to the length because henna won't lighten it. However if your roots are darker, then you can henna the length until it's dark enough to match the shade of your hennaed roots.

What I did is ONE layer of henna on my roots, then MANY layers of henna on the dyed lengths. It gets darker each time so I just kept doing it until it was the same.

What you sacrifice is getting the exact shade of red you wish for. The henna will only give you copper red at the same light/dark as your original hair. It's a stain that goes over hte top of the pigment, not a dye that replaces it. THat's why it's good for your hair, it doesn't take anything out like chemical dye, it just puts a copper/red over top. Think of it like watercolor.

In my opinion there's not a huge difference between hennas... They just have different % of lawsone, which is what makes the color. If you want a lighter red, by all means mix henna/cassia together. I started doing that but switched to 100% henna after a while only because I wanted to match my roots for grwoing it out.

With henna you can have really healthy hair that's very long and red, at hte same shade as your real color. With chemical dye you can have unhealthy hair that fades really fast and has to get redone all the time and gets split ends so you can't grow it out.

You should look through "show me your hennaed hair (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=2963)" thread here ot see all the different ways it comes out. [edited to add: since you are a new user, you won't be able to see all of the pictures. once you have 25 posts, you can see user photos.]

Importantly if you are trying to get a copper red, probably the best thing for you to remember is that henna darkens the more layers you put over it, the more you layer it, it starts to turn burgundy. So your first couple hennas will be copper, but if you keep doing with many many layers over brown hair, it turns purpley. That accounts for the purply shades you see in the thread I linked. Lighter hair will turn out more copper, but you have to switch to roots-only application to keep the copper tone on the length. It blends together really well so roots-only is not difficult to do.

Best of luck and post any more questions you have!

[Nymeria]

Thanks for all the advice! My roots are a little lighter than the colored part of my hair. Although, the red tone in the rest of my hair looks brighter than my roots. I won't be able to tell anything until I strand test it.

I've ordered two samples of the twilight. I might mix one with cassia to see what shade that gives. Do I just mix the cassia in with the henna at the same time or do I mix them up separately?