Henna Experience on 4C Kinky textured hair

**PLEASE READ: I've since henna'd my hair using Lush Cosmetic's Caca Rouge Mama Henna Bar and created a blog post regarding that experience. I prefer it to the methods mentioned in this post. You can view the updated post here.****

After doing a little bit of research I decided that I wanted to henna my hair. Keepin' it real..I wasn't interested in it for it's conditioning properties, but rather, it's coloring properties.

Anyhow, I ordered my henna from Mehandi.com. As you can see in the picture below, I purchased "Henna for African Hair".  I also purchased Indigo and a shampoo bar (both which I have yet to use). Eventually, I plan on using Indigo to darken my hair to black, but not as soon as I had anticipated.

There are 5 100gram packets in my henna package. I don't know what I was expecting but I didn't expect my packet to state that my henna was from a 2009 Crop given that it's 2011..this was not mentioned on the website either, however, I will mention that I did like this henna..you'll see why in a few.

The henna and spatula used for mixing.

This is the lemon juice I used. 100% lemon juice. Be careful not to purchase Lemon concentrate. 

Henna and lemon juice mix before dye was released. 

My hair after I applied the henna but before I plastic wrapped my hair.

As far as the directions. I literally poured the henna in the blue bowl, added the entire bottle of lemon juice and a teensy bit of water until I achieved the consistency you see above (thicker than mashed potatoes , thinner than frosting). I covered it and let it sit over night in my warm bedroom and during the day while at work. When I came home, I didn't add water to make it yogurt consistency as I thought that would be too thin and messy, PLUS I don't have long hair yet, so I don't need to make my henna go a long way.

Long story short, I only left the henna in my hair for 2.5 hrs as it was a work night, rinsed my hair out under running water (took forever), then rinsed some more with suave conditioner,  deep conditioned my hair for 20 minutes, rinsed out, then applied my moisturizer etc and concluded in twisting my hair.

This was my hair the following day.

My hair looks much more brown than it ever has. I'd say the coloring/highlighting was successful!

My hair looks very brown after my first henna treatment

Beforehand, my hair used to look black in the shade and barely brown in the sunlight, now it looks like a dark dark brown in the shade and an apparent dark brown in the sunlight.

Another picture in the sun. Still looking more brown than before!

 Couple of comments here:

I'm obsessed with all things that smell wonderful and henna is NOT one of them! It reminds me of a couple of things. It smells like bbq smoke with a singe of something herbally fonky, its smell also reminds me of prune juice (though i LOVE prune juice), it kinda in a weird way smelled like spinach as well. All I know is that the smell isn't my fav. However, it won't kill ya.

My hair did get dry. Nothing that scared me (deep conditioning will take care of it).

After deep conditioning I was able to notice that my hair felt slightly thicker. No complaints.

And I am thrilled to report that it didn't alter my curl pattern. I love my coils *whew*.

Yes, it takes a significant amount of time to rinse the henna out. This step calls for patience.


Henna Experience #2!

Less than a week later, I decided to henna my hair during the weekend given I'd have more time to let it sit. I didn't see a problem in henna'ing my hair so soon. Do you own research on this one, but many websites said it was safe to henna as often as one would like.

This is my hair after henna two.

I did a few things differently.I used 4 bags of warmish chamomile tea instead of lemon. Everything else was the same. I noticed that my henna mix released its dye quickly with the warmish chamomile tea. The way to tell is to scoop a layer of the henna to the side. If the henna beneath it is green and the top looks brownish, the dye has been released and it oxidizing. You can begin application.

My henna sat for only 1 hr with the chamomile before the dye was released and began oxidizing.

I applied the henna and let it sit on my hair over night. I rinsed it out and DEEP conditioned my hair for 4 hrs afterwards.

The lemon and chamomile tea with henna made my hair dry, but with deep conditioning, my hair recuperated from it. Next time, I will try just water =D.

The pics below are from henna #2.

Brown as heck in direct sunlight

my coils are very much defined. This happens whenever my hair is conditioned and happy.

Close up (this pic isn't taken in direct sunlight). I can only imagine how the color would look on my hair when in a twist out. I'll post a pic for you guys when I do that.

My hair color before the henna / a dark dark dark dark brown

I love it!

Hope you guys appreciate my post!! It's quite lengthy (eww). I'll be posting a video on YT in a few weeks to recap my Henna exp. Stay tuned, thank you for reading, and till next time, be well loves =D