Exploring Henna

Afrobella posted about henna yesterday and Curly Nikki has a whole section on her site dedicated to her experience and love for henna!  Ever since my alopecia discovery, I wanted to give my hair a rest from the chemical dyes, so I stopped coloring my hair.  I thought I wouldn't miss having some type of color in my hair, but I was wrong (I should have known better).

So my longing for color led me to research and think more seriously about henna for quite some time now.  I think that I am going to try this out once I am officially unemployed on July 19 (doing the happy dance), just in case my hair looks crazy.  Curly Nikki's site is extremely informative and the comments from her readers are great as well.  It looks like most naturals love the henna from Mehandi.  They sell 100% pure henna and also have a very informative yet hard to navigate site (muddling your way through the site is worth it).  The free e-book is an amazing wealth of knowledge; I am still reading through it.

In terms of which henna to use, I am trying to decide between the Jamila, Ancient Sunrise Henna for African-American Hair, and Punjabi Prime (PP) varieties.  Since half of my hair is a medium/reddish brown, my fear is that I'm going to end up looking like a strawberry, so I THINK that I am leaning towards the henna specifically for African-American hair because it produces amber tones.  But I have heard great things and seen beautiful pictures of results from Jamila and PP.  Le sigh.

Besides the color, henna seems to do wonderful things to your hair!  People report that their is stronger, thicker, shinier, and at times the curl pattern is slightly relaxed (this is not permanent).  I am most excited about thickening up and relaxing my curl patter.  I will definitely blog about my experience in depth and maybe do a few videos.  Oh and don't forget, my videos for NaturallyCurly.com are up on YouTube (search by my name: Elisa Dobbins).

I was surprised to find out that some people henna several times a week.  Being that it is such a lengthy process, I can't imagine doing it that much.  But it sounds like people get hooked.  The more you do it, the more you hair benefits from the henna.

If you are a henna honey, please let me know which henna you prefer and I would love to see pictures!