Indian henna of brand "Lady Henna"

Good day!
Finally, I got the mood and a little free time to try the Indian henna of a brand I already know, purchased this spring and share my first impressions.

The packaging appearance

consists of two strong plastic bags. The outer one is more dense and has a zip-lock. The inner one is a little thinner and just sealed.

Such packages are more preferable for me, because allow henna to stay fresh longer, not to lose pigment as quickly, oxidizing in air, as is the case with packages from other brands. Also it's not so scary to leave it in a room with moderate or high humidity.

Internal contents of the package

Powdered grinding, the finest, smallest. There are twigs, but they're very small and difficult to see with the naked eye.

The color is typical for henna - khaki, but biased towards a greener shade.

In a photo, the exact shade is always difficult to convey. And I hope I don't have to explain why))

The aroma is usual, herbal, delicious, pleasant, mesmerizing, in no way rejecting. But when brewed, it doesn't feel so rich. From some hennas, sometimes with all strength hits the nose a smell similar to iodine.. Here it's not so. Feeling like I just touched freshly cut hay with my hands 😻

When adding warm boiled water, the powdery mass immediately and greedily begins to absorb water, stick in lumps, become slippery and plastic, similar to slime 🤤👍 During mixing, it bounces off the spoon like a jelly.

The dyeing process

For 100 g of henna powder, I added exactly 500 ml of water. If compared to henna for mehendi Hathi or Prem Dulhan, I need more water to achieve a similar consistency 🤔

When brewing, I didn't add any other components, because in this henna, in addition to Lawsonia inermis, there is amla (Phyllanthus emblica fruit powder), which by itself gives an acidic environment, as well as a darker and colder shade, i.e. able to muffle orange/reddish. It's a pity that the manufacturer didn't indicate in what percentage proportion is contained amla with henna here, at least approximately.

The infusion time of henna was 5,5 hours at room temperature, the container with it was simply covered with a towel. In the finished form, the henna paste looked like melted milk chocolate, thick and viscous, with the same shade on the surface and greenish inside. During this time, almost all the lumps had resolved and the remaining could easily be kneaded with a spoon.

During application and distribution this henna on the hair, can experience a truly heavenly pleasure! 🥰😱 Tactilely the paste feels like a homogeneous mousse, smooth, and I repeat - slimy, slippery, super soft and super pleasant. When rubbed between fingers, no twigs, debris or larger particles are felt at all.

I try to thoroughly smear the root zone with henna and randomly distribute the remains along the length. I put a plastic bag on top, I don't fix it tightly, that is, there is weak air circulation. In addition, I don't insulate or warm it up with a hairdryer.

It seemed to me as if fenugreek was added instead of amla. Because when I added a small amount of Aroma-zone amla to a mix of henna and indigo, or just used it solo, the herbal paste was tactilely rough and squeaky.

The pigmentation is satisfactory. The color on the palms, immediately after the completion of dyeing, because of the amla, initially flashed brightly, but oxidizing in the air, it began to rapidly darken to a more natural shade, as if merging with the skin, as if it were a tan.

The first photo shows my palm immediately after dyeing. The second photo shows my palm after 12 hours. During this time, I have used aggressive detergents several times:

The results

The exposure time of the herbal paste on the hair was 2 hours. This henna was quickly and easily rinsed out from the hair with the usual rusty tint. Caring properties on top 👍🏻 Hair is soft, smooth, both when wet and completely dry. I don't feel dryness, my hair is like after a moisturizing mask, cold. The shine has increased 💫

Below you can see how my hair looked immediately after dyeing in a slightly wet state. The first photo is in the light under a chandelier. The second photo is a flash:

Now I will show a photos of my hair 12 hours after dyeing. Daytime, cloudy weather, natural light in the shade near the window:

And now only a flash. Hair after a night braid, which I dissolved only before make the photos:

The color on the root zone immediately after dyeing looked brighter, but after 12 hours it became darker and calmer, deeper. Live I see a beautiful near-chocolate color, without obvious redness. I really liked how the transition from roots to length turned out, so soft and smooth.

I really liked the henna of brand "Lady Henna" for many of the above parameters - excellent product quality, at an adequate price. Except for the resulting color. But here I already blundered myself, because when I bought it, at that time I was still dyeing my hair in black color, so I just wanted to get maximum darkening from henna. Girls, such girls..

I will definitely buy it again, but only if I want to have such a calm and dark shade on a regular basis 😊👌🏻

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My hair care in 2020. About shampoos

On a regular basis, I prefer to use sulphate shampoos with as empty formulations as possible, these may also be called "Deep Cleansing shampoos".

From time to time I add some kind of pseudo-natural shampoos to my care, but most of them absolutely don't suit me, due to the fact that they're not able to clean my hair, especially the length!

I also try to avoid shampoos from professional lines, because most of them are also not able to cleanse my hair, as they contain a bunch of unnecessary, just for my hair, components (proteins, oils, film formers, some humectants, etc.).

The choice of shampoos is a very difficult process for me. But in fact, the choice is not great, because of above reasons - most of shampoos formulations are overly saturated with nutritional, filling and enveloping components.

It's important for me that the shampoo is able to cleanse well my naturally straight, thin, low porosity/glassy hair with oily skin type. On this hair type can instantly get a build-up and accumulate excess and unnecessary care, even when using shampoos with additional caring components.

Due to insufficient cleansing, problems immediately begin in the form of: dullness/matte, brittleness (crunching of the ends or the entire length as a whole, thinning of the cut), loss of elasticity, hair stray into a separate strands, untidy appearance, itching, dandruff. Btw, insufficient cleansing of oily scalp can also provoke hair loss.

Shampoos usage schemes

So, my usual and standard scheme for using shampoos looks like this:
First day: on the root zone I use sulphate shampoo (with the most empty composition, with SLES, but without SLS) or pseudo-natural shampoo (most often with Coco-Sulfate in the composition). On the length I use aggressive sulfate shampoo (with SLS and SLES in the composition).

Second day: wash all length from roots to ends with sulfate shampoo (with SLES, but without SLS).

Btw, I have a more detailed post in my insta-blog about other shampoo washing schemes. I also use them, but much less often.

Perhaps this will surprise someone, but yes, I wash my hair DAILY and ALWAYS WASH ALL HAIR FULLY, from roots to ends, TWICE!

And before you ask - no, such washing is not capable of doing harm if it suits your hair and if they really need such an aggressive cleansing ✌🏻😉

Look at my hair, has it gotten worse over the past few years? On the contrary, my hair was in the worst condition precisely during those periods when I washed it on a regular basis for years with only pseudo-natural shampoos or completely natural products (eggs, rye flour/bread, mustard, and so on).

Why do I use shampoos with SLS only on the length, but not on the roots too?

The thing is that all those shampoos with SLS (Pantene, Wella, Old Spice - btw, they all belong to the same manufacturer "P&G") that I tried to use on the roots, provoke a strongest hair loss, up to 100 hairs at a time washing, with my daily rate of 1-5 pieces..
Although they didn't have a negative effect on the scalp itself, that is, they didn't provoke dandruff or itching. Only with these shampoos I was able to finally extend the freshness and purity of the roots by as much as two days! That for my excessively oily scalp is simply unrealistic! 😱

Maybe shampoos with SLS from other manufacturers will not be able to provoke such severe hair loss for me, but I've not yet met such shampoos with a composition that satisfies me and so far I have nothing to compare with.

Besides shampoos I can also wash my hair with other detergents that are often not labeled "intended for hair" - shower gels, gel-like thick body soaps, face wash gels/foams, hand wash gels, dishwashing detergents.

My favorite shampoos

Now I want to show you illustrative examples of those shampoos that I use more often than others, as well as their compositions.

So, on this photo my mini-collection of sulfate aggressive shampoos with SLS + SLES. They all belong to one manufacturer - Procter&Gamble. They're relatively cheap and can be easily found on sale in any supermarket.

They're very similar to each other:

✔️maximally empty formulations, without additional caring components
✔️transparent gel consistency
✔️strong foaming
✔️easy and quick wash off from hair
✔️they do an excellent job with the accumulated care (a slight degree of build-up can be removed in one hair wash. Strong accumulations are removed in 2-5 washes).

And as I said before I try not to use this shampoos on the root zone, only along the length, because they provoke a very strong hair loss for me 😒

★WELLA PRO-SERIES THE VOLUME
this is my main favorite since 2017! 💖🥰 This is not a first bottle of this shampoo and I'm going to keep buying it in the future. I'm satisfied with absolutely everything in it: the color of the bottle, fragrance that is not bothering over the years, the excellent detergent properties.
I usually use this in a day or two.

Composition:

Aqua, Sodium lauryl sulfate, Sodium laureth sulfate, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Sodium citrate, Sodium chloride, Sodium xylenesulfonate, Parfum, Citric acid, Sodium benzoate, Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, Tetrasodium EDTA, Sodium hydroxide, Linalool, Hexyl cinnamal, Benzyl salicylate, Limonene, Hydroxycitronellal, Magnesium nitrate, Glyoxal, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Magnesium chloride, Methylisothiazolinone

★OLD SPICE ROAMER, CAPTAIN

these are men's shampoo-shower gels. They have a very harsh and strong fragrance that stays on the hair until the next wash. Directly during washing, this perfume is too rich for me and even a little annoying, but on dried hair it feels quite pleasant.

In terms of cleansing properties, both of these products are very similar to each other, so much so that I don't see any differences between. But if compare them with the previous shampoo, then these cleanse softer.

I can use them for 5-6 days in a row without alternation. Most likely I'll continue to buy them in the future.

Composition:

Aqua, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate, Sodium Chloride, Cocamidopropyl Betaine, Parfum, Sodium Benzoate, Citric Acid, Linalool, Disodium EDTA, Sodium Hydroxide, Hexyl Cinnamal, Hydroxycitronellal, Limonene, Magnesium Nitrate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Magnesium Chloride, Methylisothiazolinone, CI 42090, CI 19140 (the Captain shampoo has almost identical composition)

★PANTENE PRO-V ADDITIONAL VOLUME, THICK AND STRONG
in terms of cleansing properties, these shampoos are also similar to each other and I don't see the difference between them. Cleans a little more aggressively than Wella The Volume, but can significantly dry the hair.

In its composition there is Panthenol, I suspect that the dryness is precisely because of it. I have this component in its pure form and no matter how I use it, it provokes dryness and stiffness on my hair.

Therefore, I try not to get carried away with this shampoos and use only occasionally, once every 1-2 weeks.
I still cannot give a definite answer whether I will buy them again, but most likely not 🤔

Composition:

Aqua, Sodium lauryl sulfate, Sodium laureth sulfate, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Sodium citrate, Sodium xylenesulfonate, Sodium chloride, Parfum, Citric acid, Sodium benzoate, Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, Tetrasodium EDTA, Sodium hydroxide, Trisodium ethylenediamine disuccinate, Panthenol, Panthenyl ethyl ether, Hexyl cinnamal, Hydroxycitronellal, Magnesium nitrate, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Magnesium chloride, Methylisothiazolinone (both of these shampoos have absolutely identical composition)

In the photo below my mini-collection of sulfate shampoos with SLES, but without SLS:

★KAPOUS PROFESSIONAL WITH MENTHOL
this shampoo was my favorite for a long time (I used about 2-3 liter bottles), until I met cheaper counterparts in the nearest store. Unfortunately, analogies are no longer sale to the chain of stores where I bought them, but ordering them via the Internet loses the whole point of cheapness due to delivery 🙈 Therefore, it's easier for me to buy Kapous again, which I'm going to do soon 👌🏻
⠀
This shampoo suits my hair well on a daily basis, I can even not alternate it with others, but only if I don't use additional care products at all (especially those containing film formers) or use the lightest as possible and rarely.

P.S.: unfortunately, some components cannot be washed off without heavy artillery in the form of SLS or Sodium Olefin Sulfonate 😞

This shampoo has a pleasant refreshing menthol fragrance that I personally don't get bored with. On dry hair, it's practically not felt, it's a pity. The consistency is more liquid than that of P&G shampoos, but transparent, mint color. The foaming is satisfactory, the rinse off from hair is excellent.

Copmosition:

Aqua, Sodium laureth sulfate, Sodium chloride, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Parfum (fragrance), Laureth-2, PEG/PPG-120/10 trimethylpropane trioleate, Menthol, Benzyl alcohol, Citric acid, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, CI 19140, CI 42090, Methylisothiazolinone

★PURE LINE "NORD" MEN'S GEL FOR BODY AND HAIR
this gel appeared in my care relatively recently, but I already really liked it. Good cleansing abilities (reminiscent of Kapous with menthol), more or less satisfying composition. But I want to write a more detailed review about it later, when I taste it more thoroughly.
At the moment, I use this shampoo either every day or alternate with others.

Composition:

Aqua, Sodium laureth sulfate, Sodium chloride, Achillea millefolium extract, Chamomilla recutita flower extract, Chelidonium majus extract, Hypericum perforatum flower/leaf/stem extract, Inulin, Mentha piperita (peppermint) oil, Urtica dioica leaf extract, Benzophenone-4, Citric acid, Cocamide DEA, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Disodium EDTA, Disodium laureth sulfosuccinate, Glycerin, Lactic acid, Parfum, Phenoxyethanol, Sodium benzoate, Limonene, Linalool, CI 14720, CI 19140, CI 42090

★GOLDEN SILK DEEP-CLEANSING SHAMPOO WITH FRUIT ACIDS
this shampoo has an incredibly delicious fruit fragrance! 😻 Because of this, it's already a pleasure for me to wash the hair by it! But on completely dry hair, the aroma is absolutely not felt 😭 So pity..

I use this shampoo mainly when chlorinated tap water starts to flow. It helps me great with this problem.
I try to use it no more than once every 5-7 days, because too frequent use of any acids can dry out a hair..

Composition:

Aqua, Sodium laureth sulfate, Cocamidopropyl betaine, Lauroyl/Myristoyl methyl glucamide, Cocamide DEA, Capryloyl/Caproyl methyl glucamide, Butylene glycol, Lactic acid, Actinidia chinensis (Kiwe) fruit extract, Citrus aurantium dulcis (Orange) fruit extract, Citrus grandis (Grapefruit) fruit extract, Pyrus malus (Apple) fruit extract, Trideceth-9, Prunus amygdalus Dulcis (Sweet Almond) fruit extract, Sodium chloride, Disodium EDTA, Citric acid, Parfum, Methylchloroisothiazolinone, Methylisothiazolinone, СI 74180

On the next photo you can see my collection of pseudo-natural shampoos with Coco-Sulfate. Their cleansing properties are roughly similar, in my opinion.

★SIBERIKA BIBERIKA CHILDREN'S SHAMPOO AND BATHING FOAM
I can use these products even on the hair length, not only on the root zone. I mean that they're even able to somehow wash this part of my hair. But on a daily basis, they don't suit me at all, only with a strict alternation with sulfate shampoos.

The cleaning properties of the foam for bathing are slightly weaker, than shampoo. But overall, both of these baby cleansers give my hair similar care properties:
✔️gently, but at the same time satisfactory, cleanses my hair from roots to ends
✔️have pleasant fragrances (herbal and honey)
✔️reward a strong, tangible softness and silkiness 😻👍🏻 After them, I want to constantly touch and stroke my hair much more often than in normal days.

Composition of shampoo:

Aqua, Lauryl glucoside, Sodium coco-sulfate, Сocamidopropyl betaine, Сhamomilla recutita flower extract, Saponaria officinalis root extract, Malva sylvestris flower extract, Arnica montana flower extract, Rosa canina fruit oil, Hippophae rhamnoides fruit Oil, Parfum, Сitric acid, Benzyl alcohol, Dehydroacetic acid, Sodium benzoate, Potassium sorbate, Tocopherol, Сoumarin

Composition of bathing foam:

Aqua, Lauryl glucoside, Sodium coco-sulfate, Сocamidopropyl betaine, Oenothera biennis leaf extract, Tilia cordata extract, Lavandula angustifolia oil, Melissa officinalis leaf oil, Hesperis sibirica extract, Parfum, Сitric acid, Benzyl alcohol, Dehydroacetic acid, Sodium benzoate, Potassium sorbate, Tocopherol

★PLANETA ORGANICA PURE
This shampoo washing hair a little better than previous baby ones, but still worse than sulfate shampoos. Alternation is required.
Very thick in consistency, minimal consumption, strong foaming. Contains extract of soap nuts, so the hair feels squeaky during washing (like after a mask of amla or shikakai powder. They have a very characteristic creak and this is different from creak after sulfate shampoos).

Composition:

Aqua with infusions of Sapindus trifoliatus fruit extract, Sodium coco-sulfate, Decyl glucoside, Sodium cocoyl apple amino acids, Organic linum usitatissimum seed oil, Hydrolyzed wheat protein, Faex, Citrus limon fruit juice, Malt extract, Citric acid, Coco-glucoside, Glyceryl oleate, Xanthan gum, Sodium benzoate, Potassium sorbate

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