The Henna Guys Hair Dye - Natural Red Color, Conditions & Covers Grays - 400g Pure Henna Powder

I've been using this brand for about 6 years now. Always consistent and always great color. Love the product.1. You don't date henna you MARRY it. Be prepared to be a redhead until the color grows out of your hair. That's a plus #1 for we natural redheads who aren't ready to go white or want to enhance our own natural color. Plus #2 is that it's doesn't fade like boxed dyes. Henna red stays henna red unless you go out in the sun alot and then it sun bleaches just like your natural color. Gorgeous.2. This is NOT hard. It's intimidating until you try it, but it's not hard. Don't feel that you have to add tons of other things to your mix. Filtered water and a little raw honey is all you need. Mix until it's the consistency of yogurt, not mud. You want a product that will apply easily, stick but not run off your head. Add a little at a time until you get that consistency.3. Make your mix and then let the mixture sit, covered, for about 8-12 hours. That should give you a good dye release. I've heard that using hot water will give a faster dye release but I don't have experience with that. I use room temperature water.4. Use a hair dye brush to apply the dye and section your hair if you can. This technique works especially well if you are just doing a root touch up. Plus #3 you only have to dye your roots to keep your lovely color. Enjoy that red for the next few years depending on how short your hair is and how fast it grows because henna doesn't fade or wash out. I've gone as long as 3 years before I did my whole head again and that was because of the sun lightening my hair so much. Note: if you don't have help and can't section your hair, then squishing it in all over will suffice. Just try to make sure you have all your roots or roots and length well covered.5. Keep a misting bottle handy. Henna works best if it stays moist. If you have a lot of thick, long hair you may appreciate that misting bottle.6. Plastic film wrap. Mist one last time and wrap your head well with the wrap. Then I cover that with a plastic shower cap. The product that dries will flake off onto anything around you. Another reason to keep it moist.7. I leave my henna on for at least 2 hours. I prefer to leave it for 3. I do NOT sleep in it as it will just dry out and if the cap slips it will be all over your bed.8. If your henna stinks then something is wrong. Maybe what you mixed it with, apple cider vinegar makes it smell horrible. Henna and water should smell very similar to fresh hay. Not offensive, not overpowering.9. You can add Amla powder if you have curly hair and I DO advise that. Henna can relax curl for some people. It did for me. Amla brought it back and is a wonderful conditioner. 3 parts henna to 1 part amla is all you need.10. Rinse well. The water should look greenish brown. Rinse twice or three times. Then liberally apply a good natural conditioner and 'condition' wash your hair. Let your hair soak it up and set for a few minutes before a final rinse. My hair is always super nice after I do my Henna/Amla application and will stay that way for up to 5 days after.11. If you are using pure henna, which is what Henna Guys sell, then you will have a lovely coppery red that will oxidize just a bit darker. If you want a darker red reapply the same way in a few days. Henna on top of henna goes darker.Good luck, have fun and enjoy your Henna Guys gorgeous ginger hair.
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The henna seemed to dye my hair well but I did not follow the instructions on the package. I imagine anyone who said it didn't work or didn't work very well wasted their henna following the package instructions (the company's fault--not theirs!). The instructions on the back of the outer package say to mix with warm tap water and then go ahead and start applying. I instructions that came on a separate piece of paper still said to mix with water but wait an hour or two before applying. Two separate sets of instructions but I don't think either got it right.Henna needs something acidic to bring out its dye. I used to mix lemon juice and water (plus a variety of other things: tea, cloves, etc) in and then realized the water was unnecessary and just diluted the dye. I've found the best mix is the simplest: just add lemon juice to the powder until you get that well-blended mashed potato consistency. I think some other people use apple cider vinegar which I've never tried but I imagine works also. It just has to be acidic.Then you need to let the dye sit for a long time. Heat moves things along so in a really warm environment (out in the sun during Texas summer for example) 1 to 2 hours might be enough but I generally just mix it up the evening before and apply the next day. A trick I learned early on was to put the mix in a ziplock bag and put it on a paper towel. When the paper towel starts getting an orange stain on it then your dye is released and you're ready to go. There's also a noticeable earthy henna smell when it's ready.Once applied I always wait about 3 hours before rinsing. The directions say to rinse in cold water not to shampoo for a few days which, again, I used to do but you know where that extra dye ended up? On my clothes, bedding, etc. Now I use warm water (because cold showers are no fun) and just go ahead and shampoo once I've gotten out as much as I can by hand and I end up with the same level of red as before. Maybe a little more sticks if you wait a couple days before shampooing but I've never noticed a difference and worrying about everything else in my house getting dyed isn't worth it to me.I have some grey hairs mixed in my hair which is most obvious from the top. Unfortunately I forgot to take a top view before picture so I found an old picture from before I was henna-ing my hair regularly of my natural color--kind of dull, boring brown. The post-dye pictures are from the top and you can tell which hairs were grey based on their brightness. So it does cover the grey in a fun, bright, highlight kind of way. I love how it does that. :) It also makes those grey hairs, which tend to be kind of dry and have a life of their own, more soft and manageable. As you can see in the day after picture the top inch or two (where my hair had grown out from my last henna-ing) has that orangeness to it and then after 5 days it's settled down to more of a reddish but still with those little grey-to-lighter-red highlights. And of course I took these pictures in the sun which shows it at it shiniest. :)One other note on this particular henna: The listing says that none of their henna is more than a year old. The package I ordered in March 2016 says packaged November 2014. Try a year and four months, guys! But it still worked so there ya go.
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