The Henndigo thread

[Elfling]

I think weight is a definite factor. I didn't notice it much until I used a different gloss yesterday. My usual gloss is henna diluted by cassia, but this time I used gelled water with my chamomile tea. The mixture was so much lighter, and when I rinsed, only one hair fell. My scalp isn't itching today either, so I think I'm going to stick to gelled glosses in the future.

But damn, Elfling, your hair is longer than I expected! I can't wait to get mine long again. I miss it. I think we've got a similar color now. That's cool. In the sun, mine looks medium to dark auburn now. Indoors, it looks quite a bit darker, but not yet black. I like it. It looked very red last night, but it oxidized already! Wouldn't mind it being dark red, but I like this too.
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Yeah, I'm trying to strike that balance between red and black- I want *more* black than red, but I don't want red around my hairline, and I don't think completely black would work for me.

Thanks for all your experiments at hennaforhair, btw- SO awesome and informative.

Hey Elfling, good result! But tell me, what color were you before this henindigo. I ask in order to be able to work out my own recipe. Thanks for sharing...

This was my hair before any henna at all, about a month ago:


SO frizzy, rather washed out red/brown.

After the first henna-only:

Again, hard to photograph the color; this doesn't show quite how red it was, especially around my hairline/roots.

[Lexie]

Same for me except I probably want more red than black. Kind of hard to achieve on a tight budget.

And thank you. I enjoyed doing those experiments. Glad to see they've helped people. I was actually googling the thread recently and found a completely different forum where people were working with the blond recipes. It gave me a good feeling. Those were inspired by Prairiechild though, so I give her credit there. The rest were like, 'Hmm...I wonder if this really makes a difference.' In retrospect, I wish I'd done more. I want to repost those experiments here. They have a tendency to go missing. Maybe someday I'll have the time to continue experimenting.

Love the red hair. If I could have red hair that long, I'd be a happy camper!

[Celebrian]

This was my hair before any henna at all, about a month ago:


SO frizzy, rather washed out red/brown.

After the first henna-only:

Again, hard to photograph the color; this doesn't show quite how red it was, especially around my hairline/roots.

Interesting. 2:1 Henna: Indigo? Can you tell me how long you left it on? At the moment, I twostep, and have longed to able to do a onestep successfully. The problem is covering grey roots adequately - which seem to do better with the more labour-intensive twostep.

[Elfling]

That's what I've heard too about gray I only have two or three so it wasn't a big concern for me. Yet I left the henndigo on for 3.5 hours or so.

[tiny_teesha]

Won't indigo turn it black? How do i make an amla gloss? a tbsp amla with conditioner as a mask???
I don't really want my ends darker, i want them to blend more is all. My mothers wants to stop dyeing her hair but after this wedding she is going to. So I am doing a few hennas on her to strengthen her weakened hair from a really bad dye job (he hair was snapping off at the roots)
She wants a brown. Not necessarily ashy but her white hair doesn't pick up the indigo at all, it soaks up henna like no tommorow though.

[Lexie]

Have you tried adding salt and/or amla to the indigo? I don't think amla alone will do much for her apart from making her hair more ashy, but you can give it a try. I mix it to a soupy consistency with boiling water. Applied a.s.a.p. for about 30 minutes really messes with my henna color. It looks stripped and overwhelmingly beige after but still with some red underneath.

[almudena]

My hair is a very dark auburn and I can't completely cover my greys with only henna. Hennaed whites blend nicely on my length but are a bright orange line on my roots. What I do is to apply henna first, let sit for two hours and then indigo but only on my orange roots, not on the length. I let sit the indigo for 20 minutes before rinsing it out. My roots turn a beautiful auburn which perfectly matches the length.
It still is a two step process but it is the only one I've found which is not too messy-time consuming and totally covers my greys.

[tiny_teesha]

well mum was feeling embarrased witht he fluro spot so as a curiousity thing i made a tbsp indigo with amount of conditioner to make it a paste. Then i applied. Waited 10-20min and then applied conditioner to it and tried to spread it around so the area aroudn would slowly blend into a brown. Well that didn't really work, But it definetaly made her hair a greenish brown (I'm sure it will oxidise nicely, it is just slightly green, can't even tell)
And she was pleased, but then still not trusting with it, i don't understand why it worked.
Anyway, tommorow i will spray her roots with hibiscus so the rest of her hair is darker too.
Now i know it works, that is good. I'm going to make that indigo stretch though!