natural hair dyes

The way they work is different from other hair dyes, they do not disturb the natural chemical make up of the hair. The colour coats each individual hair shaft without infiltrating it. On grey hair, it behaves differently - henna penetrates the inner hair shaft of grey hair and dyes it red orange, but using indigo turns it a deep brown to black, depending on how long you leave it on for. In my experience, if you have dark hair, henna will add deep reddish tones and make your hair look like it has natural red lowlights; any odd greys will look like reddish highlights. It will enhance your own natural hair colour and shimmer in the light therefore the end result will always be unique to you. On lighter hair colours like blonde/ash, the results will be more dramatic. It’ll be red/red orange. But if you don’t want red hair colour, then you can tone it down to a brown hair colour or a black hair colour with indigo. You can cover your entire head if you have a lot of gray but it can be used on strands with foil to keep it in place for highlights(or is it lowlights?). Experimentation is the key.

I have heard that hairdressers don't like henna because the henna they have come across in the past is “compound henna” - i.e. henna powder mixed with dyes and metallic salts such as lead acetate which act as fixatives to “fix” the so called henna shade which the manufacturer is marketing. It’s the metallic salt fixatives in the compound hennas that get onto your hair and react badly with perms and chemicals in hair dyes and bleach solutions. There are a lot of products that claim to be natural or herbal but always look at the ingredients list. It should not say anything other than lawsonia inermis (pure henna) and indigofera tinctoria (pure indigo)for it to be purely herbal.