Thread: Can you highlight hennaed hair?

I want to henna my hair but I am nervous because I am also very fond of my blonde streaks. Is it possible to put highlights in or does it turn green? Has anyone ever tried it? Enquiring minds want to know...l;,

It is possible, if you use bleach, but the highlights will probably throw a lot more gold and yellow than before and it may be difficult to get the colour you want without a toner of some kind.

I've seen highlights on hennaed hair that had a pinkish cast. But green, no, you shouldn't get green. Not from bleach anyway.

What is it about henna that attracts? If it's the colour and shine, a red semi will give you that. A red semi can also be hard to get out, but not as hard as henna.

Originally Posted by KelsNasim

I want to henna my hair but I am nervous because I am also very fond of my blonde streaks. Is it possible to put highlights in or does it turn green? Has anyone ever tried it? Enquiring minds want to know...l;,

I've always heard DON'T mix henna hair & chemical dye, but have never done it.
My granddaughter just cut my hair & we were talking about it. I guess they teach that in beauty school (I mean cosmetology class!). She said it would 'melt' the hair ewww!
Hair grows back, but still...
You could try a test patch underneath - and let us all know!

What attracts me to henna? Well, I have seen it on other folks and I have been impressed with the color and shine they achieve with it. I've also heard folks say that it actually made they hair feel healthier. {not sure if it is actaully healthier or not} But, you are right. The haircolors that are out now tend to be much easier on your hair then they used to be. And I could achieve the reddish color and have no problem adding highlights.
Thanks!

I've done it. My hair turned yellow at the roots and orange at the bottom. Don't do it.

Thanks Andalee!

Henna for Hair

I use henna because its all natural and has no harsh and/or poisonous chemicals. Plus, as my natural shade is auburn, henna really agrees with it. As someone else noted, it makes your hair stronger - as opposed to the weakening many chemical dyes can cause.

The above site will answer all your questions - and its best NOT to mix Henna with chemical dyes, at least not without extensive testing on hair harvested from your hairbrush.

In addition to the possibility of melting/burning your hair, you can end up with such charming colors as:

Frog Butt Green
Swamp Bottom Black
Bozo the Clown Orange
and my favorite: Goat Vomit Yellow!

LOL! Thanks Zorba! I'll check the site out.

Haha! Very colorful post, Zorba!

I'm a hennahead too; been using henna for several years and I love it. In addition to Zorba's link to Henna for Hair (which is where I buy my henna from, BTW), I also recommend you check out The Long Hair Community. There are many henna fans there, and they even have an entire section on discussion of henna issues.
The Long Hair Community

I've bleached my henna-ed hair so I can add Manic Panic streaks to it and just a couple of weeks ago, I went over all of it with black chemical hair dye without a problem. I've also gone over my chemically straightened hair with henna in the past.

Going over chemically treated hair with PURE HENNA powder won't do anything to it, trust me. Yes, you might get funky colors due to the natural red dye mixing with whatever color you've got on first but it won't...melt it. The problems we hear about henna with chemically treated hair results from using "henna" hair dyes that are 80% chemicals and 20% henna. Now you need to know your henna though - most people out there who aren't familiar with henna won't be able to tell the difference between a bag of true henna powder and a box of chemicals. Do your research first.

And henna's delightful for hair because it conditions it. It helps with dandruff. It leaves a delicious red tint. Hardly anyone's allergic to it. You can also use it to draw pretty patterns on your skin.

I would strongly advise against it; henna coats the hair shaft and cannot be removed once it is on the hair; it has to be grown out and that's why the hair looks so shiny, but it is not necessarily healthy. You cannot colour over it; if you try to bleach over it you will not be able to lighten it very many shades and the result will be very uneven. From a stylist's point of view, hennaed hair is a nightmare to work on and I personally would not attempt any chemical service on a client who has put henna on her/his hair.

As henna does not behave like the colours used by professional stylists or those sold in drugstores, it is very difficult to determine what the end result might be ahead of time, (although brown/dark auburn hair usually comes out okay colour-wise). I have personally seen the colours mentioned by Zorba above my in hairstyling career, especially back in hairstyling school where I saw lots of tearful teenagers in big hats weekly.

If you want shiny healthy hair, then get healthy hair. Regular trims will keep split ends at bay and using a shampoo and conditioner appropriate for your hair type and environment is important; don't forget to deep condition/moisturize at least once a week. The more stress you put on the hair the more fragile it will become and the more care it will require. Chemical treatments, heat styling, UV exposure, pollution, hard/chlorinated water and diet all affect the health of the hair, so these factors need to be considered when choosing your haircare and styling products. To have truly healthy hair takes work, but it is worth it :-)

everyone's different so unless you are really daring, you won't know how it will work for you unless you try it

I've been henna'ing ohhh going on 15 years now, last year I started having my hair dyed with blond highlights on top but it was expensive and since I'm always in the water it was a ***** to maintain

I didnt wait for the dye to grow out, I just henna'ed over it..highlights and all. But what I did was not a full treatment, I didn't saturate my hair with henna , I just globbed some on but didn't concentrate on soaking to the roots. When it washed out the highlights had turned to a fiery gold/orange and the rest was auburn. LOVED it. I'm in the water just about every day so the full intensity of the henna washes out quickly and each day you can see the old highlights peeking thru..I re-henna every two months or so.

Yes, it's non chemical (henna) but you can have allergies so it's not for everyone..I come from a long line of women who henna and our hair reacts to it beautifully. My grandma used to steam her henna with coffee and get a gorgeous burgundy color.

I've been a henna head for going on 15 years now. Instead of all the damage of chemical dyes why not talk to your stylist about having extentions put in for blond highlights. I have bright blue ones in right now and I love them. I can keep my henned hair but still get the fun of oddball or natural looking highlight streaks without all the damage to my hair that chemicals can do. My stylist suggested it a year ago when kiddo wanted to have bright purple and blue streaks in her hair but didn't want the damage of the bleach that it would take to get the bright colors. Its lovely and temporary so you don't ever get bored with them *grin*

I dyed my hair with chemical dyes for many years, and then I switched to henna for a year. The problem was that the henna over my natural color was darker than I liked it, so I broke down and died over the henna with a box o’ dye. It faded so fast (as box dyes do), but nothing funky happened to my hair. I tested a strand first in an inconspicuous spot first, and then I dyed all of it later.

Marsbar, I was wondering about adding unnatural colors of streaks over henna. I think I’ll have to try that out over the summer. I wonder if the henna would cover over that though once I get sick of it.

Gitanna or Zumarrad or anyone who's not completely committed to the "natural" route -- are there any websites you particularly recommend for advice on obtaining and maintaining healthy hair? There's a ton of information out there with a lot of different perspectives and agendas. I'd appreciate some leads to sites trained stylists trust.

In my cosmotology manual, henna is categorized as a "metallic" dye and licensed cosmos are taught never to dye over it. - Devora

FYI:
[QUOTE from VirtualHairCare Website below]

"Why does my hairdresser not like it?

Ammonia found in synthetic hair dyes (the ones your hairdresser uses) will react with metallic salts which are sometimes added to henna and due to mislabeling you cannot always be sure that the henna you used was pure (to avoid this dilemma always use only body art quality henna). The resulting possible green, excessively dry and brittle, or even melting hair that bubbles and fizzes and is unlikely to be attached to your head for long has understandably left some hairdressers very nervous. Metallic salts or compounds are the basis of the ‘Grecian Formula’ also known as progressive colors so you may want to bare this in mind.

Hair treated with henna cannot successfully be permed (permanently waved) as the absorption time of the perming lotion is increased to such a degree that chemical damage of the hair will be caused way before any permanent curls can be produced.

The resulting colour of a henna treatment is very difficult to predict and normally when you visit a salon you expect a definite out come.

Poor training, education and availability of pure henna make it not the salon owner’s first choice when it comes to stocking henna.

Finally, it is a very time consuming salon process which means cost which has to be passed onto you the customer, often making out of many peoples price range."

Originally Posted by zumarrad

What is it about henna that attracts? If it's the colour and shine, a red semi will give you that. A red semi can also be hard to get out, but not as hard as henna.

Because conventional red dyes, semi or permanent, expensive salon or drugstore, are notoriously bad for fading.

A red semi will start fading out within a week and will be badly faded in 4 weeks.

A red permanent will start fading out within a week and be badly faded in 4 weeks.

I did red semi's for years and my hair was constantly fluctuating between barely reddish brown and red. Also, even though I used a low peroxide product it gradually lightened my hair a great deal, which I did not want.

Pure henna left on for several hours imparts virtually permanent, stable color (once the color has oxidized for a couple of days). It also thickens the texture of hair to a certain degree and sometimes relaxes natural curl (which some people like). Since I started henna-ing I no longer have the fluctuating hair color I had with conventional dyes.

Originally Posted by Karnak

Marsbar, I was wondering about adding unnatural colors of streaks over henna. I think I’ll have to try that out over the summer. I wonder if the henna would cover over that though once I get sick of it.

Henna is translucent so when I went over my blue streaks with it...I got a rather muddy shade which is why I went over all of it with boxed black hair dye. I got brown over my red streaks which was okay but it didn't match the rest of my hair which was darker. I could have used indigo over it but indigo is expensive since I have to order it from overseas (I can get henna easily here) so I just went the easy route and used Swarzkopf :P It's fading now though...sigh...

Originally Posted by Devora

In my cosmotology manual, henna is categorized as a "metallic" dye and licensed cosmos are taught never to dye over it. - Devora

100% henna is NOT a metallic dye

FYI:
[quote from VirtualHairCare Website below]

"Why does my hairdresser not like it?

Ammonia found in synthetic hair dyes (the ones your hairdresser uses) will react with metallic salts which are sometimes added to henna and due to mislabeling you cannot always be sure that the henna you used was pure (to avoid this dilemma always use only body art quality henna). The resulting possible green, excessively dry and brittle, or even melting hair that bubbles and fizzes and is unlikely to be attached to your head for long has understandably left some hairdressers very nervous. Metallic salts or compounds are the basis of the ‘Grecian Formula’ also known as progressive colors so you may want to bare this in mind.

This is not true of 100% henna. It does illustrate the importance of using 100% body art quality henna though.

Hair treated with henna cannot successfully be permed (permanently waved) as the absorption time of the perming lotion is increased to such a degree that chemical damage of the hair will be caused way before any permanent curls can be produced.

The resulting colour of a henna treatment is very difficult to predict and normally when you visit a salon you expect a definite out come.

This is all true. Henna is a long-term commitment and does not mix well with other conventional chemical hair processes.

Henna also does not lighten the hair, and multiple applications can make it too dark, in which case it is very difficult to lighten it up again.

I did a color test with henna before making my long term commitment, using gathered hairs from a hairbrush.

I also did a lot of reading.

Poor training, education and availability of pure henna make it not the salon owner’s first choice when it comes to stocking henna.

Finally, it is a very time consuming salon process which means cost which has to be passed onto you the customer, often making out of many peoples price range."

In terms of availability, it is not difficult to get. No you can't get it at the drugstore or beauty supply. But there are several reputable body art quality henna dealers on line.

It is time consuming and messy.

But it is worth it to me to finally have non-fading natural looking auburn hair.

This is a .com site but it is very informative and contains alot of information you will want to know before deciding whether to use henna or not.

It also tells you how to avoid the dangerous products with metallic salts:

Henna for Hair

Yup, when I was doing hairdressing training, which was a lot of years ago now, there was no such thing as body art henna etc, at least not round these parts and not, I suspect, in most of the US either, not according to the infamous Prentice-Hall Textbook of Cosmetology. Henna did tend to have metallic stuff added to it. In fact *we* used to add metallic stuff to it (my boss used to put a copper coin in his henna mix, along with red wine and coffee.) Henna wasn't the only no-go colour - those comb-in colourants that were supposed to "restore" your natural shade (often sold to men) had metals in them too.

However, I have seen bleached hair/pure henna combos and it is an unavoidable fact that henna does coat the hair shaft permanently and it will prevent bleach lightening a lot of hair as fair as you want it to go. The hair will disintegrate not because the henna hurt it but because you can't get the henna out. An old hairdresser pal of mine was using a henna shampoo to fix her bright magenta hair (over full head bleach to cream) and when her mate tried shampoo bleaching it out, the hair gave out before the colour did.

Fortunately it was 1983 so she cropped it and turned up to work in a black smoking jacket and looked like Annie Lennox for a while.

Originally Posted by zumarrad

Yup, when I was doing hairdressing training, which was a lot of years ago now, there was no such thing as body art henna etc, at least not round these parts and not, I suspect, in most of the US either, not according to the infamous Prentice-Hall Textbook of Cosmetology.

Not sold as hair color maybe, but plain old pure henna has long been widely available at international groceries because it is the same stuff Indian and Middle Eastern women use for the henna art on hands and feet.

This is not to say that every small town has an international grocery, but most medium to large towns generally do.

Ultimately, I think hairdressers have more or less chosen to remain ignorant about pure henna because people who use it aren't generating them much income -- not just because it is time consuming but because people who henna don't change their hair color every month, don't get perms, don't get highlights, etc.

We imported our henna. In the early 80s there was no international grocery in my city. There was a Chinese restaurant. We did however have international quality cutters and some exceptional colourists.

I haven't been a hairdresser for 25 years but I don't think they choose to remain ignorant at all. Rather, they were, at least in my day, trained to expect a person to enter a salon with no idea what was on their head. Especially in the litigious States, I can't imagine it would go down at all well if someone came in and said "I have nothing on my hair bar purest henna", had a colour and came out fried and green because that person did not KNOW that the henna they used was not pure. There was a lot of home colouring at the time.

For that matter, I've seen henna products sold in Indian groceries that contain paradyes, so there's not necessarily a guarantee there either.

A lot of people are stupid. Or they lie. "Why no this is completely virgin hair I have never coloured it". Hence the emphasis on testing first. Unfortunately the nature of the industry means that a lot of hairdressers skip that step.