I unintentionally henna'ed my hair and I'm upset

[sarana]

So I was supposed to be doing just a cassia treatment, but either I misinterpreted the label or the product was incorrect, and now I've got a very vibrant carrot shade all over my head.

I'm quite aware that this stuff is probably never coming out, but I'm still going to try, because I didn't want this color.

I did an oil soak overnight and plan to buy Head&Shoulders, citric acid and ColorB4 removal product and use those over the next few weeks to see if anything happens.
Luckily summer's coming so I can let UV destroy my hair and hopefully some of the henna in the process.

I assume it may lift a bit, but will leave a permanent red shade to the hair. *sigh* Just venting, will accept my fate in a few months probably.

[aeryss]

Sorry this happened. :S

Even though this is meant to blow off some steam and not for tips if I'm interpreting it right, if you like I can share some of my experiences of toning down / lessening the vibrancy of henna. Just let me know.

[sarana]

I'll happily accept any tips anyone might have for fading it even slightly I'm just trying to accept that it may not work

Ps. I know many people here love henna and it's good for the hair, so no shade to anyone who likes it. This color is just not for me

[aeryss]

The number one tip, sadly, is patience.

As for Vitamin C treatments, the way I do them is slightly different from what's on Youtube, but yields the best results for me personally: I use a ton of Vitamin C powder - half a tub of powder which you can buy at the drugstore here, at least 5 TS - plus anti-dandruff shampoo, plus about 2 TS olive oil. It will be a very runny consistency so I put it in an old shampoo bottle to be able to work in a more controlled way and coat one strand of hair at a time, rub it in gently on slightly wet hair (Youtube mostly does it on dry, I feel like there's no way to evenly coat the hair with a grainy substance that way & foaming it up a little also helps "lift" color) and let it sit for about an hour under an old plastic bag.
It will take at least multiple sessions to notice a difference imo.


There is an alternative, well not really, it won't take your hair back to where you started, but it does work on bringing the brightness/brassiness down. Might sound weird and scary, but it's not damaging:
In the beginning of my growing out Henna journey I mixed conditioner with semi-permanent dye in the complementary shade of what was on my head. It was relatively easy to determine by googling the color wheel & deciding what my color was and what was on the other side of the spectrum. I had a more burgundy/reddish shade going on than pure bright orange Henna so I used a blue leaning green mixture at that time, for pure orange I would use blue like Directions Atlantic Blue.
If the mix is mostly conditioner and just a little bit of color, maybe about 1:4 ratio, the result should be a brown-ish red/ginger and not produce blue/green undertones. (There's colored conditioners on the market nowadays too, but I don't know if there is quite enough pigment in them to achive the same results.)

[lapushka]

Whatever you are gonna throw at it, except bleach, isn't going to do much, I'm afraid... Just wanting to spare you the effort here.

[sarana]

I will likely ultimately end up going with the bleach, because this is not a colour I'm willing to live with. But I will try the ColourB4 remover first for a couple of applications

[spidermom]

Nightshade had quite a bit of success removing some of her henna with Sun-In. She was trying to lighten it though, not remove it.

When I didn't like henna, I let it fade. It will fade away if you only have one application. At first, the line of demarcation from the grow-out process was obvious, but over months, I couldn't tell where my natural color ended and the henna began, although the difference was obvious when I lifted ends to compare to the hair at my scalp.

Good luck!

[Obsidian]

I will likely ultimately end up going with the bleach, because this is not a colour I'm willing to live with. But I will try the ColourB4 remover first for a couple of applications

Bleach probably isn't a good option either. I tried bleaching mine out, it completely bleached my natural hair color while leaving the henna. The result was a neon orange, it was terrible.
I used a light brown box dye over it, helped tone it down but the box dye wouldn't stick to the bleach damaged hair, it faded after just a couple washes. I ended up shaving it all off.

[DropStitches]

Oh yikes, really sorry this happened to you! What a nasty surprise if that wasn't what you were intending to do!

Maybe you could experiment on some shed hair? I fully sympathise with the desire to get rid of this accident, but I worry about you damaging your (beautiful looking!) hair in the process, in particular if you're thinking about bleach (which, as obsidian points out, might not work the way you hope it will, anyway).

Could it have been a henna-cassia blend? I wonder if you could contact the manufacturer to get some clarity on it - if it's a low percentage of henna, then there is some chance of it fading, after just one application. I would wait and see - and go slowly with any remedial action you take. Good luck!

[sarana]

Thanks all for feedback! DropStitches, yeah I think it must have been a henna-cassia blend, and I feel stupid for not checking the ingredients more thoroughly before slapping it on my head.

I do collect my shed hairs from brushes, so fortunately I have lots of tufts to experiment on, which I have already been doing. So far:
-soaking in 3% peroxide overnight did nothing
-citric acid + head&shoulders did nothing
-tea tree oil shampoo soak did nothing
-bile soap lightened it a bit but it reoxidised
-strong bleach made it bleach white-yellow - with lots of orange on top
-bleach + bile soap interestingly got almost all of the red out

I do hope that lots of sun in the summer and clarifying shampoo will fade it, since it was only 1 application of a blend. Right now I don't think I'm gonna bleach before August. I do kinda want to rip all of my hair out right now, because in a way I feel violated, but I'm going to take it slow. Sucks that I've got a big and formal uni graduation event in a couple of weeks, but that's life.

I do kind of see why henna people like it, my hair feels shiny and healthy and glossy, it's kinda nice. But I can't deal with the color