Henna Results
Whew! My first henna experience is behind me and I've learned a bit. The results were quite good and I'll definitely do it again. Here is the before shot:
Notice the very grey roots and the really faded dye job on the rest of the hair. Ugh!
And here's the after -- sorry, it's really hard to take a photo of the top oy your head! You can see that the color is much darker now and you can't tell where the grey roots were. Here's another shot:
I think it's getting a little redder as time goes on -- they say it will become more intense over the next day or so. I was surprised that it came out as brown as it did. I really like it! Pete thought it looked very natural. You can see that there are some color variations -- almost like highlights.
So what did I learn about henna? Well, it is really messy to put on -- probably worse because of the long hair. I could smear it on my roots easily enough, but trying to coat the length of hair was tricky. Maybe adding an egg or oil as some sites suggest would make it a bit more easy to work with. And I took some advice I saw online and wrapped my head in plastic wrap and heated it with the blow dryer every half hour or so. I guess the heat makes it activate better. I also used a spray bottle to keep my hair damp -- very important since this stuff did want to dry out quickly. I think that helped to make it easy to wash out -- it was no trouble at all. And finally, I was actually patient and kept it on for about 2 hours. I would say my patience paid off, because the color was really quite good.
So that's my henna experience! I'll definitely be doing it again. Usually after dyeing my hair with chemical dyes, my scalp is itchy and my hair smells strongly of the chemicals for the next few days. Today my hair doesn't smell and it feels conditioned (rather than stripped!) And no itchy scalp or sneezing! Yeah!
