Indigo - white to black, please

[leclau]

I'm trying to go completely natural after 10 yrs of salon chem dying/touching up the whites (grays) to black. My natural color is darkest brown/black but I have natural reddish undertones that show in the sun and I don't like the color on me. Henna really brings that out so I'd like to just do Indigo only to achieve Raven Wing Black. I have East Asian hair and I wish it turned gray but it goes stark white, which really shows against my natural hair. The Indigo kinda sticks at first but mostly rinses out in a week and doesn't completely color the whites, they've taken on a brownish, orangy red/henna color from my first try with the 2 step process. My hair is thick and coarse and color-damaged, I don't know if that makes a difference.

Please recommend a great BAQ Indigo that may work for me and any tips or thoughts you may have, I'll do anything to avoid salon chemicals forever!

1st attempt: Light Mountain Color the Gray - Black. Did 2 step process on all hair after seeing this done on a YouTube video with amazing results. For me the henna took but the indigo didn't.
2nd attempt about a week later: LUSH Caca Noir mixed with the Indigo packet from a Light Mountain Color the Gray - Black kit (I initially bought two boxes). While this colored my length black for about a week and I was over the moon(!), it washed out and didn't do much for the whites.
3rd attempt (2 weeks later/last night): I bought some indigo samples from Ancient Sunrise and just used that to touch up to see if I could get black from Indigo alone. I left it on for 3 hours and I do notice some darkening of the roots and the henna'd portion of hair darkened but it's not completely covered and not black.

[Alissalocks]

Try adding a dash of salt. I've been doing straight indigo for about 3? years, I don't use henndigo bc I don't want red undertones and I don't get green undertones (the main 2 reasons people mix henna in).

I also experience gray roots that don't always take the black color the first time, but I've noticed they take nicely the second time I indigo later on. A dash of salt helps a little, but mostly I resolve to coloring every 3ish weeks which is way more often than some folks want to commit, I know.

My favorite brand of indigo is Zenia, I buy it on eBay. Be sure to avoid anything with PPD added in, it's very unsafe.

[leclau]

Thank you for your suggestion! I will add some salt to my next attempt. I currently have some Henna Guys Indigo and have Nightblooming on order. I will post ny before and after if the site will let me

[felisaplank]

have you success? could you please share some pictures?

[Alissalocks]

Also, Not sure how you feel about this but I like to use bright colors underneath the black to achieve a multi hue effect, specifically raven's feather colors. I often use purple underneath my black, and achieve this by using straight purple (Pravana Violet) on my naturally gray roots when they are about 2 to 3 weeks long (and in between Indigo treatments which are about 4 to 6 weeks between when doing purple also).

It cures the problem of the resistant white roots instantly, but it's not for everyone so may or may not be a good suggestion? But I neglected to mention.

[leclau]

felisaplank
Yes, I will post results with pics as soon as my Nightblooming order comes in, hopefully I can process this weekend!

Alissalocks
That sounds really pretty, I love purple! That's something to try once my hair is in better shape. Even if I don't get the whites to be blackity-black, red is better than chemicals for me right now, but I'm really hoping multiple attempts with Indigo will get through to my hair.

[RavennaNight]

Wow! This is the first I’m ever hearing that indigo-only sticks to hair. I was always under the impression you had to henna to make it stick.

[leclau]

I've seen a few threads where others are doing this successfully so I'm hoping it works for me! I'm willing to experiment with ratios, ingredients, magic, anything to naturally get the red and white out and the black in