New to henna but i am already obsessed! Share your herbal remedies with me!

[Helleborus]

Hi everyone! So I have been on the henna train for just over a month, and have already done 3 treatments! (To reach my goal shade and for the amazing growth benefits!) However I am curious to know what herbal recipes you all have tried and the experiences you have had!
My hair is a dark-medium brown colour and ranges from 2b-3a curls and is low porosity, so far I have hennaed on my natural colour; bleached over that to lighten to a bright strawberry, orange red (after a lot of research and strand tests!); hennaed on top of that to get a darker copper red; and ended with another treatment to richen the red to the shade that I was after!
I have experimented with 3 different henna brands as well, first I went down to a local Indian store and purchased Nupur brand henna, second time I ordered Light Mountain Natural Red online, and the third time I bought the Red Raj from henna sooq. I loved the colour from the light mountain brand, but the rich red faded pretty quickly to a copper auburn (lovely colour still but i wanted a redder tone). So far I am yet to find out how the henna sooq will fade as it is only my day 3 after the treatment but the colour i have currently outstanding! I have experimented with adding cinnamon, ginger, and hibiscus flowers to the mixture.
What are your recipes? 🧡♥️

[lapushka]

One thing? Don't use your head as a lab. If you want to experiment with the color outcome, use shed hair. Save all your sheds, make little balls and test your "concoctions". That's what people do here, many of us who use or have used henna!

It's called strand testing, and it saves your hair; because even henna is a dye, and can roughen up the cuticle (I had that happen), making it more porous.

3x henna a month is a lot!

ETA/ Oh man, how could I forget? Welcome!!!

[Helleborus]

Thank you for the info although i should probably have added that i did strand test each time! I may be a noob with henna but certainly not with experimenting with hair colour and have been using the strand test method for many years to mitigate damage. My hair still feels super silky and strong after the 3 treatments in a month and a half. I do oil it often and have been doing nourishing masks with yogurt or coconut milk. So far my hair seems pretty happy with all the extra natural love it has been receiving!

[Helleborus]

Oh i forgot to mention that I have found that my curl pattern has loosened quite a bit with the henna treatments and have been curious as to what to use to try to bring some of the bounce back?

[lapushka]

Oh i forgot to mention that I have found that my curl pattern has loosened quite a bit with the henna treatments and have been curious as to what to use to try to bring some of the bounce back?

Henna can relax wave/curl. Nothing you can do about it, I'm afraid.

[shelomit]

Howdy, nice to meet you! I have had hennaed hair almost my entire life, although in my case it is more a cultural practice (my family is North African) than something I do primarily for the hair benefits. I certainly do like the conditioning effect, though, and usually do a full-head application every four or six months, once I feel that the conditioning is wearing off.

Henna does loosen curl pattern for most people, myself included. Some people add alma to their dye mixture to mitigate the relaxing effect a little, so you might try searching for that in the herbal haircare part of the forum. I personally haven't tried amla, since I find my hair more manageable when it's wurly than when it's curly--!

It is also very characteristic for the henna to fade (slightly) within a couple of days of application. I get strong, rather alarmingly bright red highlights--coppery in natural light--right after applying, but two or three days later it will simmer down to the "end result" color, which is there to stay until you grow it out or cut it out. I'm not the best person to ask about adjusting for a redder final shade since I don't much care about color myself, but when you're doing strand tests you might want to give it a couple of days or an extra wash to get an idea of that end result shade.

My family as a whole swears by Reshma, which is widely available in South Asian stores. You do have to be careful that you are getting pure henna, since they also manufacture conventional dyes and not all shops stock all varieties. And, of course, you want it fairly fresh--talk to the shopkeeper. I most recently used Nupur and found it very nice. If you are interested in experimenting with amla, you may wish to try the "nine herbs" Nupur variety, which I see much more often than their straight-up henna and which contains some amla as well as shikakai, etc. Personally, I find that it's got a bit of a funky texture and doesn't dye quite so strongly for me, but YMMV and it's widely available.

As for recipes, the traditional way to prepare henna in my family is this. We make a cup of black tea and let it steep until room temperature. We strain that and add it to the henna powder with the juice of one lemon, then add enough lukewarm water to get it to a good consistency. We put plastic wrap or waxed paper against the surface of the mixture and let it sit overnight. It should be noted that many people prefer to avoid adding any acidic ingredients such as the lemon juice because henna is already a little drying and the acid makes it more so. A chum of mine who is a professional henna artist (Moroccan tradition) told me that there is really not any change in the dye quality between using lemon juice, black tea, or straight water; acid-y mixtures release dye slightly faster. This is probably not an ideal recipe for everyone, but it is a fairly traditional North African style of henna and therefore what I prefer to use.