My first ever henna dyeing 🌿🦊

My relationship with henna began a long time ago, in the fall of 2010. Therefore, this year I'm celebrating my henna anniversary 👏🏻🥳 Perhaps this is one of the reasons why I decided to return to the red color.

Autumn 2020

Yes, there have been periods when I put the henna aside and used chemical dyes, either bleached hair or tried to grow my natural color. But still, in the end, I always returned back to favorite henna. And for 4 years in a row I have remained faithful to this herb and am not going to stop dyeing my hair with. After all, if you have tried henna once, then henna is forever!

First I learned about henna as a child from my parents, when they discussed this topic with each other. In 2010, I already independently searched for information about herbal dyeing. After all, at that time I had completely natural virgin hair just below the chest line, but in such a terrible condition that it was impossible to look at it without tears.

They were very much tangled, terribly dry, and below the shoulders, the entire length was in solid white dots due to fragility and a heap of split ends. The cut was so thin. From the outside, it seemed that I regularly do a cascade haircut, although I always adhered to an even (one length, besides bangs) and semicircular cut. Shine was, but not specular and only under a bright sun or flash.

See this "beautiful" matte gloss? 🙈 Despite the fact that the hair was in direct sunlight ☹

Therefore, I was looking for a saving remedy that would solve the listed problems with my hair and "heal" them as much as possible.

At that time, I also had a craving for change and a love of red bright hair color. So after reading some information about henna, I decided that this is a great option!

Without hesitation, I ran to find where to buy henna. I remember how long I searched for it in the area of my city for one day (yep, in the past I absolutely didn't have such a trait as patience 😅 If I was planning something, I needed to get it right here and now) and found it in just one place - in a newsstand, where sell magazines, children's toys, office supplies, cosmetics, and other trinkets.

My first henna was - Iranian of brand Phytocosmetic. Very cheap ($0.6 at the dollar rate of that year), low-grade, coarse-grained, with a lot of garbage, twigs and with a SAND! (to increase the weight of the product and deceive customers). Was terribly inconvenient to apply it on the hair, crumbling in different directions and difficult to wash off from hair.

Btw, I wanted to get exactly the same color like this girl has on the photo.

At that time, I certainly didn't know about the existence of other henna, because shopping through online stores was not yet as easy and usual as it is now. I didn't meet any other brands of henna in the stores of my city, and I found out about the shops with Indian goods a little later.

My first recipe for making henna was very simple - I just brewed henna with boiling water, mixed it thoroughly and almost immediately started to dyeing. I was applied henna paste on wet, clean hair entirely or on dry, but dirty. I put a bag on top of it, then wrapped it in a huge towel and went to bed. Washed off after 10-14 hours.

Then I thought that the longer we keep henna on our hair, the brighter (here I mean the word "lighter") and more intense the final color will turn out. I wanted to get a bright red, orange as an orange, but the result each time upset me. My hair was getting darker, coppery (like a wire), bright and golden only in direct sunlight, but still not as saturated as I'd dreamed.

At that period, I didn't often take photos of the results after hair dyeing. Therefore, on the photos below, you can see my resulting color after the 2nd or 3rd henna dyeing.

I specifically decided to refresh my hair color for my birthday - the 3rd of October

In this collage on the left you can clearly see what a dark copper hair color was in the shade in natural light far from the windows. And also what a bright and golden hair color was in direct sunlight. Such difference in a few minutes.

A few days after the previous collage.

The quality of hair after natural dye has improved a little, but only a little. Immediately after washing off the henna from the hair, they looked super and felt good, but after a couple of weeks it started to get very tangled, became terribly dry. But the shine increased and also the split ends disappeared (henna "glued" them together).

Well, then I didn't understand anything about the topic of hair care, didn't know my type of hair, structure, porosity. Simply didn't even think about it. At that time, I just washed my hair with one pseudo-natural shampoo of Natura Siberica brand and balm from the same series as the shampoo, about a couple of bottles in a row, without alternating with others.

10 years ago, I still didn't know that henna is a semi-transparent, but permanent dye and the final shade depends on a bunch of factors, but mostly on your original hair color. That is, the darker our hair, the darker the result will be after henna. And with regular layering of henna pigment, the hair color becomes even darker and redder.

After all, henna is not able to discolor/bleached the hair and make it lighter, and it's also not able to replace your native pigment in the hair with its own, as it happens from the use of chemical dyes.

The frequency of henna dyeing then was about every 3-4 weeks, but I washed my hair much less often (once every 3-4 days).

Unfortunately, at that time I was still quite a naive beginner in this topic and continued to believe that the longer I dye my hair with henna, the brighter it will become and one day I'll be able to get the desired color like a fox fur.

When the hair color was getting darker and darker, but more saturated, I thought that I should look for information about additives in henna that will help me achieve the desired shade. I found different recipes of other henna girls and began to try. But there were no radical changes..
And this is understandable, because my hair has already accumulated quite a lot of henna pigment and in this situation it is difficult to change at least the shade.

In the end, I was angry at henna, at the fact that I could not achieve what I wanted and almost at the end of December 2010 I decided to become a burning brunette, just mixing henna and indigo of the same brand in the proportions of 1:3. Just poured boiling water has on your hair as soon as possible. I don't remember exactly how long I kept henndigo paste on my hair, either for 3 hours, or also about 10 (most likely 3 🤔).

As a bonus, I made a straight bangs

After it began other changes with my hair and perhaps I'll tell about it in another time. In this post I just wanted to share my memories and impressions of my first henna hair dyeing 😊🧡

What a pity I didn't take more photos of henna hair that autumn 😔