Looking to get most variance with hennaed hair

Hello Heidi!

No problems on the long post, the more info we have the better it is.

Henna is a pain in the bum. I know it looks pretty, it's natural and all that but when, like you, people want to change it that's when it gets tricky.

As your hair is "saturated" and bleaching does you no favours all I can suggest really is a bleach bath. This is basically bleach mixed with shampoo so it's effects are diluted. It takes a while to work because of the dilution but it's kinder to your hair.

http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php?topic=995.0

If your hair is already suffering with breakage then maybe get the condition up first.

http://www.hairdyeforum.com/index.php?topic=845.0

Once your hair is in better condition you can bleach bath once a week, condition in between to keep up the strength of your hair. That should, hopefully help to strip out any henna that's left behind.

The other problem with henna is that if you decide to use a box dye you can't do it unless ALL of the henna is out of your hair. Henna contains salts which react badly with box dyes. The dyes on Beeunique are vegetable based and won't react with henna.

I hope that's been helpful. If you need more info please ask. 🙂

Hi Mathurine,

Wow thanks for the quick and detailed reply. I was well aware of the pros and cons of henna even before I dove deep in it. Maybe I should have said that too, but I'm not looking for a way to get rid of all the henna (mission impossible), I actually quite like it. I'm just little unsatisfied with how dark and uniform it looks, and how the reds tend to disappear from time to time. So I don't want to replace everything with veg dyes, but to jazz up the color.

I thought of coloring the layer close to the neck with black, and bleaching just few sections near the part on top to deepen the contrast, but I'm not too sure if it turn out well. Or put bleached streaks in the hair around the face, or bleach the underlayer of the fringe area or something. I would love to add different colors too, so I wondered what dyes could still show well on my hair.

I loved the shampoo/bleach idea, I think I'll try it next time I play with bleach.  ;D

btw, I use 100% pure henna, no metallic salts. I can switch to box dyes at any given point, I just never do because the results never match with the damage they cause.  ::)

You certainly sound very informed about your choices, that's never a bad thing!

Well then all I can suggest is that you try the bleach bath, get some streaks or do the underlayer and play with it, see what you can do. Sadly it's not something that I'm very well versed with as not many people on here have tried henna, I've certainly never used it. You're probably much more of an expert than anyone else here, lol!

lol every hair forum needs their very own henna expert.  ;D

I'm going to try the bleach bath on the tips of my former fringe today (which is now way too long to be called a fringe  :P), and see how my hair takes it, before I move to more valuable sections.

I do wonder what dyes/colors specifically could work over dark reddish brown hair or over bright orange? From reading around here it seems like Directions Plum and Stargazer Rogue work well over unbleached hair in general.

I would suggest bleaching the roots where there is no henna.  I don't know anything about henna but when I bleached over permanent dye it ended up really damaged and whatever the colour damaged hair is bad!

Henna is not like a regular dye, it doesn't damage hair and make it much easier to total when you try to bleach it. But it's almost just as bad, because it takes more bleach to get it light enough, than virgin hair.

My hair doesn't seem to handle bleach well in any case. I tried the bleach soak (on few locks of hair) - I left it on for 40 minutes or so, it barely shifted the color but yielded ALOT of damage and splitting ends. Bleach seems like not much of an option for me.  :-[

If bleach is a no go then maybe chat with a hairdresser and ask their advice. Perhaps there's a method to it that we don't know about. If there is though can you let us know in case anyone else comes in with the same question? Thanks. 🙂

Ahh, i henna'd my hair for a while, but I'd never do it again. It left it great condition but i get bored so easily and then had to wait for it to grow out as bleaching doesn't do anything to it! I had quite good results with the henna/indigo mix from Lush. mmm natural. 🙂

Ooh Lush, love 'em! Got a shop near me in Chichester and I spend hours in there!

AnnaMonkey, I hear you! Henna is a commitment indeed. Though it's easier if your hair is short, you can grow it out much faster.

Mathurine, hairdressers are very misinformed about henna in general. I've searched everywhere over the web, and even the most knowledgeable people agree there's nothing that can remove henna effectively from hair. 

I've heard of a few successful and unsuccessful attempts at bleaching henna with sun-in.