It's Official: I am a Henna Head!

I had been going back and forth about trying henna for a number of reasons:

1. My hair already has a natural red tint that I hate! Both my mother and I have these flaming red heads, although hers ended up being cute highlights, while I got a full-out red fro!

In the pictures and videos I take with my Mac, it looks black, but in this particular picture, you can see what I mean:

Compare my head to my jet black corset. It looks more brown during the colder months (this pic was taken in December) but becomes straight up red in the summer. And no, it's not the lighting, because the girl beside me has a dark cherry cola color and that came out pretty accurate in the pic, if not darker!

I thought that if I used henna, I was going to end up looking like a straight carrot top.

2. Everything in my bathroom is white, and since I live in an apt and don't own any of these things, I'd prefer to not have it looking like poop tracks with henna stains everywhere. I'm pretty sure that's against the rental agreement.

3. I didn't want to loosen my curls. As you all know, I LOVE my curls, coils, and waves, and was concerned that henna would somehow erase all of that texture.

WELL.... I tried it today anyway! 

I followed MopTopMaven's henna gloss tutorial, except I halved everything and used slightly different products. I was too chicken to do a full-out henna treatment and now that I'm finished, I don't think I ever will.

Here's the mix:
100g Jamila Henna
1 cup of hot water
1/2 cup of Lustrasilk Organic Cholesterol w/ Argan Oil (no mineral oil)
1/4 cup of V05 Moisture Milks
1/4 cup of Passionfruit Oil added right before applying the henna

I mixed the water and henna first, and then the conditioners, and let it sit for about 16 or 17 hours, woke up in the morning and removed my braids, lightly detangled on damp hair, mixed in the oil, and began applying the henna!
After I rinsed it, I DCed under the dryer for about 45 minutes.
The process was very easy and not messier than any other ayurvedic treatment I've done in the past. I have a video coming soon on my channel.

My hair feels a lot stronger and heavier, which I LOVE! I've never had heavy hair before!
It did loosen my curl but extremely lightly. It's barely noticeable at all.
And the best part: it actually DARKENED my red tint to more of a burgundy as opposed to that hideousness you see above.
And even if I didn't like the henna color, I could always go over it with indigo to get my beloved jet black hair (I won't be doing this anytime soon, though).
 
I'd show pictures, but as I said before, my Mac doesn't show hair color very well. I should be taking pictures with my SLR camera next week when Cefion and I go out on some adventures, so you will see then. It's hard for me to take self-portraits on my Olympus unless I am just focusing on one part of my face (ie. an eye or my lips).

But anyway, just wanted you all to know that the henna gloss will now be a regular part of my regimen! Instead of the hardcore protein treatments I was planning to do every 6 weeks following the removal of my braids, I will replace them with henna instead. Next time, I will replace the cholesterol with Trader Joe's Nourish Spa Conditioner and the V05 with plain yogurt to try a more natural route, and will probably use different oils until I use up my stash. After I finish the oils, I'll probably just kick it with olive oil, since that is ALWAYS in the house.
I will continue to do regular protein treatments prior to straightening unless I find this works just as well in preventing reversion.

I'm so excited that I finally gave it a try and I couldn't be happier with the results. It definitely curbed my breakage as well, which is awesome, as I am still aiming to have 0 breakage again. I'm still shedding like a dog (as usual for me for this time of year), but I only found 1 broken hair.
I am happy to have a more natural alternative to getting stronger, (hopefully) thicker, heavier, and darker hair!
Until next time!