Still LOVING Henna !
I have never had such great red color from a commercial tint, rich and realistic to boot.
Repeat applications (3 months now) have deepened the red tones. I think this will be the permanent color from now on.
Henna, like natural color looks a bit different in various lighting.
Outdoors it is vibrant and nearly electric. Indoors it is more subtle - richer looking under regular bulbs - toned down under florescent lighting.
The first photo is how it looks directly under an incandescent lamp, warm and golden red. It really brings out the gloss too.
This one is near direct sunlight - here you see the more intense, coppery red effect.
This last photo is inside the shop where there is only fluorescent and halogen lighting. Here the color is muted by the blue hued lighting.
One of the benefits of henna is that it really works as a stain - adding color to your natural color - so where you had highlights before, you still do.
It makes the effect so much more natural and the outgrowth is barely noticable if you are a medium range color to start with ( I hennaed over auburn tinted hair of about the same depth).
Starting with light hair will result in very, vibrant red and darker hair will have less of a noticable color change but the effects will be evident in sunlight.
Henna is tricky to use on completely grey/white hair as it will be very bright. I do have some grey in the front, the henna did cover it but it was quite a bit brighter than the other sections. I did touch up that one spot with a permanent color.
It will work for scattered grey as each henna application will add more color to the grey strands making them a brighter auburn highlight amongst the deeper base. It really is a nice effect, so I think I will only occasionally touch up the grey so I keep that highlight going.
If you like auburn/red and you don't mind a bit of extra time and effort to get away from chemical haircolor (or like me, you are having bad reactions to it) henna is worth a try.
Angela
