Want to end it with henna but grey hairs!

[girlinabox]

Hi everyone,

So I've had an on/off relationship with henna for around 10 years or so now. Once or twice I've got fed up with the work involved and attempted to 'colour b4' it and used a chemical semi permanent colour out of a box (Clairol Nice n Easy) but I hate how dull, flat and fake it makes my hair look. I absolutely adore the natural look that henna gives, not to mention its conditioning properties but I don't know if I want to do this anymore.

For reference I have naturally medium to dark brown hair which looks mahogany due to the Henna, and more auburn in sunlight. I have a good sprinkling of greys around my hairline at the front and parting, which always go bright orange after henna.

Part of the reason for thinking of ending it with henna is because next year I'll be travelling in my campervan and I can't see how I'll manage to carry on doing it on the road. And partly because I don't want my hair to go any darker (but doing roots only just leaves me with a bright orange scalp!).

Im not sure what questions I want to ask. Perhaps more to see if others have gone through a similar thing and wanted to stop using henna but still want to cover grey hair...

I was wondering if there are any semi permanent dyes that others have used that look natural and don't make your hair thing and damaged?

Or whether adding an indigo to the process to make a more brown shade would be a good idea? It would avoid the orange roots issue, but still means trying to come up with an easy method for colouring the hair when I'm on the road.

I love having a red tone to my hair, just not orange roots!

Sorry for the long waffling post.

Any help, tips etc appreciated!

[akurah]

If you plan to use any dyes in the future, don't touch indigo. You'll get swamp green. Unfortunately other than that I don't really have advice. I just grew my henna out and suffered with the demarcation.

[Obsidian]

When I was using henna, I had to touch up my roots every 2 weeks. It got old really fast so I tried using adore between henna applications and it ended up being more upkeep.

Temporary dyes just don't stick well to virgin hair and I was having to touch up my roots every other shampoo. I gave up real fast and went back to henna, at least I got lasting results.

If you aren't ready to embrace your grays yet, your only real option is to continue dying it, either with henna or box dyes.

Indigo would be a good way to tone down the orange roots but like mentioned, you will not be able to use any chemical dyes again.

[MusicalSpoons]

I've wondered about this before but I don't know if anyone's tried it - would straining the henna so you just have the liquid without the mud be any good for colouring? The water is what carries the lawsone molecule (which is why drips stain) and I can't help but think it would be much easier to rinse, if that's one of the factors causing annoyance. I have read that amla can tone down the orange, but I don't know how much scientific basis there is for that (can anyone confirm?). It should be easier to deal with afterwards than indigo if you did want to go for dyes with developer later.

[hennalonghair]

If you plan to use any dyes in the future, don't touch indigo. You'll get swamp green. Unfortunately other than that I don't really have advice. I just grew my henna out and suffered with the demarcation.

Absolutely spot on. If you use indigo, you risk the chance of having greenish tinges. If you aren’t into the flourescent orange, you’ll probably be less impressed with the flourescent green.

I've wondered about this before but I don't know if anyone's tried it - would straining the henna so you just have the liquid without the mud be any good for colouring? The water is what carries the lawsone molecule (which is why drips stain) and I can't help but think it would be much easier to rinse, if that's one of the factors causing annoyance. I have read that amla can tone down the orange, but I don't know how much scientific basis there is for that (can anyone confirm?). It should be easier to deal with afterwards than indigo if you did want to go for dyes with developer later.

Absolutely doesn’t work. By using strained henna water, which is more of a rinse, she will end up with yellowish, orangey roots. It will look far worse. She’s colouring her hair with such concentrated solution of henna that it’s turned her hair burgundy. That’s a rich colour. Any diluted form of henna will look horrible.

When you dilute henna too much the colour breaks down.

My suggestion is to either grow it out as is or find a good temporary colour that isn’t damaging, and then grow your colour out. You could even add streaks throughout your hair as you are growing it out.

I’ve been using henna off and on for about 40 years. Most applications were more of a henna gloss so my hair wasn’t very henna saturated until I decided to go cherry cola red. Then my hair was saturated with henna and it looked great since I had so much silver but I had to colour my roots every 7 to 10 days, otherwise I’d have an obvious silver skunk stripe. ( See profile pics )

August 7, 2015 was the last time I hennaed my hair. The grow out was brutal but I’ve now got 39 inches of shiny silver grey hair that I love mixed with auburn. There’s no more henna colour. Growing out the ombré style is quite cool looking and fun after a while.

Strand test anything you are considering doing.

Nightshade is a great member to ask about henna advice.
Good luck with whatever you decide. It’s a tough choice that I can certainly empathize with.
Good luck with whatever you decide.

[Milady_DeWinter]

I agree that Nightshade is the one to ask for advice. Other than that, the mentioned amla didn't tone or did much for me, back when I was using henna and wanted to stop. Sadly I also had to let it grow; still have henna after 3 years, but on the other hand the demarcation line isn't as bad as with other dyes, it just start blending with you hair. The worst are the first 6-8 months; other than that, I've very happy to have stopped using it.

I agree that once you hit the "ombre" early stages, it gets sooo easy and you just forget about it. I actually ofter forgot that my hair isn't all my natural color (I got 3 colors: reddish bleached ends -that someday will disappear- from 2016 Hair Disaster, 3-4 inches in reddish burgundy from straight henna, and my natural tawny color) and just remember when someone says something like "i love your hair color". Thanks to henna all demarcations are very natural, so you actually have to look twice to see the demarcations

[shelomit]

My mother is getting white hairs now, and dyes just her roots with henna. She does it about every three weeks, but probably dyes the bottom 1" of her hair or so (much less than the root growth she gets in the same period). That way, the base of the strand is gradually getting multiple applications of henna and blends in with the lengths nicely. The very, very root is always a slightly lighter shade, but it doesn't look shocking or anything. It is also a much faster affair to apply henna just to the roots than to the whole head--she can do it in about ten minutes.

I will state that her main concern is making the bulk of her roots match with the bulk of her hair, as her natural color is a kind of mousy brown without a hint of red in it. She does not have a lot of white hairs so far, so if they take the dye somewhat differently, it isn't noticable.

[hennalonghair]

Thanks to henna all demarcations are very natural, so you actually have to look twice to see the demarcations

Not necessarily. The more grey you have in your hair, the messier the demarcation. The henna that was on hair that still had pigmentation was great. The henna applied on straight shiny silvers was not. The henna really separated and I had some yellowish, orange tones.

[Amenahh]

Are you going to be travelling for a year?
My hair colour sounds similar to yours, and when I stopped henna, the demarcation line was almost not visible at all. You could see that my hair had more red in it than my roots, but the difference was subtle and there was no harsh line. So you might find it quite easy to grow it out.

Now if you want to cover your grays, you'll either have to do henna, or dye the roots. While on the road, you could dye your roots with your natural hair colour and grow the henna out, or maybe continue to do henna, just not as often (because of the hassle)? Could you do it every 3 months for example? In this case, you'd easily be able to go back to your regular henna routine when you stop travelling.

[girlinabox]

Hi everyone!

Thank you so much for your replies, sorry it's taken me a few days to check back on here.

I guess I was thinking a lot about how inconvenient it would be to do the whole henna process when travelling in a van, but the more I think about it, with Covid etc, we may not even get to do what we had planned. As I mentioned, I really don't like the orange scalp look, given the rest of my hair is so dark, so now I am considering the henna/indigo thing a bit more. I guess I just need to decide if I am ready for that level of commitment! One thing I was wondering, if I did decide to go down the route to get a nice deep rich brown, surely the whole roots thing wouldn't be such an ordeal? I mean - I only ever really left henna on for like 4+ hours to try and get a deep red (which never happened as my grey hairs just went bright orange each time). Is the hendigo (is that what it's called?) a shorter process? I wouldn't mind just doing roots only (after I've got the all over shade I want) if I don't have to sit with it on forever

As much as I have loved the red tones, I just don't like the grey/orange look around my hairline so I think back to a rich deep brown would be ideal. Thoughts?! In the UK we are not blessed with such an amazing range of (chemical) demi or semi permanent hair dyes, I always heard great things about Clairol's Natural Instincts but the shade range here is very, very limited.

Thanks again everyone.