My First Attempt at a Henna Gloss

I've been reading up on the benefits of henna for hair. Outside of natural reddish brown color deposit, it works as a protein to strength hair and also as a great deep conditioner providing great softness, reduces frizzing and provides wonderful natural shine.

I went to curlynikki.com and printed out a copy of her henna gloss recipe, ordered a kit "Henna for African Hair" from mehandi.com and put aside time on saturday for this long process.

I read up on how it is extremely important to get good quality, fresh henna that is Body Quality and 100% pure otherwise it would be useless. The kit I ordered included, 100g of pure Body Quality Henna, 100g of of pure Indigo, 2 rubber gloves and a plastic cone "thingy" designed to help you to be able to better distribute the henna in your hair.  I got the kit with the indigo because I am a long time lover of jet black hair and I have a lot of grays that I need to be covered on a regular basis. The indigo is the second step to the henna process that will help me to achieve the jet black color naturally without the use of conventional chemical dyes.

I got my package in the mail early saturday afternoon around 12 o'clock.

I followed the recipe found on curly nikki's website and I mixed the henna as follows:
- 1.5 cups of warm green tea
- 100g of Jamila henna
- mixed until the henna was as thick as mashed potatoes and then covered with saran wrap and let sit for 4 hours; most people tend to let the mix sit overnight but I didn't have that kind of time
- after 4 hours I then added more green tea to make the mixture a little thinner like yogurt and then I proceeded to add 1 cup of a silicone free conditioner; I used Trader Joe's Nourish Spa conditioner. I then added 2 capfuls of Olive Oil and mixed until the consistency was smooth.
- I then put the mix into may hair making sure every strand was covered from root to tip
- I wrapped my hair with saran wrap completely and put a hat on and proceeded with my day.

After about 6 hours of letting the henna sit in my hair, I prepared the indigo powder with warm water, 1 teaspoon of salt since my grays are a bit dye resistant and mixed to the consistency of yogurt and set aside. I then I rinsed the henna thoroughly from my hair with as little manipulation as possible and then immediately applied the indigo mix, and wrapped again with saran wrap. I let this sit in my hair for another 2 hours. After this I rinsed the indigo from my hair and applied A LOT of the Trader Joe's Nourish Spa conditioner and went to sleep with the conditioner in my hair. Had it been earlier I would have sat under a hot hooded dryer but I was just too tired.

In the morning, I rinsed out the conditioner from the night before I washed once with a sulfate free shampoo and conditioned and dryed my hair.

I have to say, the results weren't earth shattering HOWEVER I did notice my hair was extremeley soft and VERY shiny without the use of any product (oil, sheen, cream) to make it this way.

All in all, I will incorporate this into my regimen as a way to strengthen my hair and I will continue to cover my gray this way from now on instead of using conventional commerical hair dyes.

TTYL, Asha!!