Fun with Lush Henna on Relaxed Hair

I want to start by saying this is my first blog posting ever.  I was compelled to write this because of the lack of information about this subject with regard to chemically treated, African-American hair.  I hope you, my reader, will find this information useful. 

I had been searching for a way to color my fragile, relaxed hair without completely destroying it.  I have tried all kinds of semi-permanent colors (which only last a couple weeks), demi-permanent color (which fried my hair because my hairdresser put it on immediately after a relaxer) and permanent colors (which either were OK or caused major breakage with no explanation) with mixed results.  As others who have relaxed hair can relate to, my hair is dark brown (almost black) naturally but has lightened due to the harsh chemicals in the relaxer.   Here is my hair before (6+ weeks post relaxer and starting to feel like puffy helmet hair):

 For the above picture, I washed my hair let it air dry, added some argan oil that I bought from Amazon.com and styled it with a curling iron.  Now, I am always trying to spare my hair from too much heat, even though it doesn't get as straight as it could.  I used this curling iron on setting 18 out of 35.

 My desire was to have a nice color like my natural color without the telltale relaxer lightening.  I came across some interesting information online about using henna.  When I was growing up, I remember my mom specifically telling me I could not use henna on my relaxed hair or it would melt it, so initially I was very scared at the thought.  I found some articles online where I learned that as long as it wasn't mixed with nasty chemicals, henna would actually help, not harm my hair.  Being familiar with Lush Cosmetics and trusting their products ( I am in love with their Karma Kream and the Flying Fox shower gel), I decided to try their henna first in Caca Noir.

I followed the directions on the package to the letter.  I did not pre-grate the product (as I read others have done) and did not add anything to it (I've read about people adding oil, egg yolk, lemon, honey and other stuff). I started out with half the bar (3 squares) and covered it with boiling water in a 2.5qt Pyrex bowl.  I used a wooden spoon to help break it down and "cooked" the mixture double boiler style with my bowl sitting on a pot of boiling water.   I added water and kept stirring until it was the consistency of brownie batter.  The photo above is actually of square number 4 being cooked, but I want you to get an idea.  I ran out 3/4 of the way through my hair and had to cook up another square to start.  The henna is greenish and smells like weird herbs or cut grass.  Not great, but not horrible.  I think it is funny they call it caca, since that means poop and it does kind of look like baby poop.  Once I got the mixture the texture of brownie batter, I took the bowl to the bathroom to apply the stuff with the help of the mirror.  I sectioned my hair in 4 sections, put on some vinyl gloves and used a tint brush I bought at Sally Beauty Supply to apply it.

 You can see in the photos my hair at 3/4 finished, when I had to go cook some more henna and below with it all coated and looking like two large green dreadlocks.  I left the henna on for 2.5 hours before I rinsed it out.  My hair was completely stiff with dried henna in it, so I had to be very careful until it was wet down.  I stuck my head in the kitchen sink and rinsed my hair until the water was no longer green.  Then I went to the shower to get the rest of it washed out.  My hair felt fine, but there was gritty stuff all on my scalp and upon further inspection in my hair that needed to come out.  I had read in someone else's post that they used an inexpensive conditioner to "wash" the henna out of their hair, so I tried that method first.  The henna came out very easily using the conditioner.  I tried shampooing once, but it didn't seem to help and made my hair feel yucky, so I went back to the conditioner.

 I used TRESemme Naturals, pictured below, because it was about $4 for a 25oz bottle and claimed to have no silicone in it.  I wanted to avoid silicon so I could judge if the henna would make my hair shiny on its own, like others had said it would.
The conditioner worked really well and I don't think the henna was any more difficult to remove than washing out a relaxer.  I used about 1/3 of the bottle to "wash" the henna out of my hair.

 With the henna finally out of my hair, I could not wait to see the results.  Below are photos of my hair still damp, air dried and finally styled.  The air dried and styled photos were taken in front of a sunny window so you can see the maximum light.  The wet hair was taken in the bathroom as it was still night time.  Total cooking and application time was about 1.5 hours (remember I had to make two batches).  Rinse time was probably about 15-20 minutes including both sink and shower time.  My conclusion was that I love the product.  The extra time it takes to apply is well worth not frying my hair.  I have never had shiny hair without oils or silicon and you can see from my photos that my hair is actually shiny, not dull like usual.  Also, my roots don't feel as nappy and I am not feeling like I need a relaxer.  My hair is soft and moves around when I shake it (unlike before).  I only used my Instyler on medium heat, so if I was willing to flat iron or crank it up to high, my hair would be straighter and show the shine even more.  I love the henna! Caca Noir was great!  I will definitely do it again!  I hope my journey has been helpful.

After washing, hair still damp

Used for final result

you can see the back of my hair in the mirror after styling

Hair has air dried, no oil or anything applied

Hair has been styled using Instyler and Chi iron guard (no oil or silicon)