My First Henna

I’ve heard a lot of talk about henna over the years while scouring the Internet for information about natural hair (and getting ammunition for my product junkieism). Well, I finally took the plunge. I bought the henna from a website that seems to be recommended by everyone on the Internet, and I THOUGHT it was a good place to buy my mixtress supplies, which was fine until this last time. I won’t mention any names, but if you have looked on any natural hair vlog, blog, forum or website, I’m sure you heard of them. I guess customer service is secondary nowadays...but I digress. Back to the point of this entry, my first henna. I took lots of pictures this time which made the process that much longer...YOU’RE WELCOME!!! I kid, I kid, but seriously it was quite a task to do my hair, take pictures and not damage my camera. Hope you enjoy :)

I did my henna treatment per instructions by Curlynikki and Naturally Curly’s Evelyn’s video here (also featured on CurlyNikki). I did a combination of the 2 methods (mostly using CN’s method and adding a few things I saw in Evelyn’s video).

I used the following ingredients:
-100 grams of Jamila henna Summer 2010 crop
-3 green tea bags
-1 ½ cups of almost boiling water
-2 tablespoons of honey
-Oyin’s Honey Hemp Conditioner (I don’t have the exact measurement, I just squeezed some in)
-Shampoo
-Conditioner
-A shirt, you don't mind getting dirty
-A pair of disposable gloves


I poured the package of henna into a plastic bowl. Then I placed the tea bags and the water into a pourable measuring cup to steep for 5 minutes. I then slowly poured the tea into the henna, stirring as I went along to get a cake batter consistency. Next, I added the honey and conditioner, put the top on the bowl to sit while I washed and conditioned my hair. I washed my hair with a mix of Dr. Bronner’s baby mild liquid soap and Oyin’s Honeywash and conditioned with a cheapy conditioner (Suave Naturals Tropical coconut). I was so caught up in taking pictures of the hair that I didn’t photograph the steps prior, I’m getting better though as you will see below.

These first two pictures are after I shampooed and conditioned my hair. I have my hair in four sections each section plaited. The section, I'm about to apply the mixture to has been taken down.

I applied the henna to each section starting at the back forward. The pictures below are of my hair after the henna mixture has been applied to the back half of my head (craptacular angles are due to me having the wet henna gloves on).

The next pictures are of my hair completely covered with the henna. I used the entire mixture, so next time I'll be using a box and a half of the Jamila henna because my hair didn't look nearly as covered as I saw other people's.



Next I pulled all my hair to the top of my head (sorry no pictures of this, the sides kept falling as I tried to pick up the camera and needless to say, it's a GOOD thing I even finished taking pictures because it was pissing me off! Grr). Then I put on a plastic cap and a headband (don't I look like a black ninja or some ish lol)



I left the henna on my hair for 6 hours (I was thinking 4, but then I got lazy, but not lazy enough to leave it on longer as I didn't want my that much color if any to my hair)

Here are some pictures of my hair after taking off my ninja gear, before I wash the henna out

Next I filled the tub with water almost to the top and dunked my head a few times.
My Tub Before: And After:

It looked so gross, but the vast majority of the henna was in the tub, not in my hair, so I wasn't too bothered.

So now here's what my hair looked like after it was dunked in the tub but before I condition washed (co-washed) the remaining henna out of my hair. You can still see traces of henna, but it's not nearly as bad as it was before.


So I then jumped in the shower and co-washed my hair in sections twice and then applied my deep conditioning treatment (DC) which consisted of jojoba, hemp oil, coconut oil, Oyin's whipped pudding, and vitamin e oil, put on another ninja hat with cottonballs all around to keep the mess from dripping on my face and went to bed (no pictures of this either, it looked similar to the look above but with cotton balls underneath the cap on the part closest to my face). You get the idea.

I woke up and washed the deep conditioning treatment out and applied Oyin Honey Hemp Conditioner (HH) to each section. I then did a quick rinse with the plaits still in my head and then I was ready to style.


So the jury is still out as to whether or not I like henna. My hair did seem a little drier and the DC seemed to help, but it's still too soon to tell. I DO know it altered my texture at the top of my head which had these cute loose curls, and now it's just looks a frizzy mess. But my hair has different textures throughout, so wash-n-go's have always been a no-go unless I plan on looking like Boo-Boo the fool!

I braided up my hair for a braid out which will be another post later this week with more pictures.