Hi again guys! I know, it’s only been a day or so since you last heard from me, but I can tell you missed me.

As you may recall, I mentioned wanting to nail down a consistent realistic hair color ritual involving henna. Eventually (and as I learn more about herbal hair treatments) I would like to expand on my herbal hair treatments to focus on growth, strength, and overall health of my hair. BUT for now, I’ve got to get to the point where my haircare routine is at least keeping my color consistent.

WELL I really want to get the ball rolling and recently ordered some supplies from Henna Sooq (don’t worry, mom, I’m going to need to put in another order with your stuff anyway ^.^) **  I thought I would post a quick note on what I’ve decided to try to get my color a little more even.

Here’s  a picture of my hair currently:

Not the greatest picture perhaps, but you can still see how the top of my hair is pretty ashy and much lighter than the brown color of the bottom. I have a feeling that if it wasn’t for the forgiving nature of natural hair color, I’d have a much more obvious color problem on my hands.

So here’s what I’m going to do. As per this post, I’m going to mix about 100g total of dried herb powder. And as per this one I’m going with an 15/85 ratio of henna/indigo.

I made a bunch of the sage tea that is mentioned in the post on color and mixed up my paste to let the dye start to release overnight. I’d like to look more into what sage is used for as a hair care supplement, so I’ll post any findings on that as they come up. For now, here’s what I ended up with!

More to come!

Hey guys! I’ve been having SO much fun doing henna this summer that I haven’t been really doing much upkeep with my Self Love and pampering rituals. Over the last few months, I’ve talked to a handful of people that have expressed interest and curiosity about using henna (and other natural herbs) for coloring and conditioning your hair. So I thought I’d post a couple of quick links.

Now I’m certainly no expert (in fact, I’m still experimenting with my perfect color/frequency regimen myself) so for those of you who are the learn-while-doing type (like I am), you can follow along with me in the next few months as I tinker with my hair color and try to get some kind of semi-easy routine going. I’m not entirely sure what that means, but I’d like to try doing a few applictions within a week or two to even out my hair color. Then, hopefully I’ll have a color that I’d like to maintain and I can try to keep to at least one application per month.

I’ve been using henna and indigo on my hair for at least a year now and I have really noticed an improvement on the overall health and shine of my hair, but I haven’t kept on top of the color, and I think I’d like to change it a bit to see what happens. I’m going to do a bit of research over at Henna Sooq and Henna Caravan to weigh my options. I’ll report back with what I come up with! More specifically, I’m going to refer to this post on color:

Here are a couple of links to previous natural hair care posts:

Soapnut Hair Treatment

The ExpHAIRiment

Also be sure you’re following me on Facebook to hear about upcoming events and all of the finer (or funner) details on upcoming events and my NEW MASSAGE SPACE!!!

It’s been too long since my last blog and I am really trying not to beat myself up about it! Really, it’s silly that it’s taken me so long since I’ve got SO much in the works right now to write about! So rather than waiting for any of these things to get a blog post of their own (which is what I had been kindof doing), let’s just have a few quick updates, shall we? Yes, lets. ^.^

When last we met, I had expressed curiosity about the Soapnut Hair treatment. Since then, my supplies from Henna Sooq arrived, which happened to include said soapnuts! I followed their directions for the 100g package and got about a half gallon of the liquid.  I then pranced merrily to the food processor to whip up some lovely foam! After that, it was off to the shower where with this foam- and only this foam- I’d make my hair so silky and shiny I couldn’t believe it!

After doing a bit more research, I learned that you can use the liquid only as a shampoo, and you can use the nuts themselves for a variety of different things. Check out this link! Neat!

Of course, the soapnut treatment was also a cleansing prep before my next henna/indigo hair dye application. I used the same ratio of indigo to henna, but added some amla powder this time for cooler tones, shine, and curl. I’ll post photos soon before it changes too much, but it came out nearly black! I’m sure it will lighten as I wash it, but so far I absolutely love it!

The above photos were from a henna party that I did last week for a friend. It was oodles of fun and I didn’t even get to henna everybody there! I can’t wait for my next one.

I also can’t wait for this Saturday! I’ll be hosting a Henna Workshop at 9 Muses Studio from 1-3! I’ve never hosted a workshop before, and I don’t know that I’ll be the most scholarly instructor since I’m still learning so much about henna and the arts and culture that surrounds it, but I figure this will be a great way to jump in and share what I *do* know with people! Very exciting.

Currently I’m working on a handout and some other materials for the class. I plan on touching on some of henna’s history as well as come of the meaning in symbols from various cultures. Honestly, narrowing down the subject matter for the class is going to be tricky for me. As I’ve been gathering my sources and compiling all of this wonderful info, I just keep finding more and more fascinating info. Somehow I always seem to fall in love with such expansive topics with so many different facets!

SO. Those of you that know me are aware that I’m a tad “self-indulgent” (in the best possible way, of course ^.~). I totally love finding new ways to pamper myself.  The more simple, luxurious ways to make yourself feel nurtured, pampered, and gorgeous, the better- right? Right. After all, taking some time to really pay attention to making yourself feel lovely is REALLY important- but that’s a rant for another day. ^.^

Lately I’ve been curious about ways to really indulge my hair. A while ago I started using henna and indigo to color my hair. While I am quite happy with the results so far, I’m still craving some kind of deep cleanse/condition ritual that will help my hair feel silky, or help with volume and curl, etc. Since I’ve started using henna on my hair, it’s gone from dry to greasy and oily, back to dry….. I think it’s started to level out (I also think I need to try a new shampoo). I also feel like I’m shedding quite a bit of it since, but that may also just be that it’s darker, and getting longer, too.

So here I am, considering a little pampering hair ritual and I thought I would just ask you guys! What do you do to condition/pamper your hair? Oils? Masks? Home-made conditioner? Mayo? What?  Also: Has anyone out there ever used Soapnuts? I’m thinking about trying them out before I dye my hair next (which should be soon). Here’s a video from HennaSooq (who just redid their website, btw. I haven’t gotten to spend much time there yet- but I totally love it so far!) Let me know what you think!

So those of you that have known me for any extended length of time have probably known me with several colors of hair, including pink, purple, blue, several shades of red, and my favorite, teal. I haven’t dyed my hair in quite some time. Mostly, this was because I have been making an effort to stop using chemicals on myself, and i wanted to see what my natural color was like. I’d also resisted using henna on my hair because I don’t really want to be a redhead. What I DID want was the conditioning benefits that several of my friends are enjoying from using henna on their hair.

So after a *teensy* bit of research and a fair amount of pondering, I decided I would do the Henna + Indigo recommendation from Henna Caravan. I followed the directions to mix my paste for a dark brown color. Sadly, I didn’t get to take good “after” pictures the first time around but I was able to grab a couple of before and after shots from this application. My hair was only a bit lighter the first time around, so you can try to imagine the difference… similar result, just less drastic the second time around.

Again, pardon the quality of the pictures, they were snapped with my phone in my dining room

The paste weighed a TON and I slept with it on overnight. You can see in the before pictures that my hair was a bit greasy looking. I’d been noticing it was much oilier than usual the past couple of weeks. I just switched my shampoo/conditioner, so that could be a factor, but I’m not sure why it’s happening. Hopefully in the next several months, I’ll learn a thing or two about taking good care of my hair. The henna/indigo seems to have stopped the oil problem for now.

Here are the shots from yesterday, the day that the paste was removed:

I think its a bit redder this time. I didn’t have as much indigo to use as I did the first time. Overall, though, I really like it. Its really soft and very shiny. My favorite part- not greasy anymore. I <3 henna.