Ok, today I’m looking at the gray hair peeping up around my ears and hairlines. I’ve been avoiding it because my last experience with dye was not good. It turns out that I’m allergic to most hair dyes and I haven’t quite decided what to do about it. Sooooo… today I decide. I run to the health food store and pick up henna.

First of all, I am amazed because I have color choices. I really thought that henna was all deep burgundy red and had resigned myself to going that color. I still want it to be somewhat dark, so I chose one in the middle called Mahogany. The directions say if you want it to cover gray you should make it with coffee not water, and you should add two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar to cover gray. So I pick up some of those as well.

I have a friend who successfully uses henna. She told me I should buy the stuff from hennaforhair.com but I haven’t even looked at their website. So much for research eh?

I run around to find all the things I need.

  1. Henna – CHECK
  2. Coffee – CHECK
  3. Vaseline to protect my skin – CHECK
  4. Rubber gloves – CHECK
  5. Cotton to put around my ears and hair line – well.. no.. but I’m cutting a towel in strips and that should work so – CHECK.
  6. A plastic cap – should be in the bathroom, I’ll get it when I’m in there.  – NO CHECK.
  7. A brush to paint it on. NO CHECK, I’ll wing it.

I make the coffee, then boil it in a pan and pour in the bowl with the henna. It’s kind of thick. My friend told me that it had the consistency of goose poop. At the time I wondered what she meant, but baby do I know now! It certainly is what I imagine goose poop is, and it smells like spinach! Oh well, I can cut it.

Ok, it’s bad goopy… so I start to plop it in my hair. I swear it’s like clumping mud in my hair. I can’t even get it to the hair edges its so thick.  Everything is clumped on top and I’m nearly out, so I turn on the tap and add some water to the poop mixture. eeew! SO now I have poop-mud that is starting to get everywhere. I finish gooping it on, then add more water and pour it through my hair in an effort to get it all through.

I can’t find the plastic cap. I use an old towel and wrap my head. The strips of old towel around my ears have fallen out and streaks of this green stuff is running down my face. The towel stems the flow.

My bathroom looks vaguely like someone had diarrhea and I have to start cleaning up the stuff. I can see a yellowish stain starting to form under the clumps. Ok, I can get that off, but I have to tell you at this point I don’t have much hope for success with my hair. I have no idea what kind of mess I’m going to uncover in an hour and I hope I will be able to go to work and not look ridiculous.

A little more than an hour later:

Have you ever removed mud from your hair? It tangles really bad and makes a huge mess. Removing this is like that.  It does all come out but I have to wash it for a long time and use both shampoo AND crème rinse because of the tangles. It is foamy when I put the shampoo and the crème rinse on it.

It still smells like spinach!

  1. It is an uneven coverage and I’m absolutely certain this is my fault. Remember when I was putting it on I put it on really thick on the top/front of my head and then ran out of mud and ended up watering it down? The end result of that is that it is BRIGHT RED on the top and a more muted red at the ends. I think that even mud coverage is going to be an issue.  I even missed some of the gray by one of my ears, and it’s still gray. Oh well, I’ll fix that next time.
  2. I would never have considered that carrot top red was mahogany. I imagine that I will have to experiment with different types of henna before I find the color I want.

On the UP side: I do not burn anywhere. No itches, no nasty smells (unless you really hate spinach) and I never felt like my skin was in danger from toxins.  I think that I will definitely choose a different color and do a better job next time. I also think I’m a convert to henna hair color.

I definitely recommend planning and research.