How to color the hair using henna, indigo & cassia?
Enhancing hair color with herbs is getting more and more popular. After all, naturalness matters a lot when it comes the method we pick and products we apply. How to use henna for the best effect? Check through the post to get the essential info!
Use the power of plants to change your hair color
Applying henna is a natural way of changing a hair color. Indigo and cassia are the top choices. There are three basic pigments:
- cassia gives honey reflections;
- henna colors the hair ginger red; when mixed with indigo and cassia in correct proportions, it can give you various colors, ranging from light blonde to brown tones;
- indigo colors the hair black blue.
How to prepare your henna, cassia or indigo hair dye?
You need approx. 10 grams of acidic agent for 100 grams of a chosen product. The acidic ingredient is citric acid, amla, vinegar or hibiscus. If you have been coloring their hair for a long time, add other herbs to saturate the color e.g. curcuma, sweet pepper, walnut, honey, fenugreek.
At first, mix henna with the acidic ingredient and add warm water (at around 50 Celsius degrees). Only then can you add color-saturating products. Then, if you use pure henna, you need to oxidize it, that is cover it up with foil and put aside for 12-20 hours. As far as cassia and indigo are concerned, you don’t need to oxidize them.
How to color hair using henna?
Before the first coloring treatment, you need to remove silicones and other products from the hair as they would keep pigments from penetrating inside the hair. For this purpose, use a clarifying shampoo containing strong detergents. You can also try chelating which involves applying citric acid and silicone-free mask to hair, and rinsing the ingredients after 15 minutes.
What’s the next step?
Smooth your henna mixture over the wet hair; the thicker layers you use, the better. After application, wrap a foil around the head, secure the skin on the neck, ears and forehead with a paper towel, and put on a towel. Leave the blend in for 2-3 hours if your hair has medium or high porosity, or around 4 hours if you have low-porosity hair. Afterwards, you simply rinse it and don’t apply masks, oils or conditioners for the next two days.
Henna vs conditioners
If you’re coloring the hair for the first time, you’re advised against using masks or conditioners since they might keep the herbs from “kicking in”. However, if you only want to freshen up the color, feel free to use an extra product. During the next coloring sessions, try color-saturating products.
