Henna Review, Photos, and Instructions

I used henna on my hair for a period of about 6 months. It thickened and volumized my hair SO. MUCH. I used the BAQ (body art quality) henna--meaning it does not have any metallic salts or other ingredients in it which will cause irrepareable damage to your hair should you choose to use normal hair dye on over the 'bad', non-BAQ henna. But I want to make it clear: YES, you CAN dye and bleach over BAQ Henna'd hair. I as well as many others have done it and my hair is still in excellent condition. I'll make a blog post soon about how I did this.

I got mine from Mehandi.com and used the henna from the Rajastani region. Hennacaravan.com, and hennahut also have good information and notoriously good quality BAQ henna as well. It is supposed to turn your hair more of a true red; and usually has the highest percent of Lawsonia Inermis in--the actual part of the henna that gives your hair that lovely red color.

My henna mix:
Step 1: For shoulder-length hair: Use 150-200g Finely milled BAQ henna powder. Adjust depending upon your own hair's length. 100g are in each packet of henna.

Step 2: Find some 100% pure orange or lemon juice and dilute it a bit with warm, preferably filtered water. Orange is more gentle on your scalp than lemon. Add to the henna powder and mix using a NON-METAL spatula and bowl. Metal will react with the henna and negatively affect future use of hair dye or bleach. 

     Mix until the mixture resembles pudding or yogurt. It will be deep green...don't worry: your hair will not be green, haha. For a more true red, add in ~tbsp of paprika.

Step 3: Cover tightly with plastic wrap. Smooth out any air bubbles so wrap sits right on top of mixture. Let this mixture sit in a WARM area until 'dye release'. Dye release will happen within 10 hours. In my 75 degF house, it took ~8 hours. I mix it up in the morning and apply in just before bed. 

     The dye release is easy to see: a reddish-orange oil will be on the top surface of your henna mixture. Add more water until the mixture is like yogurt again.

Step 4: Apply just like you would paint on hair color. Don't forget to wear gloves. Make sure to really massage the henna in to your hair and check for bare spots so that you don't get splotchy coverage.

Step 5: Wrap with plastic wrap or a shower cap and a towel. Leave in for 2-10 hours depending on how deep of a color you want. I slept in mine for ~6 hours.

Step 6: Now, rinse it out with warm water until water runs clear. The mixture may have slightly hardened; conditioner easily gets the harder pieces out.

     I will put a picture of what the henna mixture actually looks like below. Also: the warmer the area in which you place the mixture, the faster dye release will happen. 

And here is my progression from medium blonde to light red to deep auburn using henna:

Henna progression over blonde hair

Note: Henna is known to be excellent for your hair and greatly improves its quality. However for a small percentage of people, it dries out your hair. For whatever reason, my hair was one of the few that gets a sort of dried out texture from it although it did volumize a bunch. A deep conditioning helped that a lot but my hair is back to blonde again because I like the texture and look of my hair as a blonde. But henna is excellent for most people who have tried it and it is a gorgeous color in the hair.

Anyway... happy henna-ing! :)