How to: Henna Your Natural Hair

Walk you through it:

 Rainbow Henna in Persian Mahogany from Whole Foods about $6

1. greyish green powder put into glass bowl

 2. boil some tea (black or green) and let steep for a few minutes

3. measure 1 cup of the tea and pour in with henna powder & mix well

 4. add about 2 tablespoons of olive oil or essential oil of choice

5. [some say, so i did] add lemon or lime juice to help seal the color

6. cover mixture with cling wrap and let sit for 10-20 minutes

In the time my mixture sat, I decided to go and thoroughly wash my hair so there would be no obstacles to the color really taking to each individual strand of hair. I used a shampoo that's both shampoo and conditioner because I knew I would be deep conditioning eventually at the end of the henna process. My hair was very clean and soft though. Henna applies best to clean and damp hair.

7. shampooed and quick conditioned with 2 in 1 Garnier Fructis shamp/cond and used wide tooth comb to gently detangle (that whole "finger combing" thing is for the birds with my hair texture)

8. squeaky clean hair gently dried with an old t-shirt (natural hair care tip)

9. uncovered mixture now looks thick and almost muddy after sitting

10. USE RUBBER GLOVES (henna STAINS skin [hence its use in makeup]) and apply vaseline along hair line, nape and ears

 11. apply henna mixture throughout entire head front to back. It will feel a bit heavy.

 12. wrap hair in plastic (cling wrap works best or plastic bags from the store, but shower caps are too loose) to process the color from 30 minutes to longer for best results. I kept mine on for about 3 hours whilst doing other things.

                                                     
13. Washed it with the same shampoo above and conditioned with Organix hydrating Macadamia Oil conditioner and applied the shea butter to wet hair along with the got2b heat protector & Castor Oil for my edges
                                                    
14. blown out hair
                                                    
 15. "protective styling" <--- 4="" about="" and="" br="" buns="" days...="" doing="" exhausted="" for="" from="" hands="" i="" my="" proceeded="" rock="" them="" these="" to="" were="">___________________________________________________________________________________

It's been 2 weeks and I washed my hair twice in that time. Winter is really just generally an unfriendly time for hair no matter what you got in or not. The henna made my hair feel thicker, but i'm not too sure whether the color of highlight is visbile because everything is just dark and almost gloomy :/

Twas fun though!

Gonna do a Coconut virgin oil deep condition because temps are expected to be in the 60s tomorrow so i would like to wear my hair out. Update to follow this!!

:)

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*@afropolitaine*