So I decided I wanted to try something new with my hair. I am sad to say that genes did not bless me... as I am 24 and starting to
grey/white. I am too cheap to start paying to go to the salon every 6-8 weeks to get it professionally dyed plus I do not really like the thoughts of tons of chemicals being that close to my nose. I looked up a few "natural" options such as an organic hair studio in Anchorage but it was still $60+ each time to get it dyed. Again I am too cheap. After some more research I decided to try to dye my hair with henna. I read a bunch of reviews online or different companies and decided to go with Henna Hut's Dark Brown Hair Dye (
http://hennahut.com/dark_brown_hair_dye) along with their Henna Oil (
http://hennahut.com/essential_oils) and a hair dye kit. Here is what I got in the mail.
My first step, well really second after research buying it, was to do a strand test. I "harvested" some hair from my brush and from what fell out in the shower and split it up into 4 different groups. One was my control. The other three I would dye for 30 minutes, 45 minutes and 1 hour. I mixed the henna with a little bit of water to make a "yogurt" consistency. And the dyed each of the 3 samples.
After 30, 45 and 60 minutes I would rinse out the henna and allow the hair samples to dry. After the hour was up I did not see a drastic change in the color, which was the goal. I was "planning" on keeping the samples to compare 48 hours later. Since the henna can take up to 48 hours to completely set in... however after Mike took a shower he shut the door to the bathroom, where the samples were, so the cat would not get them and the air movement of the door made the paper towel and hair samples fly and disperse. So I decided that I would just do the recommended one hour when I did my head.
Friday night Mike was working nights and Hans also had to work. So Samantha, her sister Kim, and I all went to the Aces Game against Idaho Steelheads. The game was good with an exciting ending. A Win for the Aces in OT. After the game they helped me put the dye into my hair. Here is a before picture of my hair from the back
Lets just say it looked a little gross and green but I loved that it did not have a chemical smell at all, actually it had more of a organic smell that is hard to describe, maybe manure is a good way. Now the reason I waited until Friday to dye my hair is there were warnings and comments online about the henna doing weird things to grey/white hair. Such as turning it green or blue for the first24 hours after it was dyed, but promised that after 48 hours the henna would set in and the hair would not be blue. To say the least I was a little nervous, but feeling adventures.
After leaving the dye in for an hour I washed it out, here is what my hair initially looked like
and here it is today, 4 days later
I am not disappointed with the results but henna did not cover up the greys. The greys did turn a bit green for the first 2 days but when i washed my hair it came out. It might have dyed them a little but you can easily see, when you look that the greys are there. Maybe I am going to have to just go with the grey for now, but will continue to search for a option to cover the greys.
