Lush henna
I used to have the kind of hair that women have nightmares about. Thin, frizzy, oily at the roots and damaged at the ends. I fought it for years, trying to tame it with one product after another while simultaneously making it worse with chemical hair dye. That’s right, I’ll admit that I’m not a natural redhead. My natural shade is a dank dishwater blond - the sort of nondescript mousy ‘color’ that doesn’t complement any skin tone.
Three years ago, I decided to take a chance on henna, even though I’d heard from various friends and hairdressers that it was a big no-no. They claimed that it was all too easy to fry your hair or get a frightening frog-green with it, but I’d heard on the LUSH forum that it just depended on the kind of henna you used (you need body art quality henna, not the stuff you see at health food stores). So, I went for the LUSH Caca Rouge Mama, the reddest shade they have.
My hair after henna: huge improvement!
Holy goddesses of shining beautiful hair, this stuff has been a miracle for me. Not only did it impart upon my woebegone tresses a sparkling, natural looking shade of auburn, it also totally transformed it after about six months of use. Maybe it’s just that I don’t torture my hair anymore with chemicals, but it’s now growing longer and stronger than ever and I can just let it air-dry with soft, voluminous, sleek results. That’s not to say that my hair is perfect – just a huge improvement over what I used to deal with.
The best part? It’s totally eco-chic. Henna is about as natural as you can get for hair color, short of sorta tinting it with some berries (good luck getting that to stick around longer than a few days!). Once I started using henna I breathed a sigh of relief that dozens of unpronounceable chemicals weren’t leaching into my scalp every month. Plus, you’re not supporting the animal testing that goes on at some big corporations’ hair dye labs.
LUSH isn’t the only source of top quality henna; you can also find it (plus TONS of great info about using henna) at Henna for Hair. Henna isn’t just for redheads either; you can get a wide range of shades using various formulations – check out the Personal Mixes page on Henna for Hair to learn more.
You can find it under the following topic(s): Cosmetiques.
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wow! love this. Your hair looks great. I want to try . . .
April 20th, 2008 at 10:20 pmWow… your hair looks great. My sister is also a fan of henna and has gorgeous waist-length red hair.
Henna is a fantastic plant product but it doesn’t seem right to imply (”Once I started using henna I breathed a sigh of relief that dozens of unpronounceable chemicals weren’t leaching into my scalp every month.”) that there are no dozens of chemicals contained in a plant such as henna and that this makes it somehow better for your scalp. Henna is full of chemicals - like every other object on Earth. If you look at the active ingredient in henna (lawsone) you’ll see that it’s made up of 2-hydroxy-1,4-naphthoquinone (Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsone); not quite unpronounceable but close.
Otherwise, nice article :-)
April 21st, 2008 at 2:01 amThanks guys!
Sasha - at the very least, henna smells a lot better! You know that gross ammonia smell that regular hair dye has? Plus, when I used to use chemical hair dye, I constantly had an irritated scalp and it was always really bad right after I dyed my hair - while the dye was on, my scalp would start to burn, ouch. Once I started using henna, the problem went away all together (shrug). Works for me! I’ve heard of some people using henna to treat scalp issues, too, like dandruff…
I think some dyes are better about that - specifically, Aveda, since they’re plant based…
April 21st, 2008 at 5:32 amHi Sasha,
The chemicals that make up organic ingredients (C6H12O6 looks scary until you realize it’s sugar! Or dihydroxy oxide? Water!!) are, of course, compounds, but they are VERY different from human-created ones, most of which have never been tested for safety! Considering people all over the world have been using henna directly on their skin for thousands of years (like in India, where it is part of traditional wedding ceremonies) vouches for it’s safety. That’s not to say that some people won’t have reactions to all kind of plants (from poison ivy to wheat) BUT they are far safer for both people and the environment. When regular hair dye washes down the drain, where does it go? Will it break down or affect the animals in that environment? Who knows? (and in some cases we do know, and it’s not good). While natural products in excess could create pollution, there is a HUGE difference in the way the ecosystem can handle natural ‘chemical compounds’ which everything from my banana to mud is made up of, and how it handles those created in a lab.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:59 amGreat column — we sell a ton of our 100% henna and organic henna shampoo and conditioner. We are so lucky to be able to color with henna. Another reason why — redheads rule!
April 21st, 2008 at 9:37 amTo view all of our redhead beauty products you can go to http://www.justforredheads.com
April 21st, 2008 at 9:40 amI am allergic to almost everything, and i never had a problem with henna :)
April 21st, 2008 at 10:32 amPLus it smells so good and feels so natural, it’s absolutely 100 times better for your head then any man made chemical hair dye could ever be. Plants are amazing! I wonder if it is common at all for people to have a reaction to henna ?
Starre,
I guess my point was more of a semantic one than you realized. The sentence I quoted in my first comment wasn’t about the safety of henna or its environmental effects. It merely implied (to me at least) through the negatively charged words “leached” and “unpronounceable” that the writer was saying chemicals are bad - without specifying what type of chemicals or where they were from. Would it not have been better for Stephanie to say she was relieved that there were no laboratory-created/manmade chemicals soaking into her scalp? Or that she preferred naturally-occurring chemical compounds?
I have more semantic issues with your comment. Saying that “all kinds” of plants are safer for people is weird - there are plenty that are just plain poisonous whether you’re allergic to them or not. And when you say that ecosystems handle chemical compounds differently depending on whether they naturally occurred or were created in a lab do you mean to say that ecosystems differentiate between the exact same chemical depending on its source? Or did you mean something “invented” in a lab?
It probably seems as though I’m being terribly picky but it bothers me when people advocating the same causes as I (environmentalism, sustainability and all that :-P) oversimplify science. Who else has seen the movie Idiocracy? The one where people of the future water their crops with Gatorade because they’ve been told and told and told that Gatorade is a good thing because “it has electrolytes” and, of course, the crops die.
April 21st, 2008 at 1:40 pmSasha,
When I said “dozens of unpronounceable chemicals weren’t leaching into my scalp every month”, I meant from chemical hair dyes. Which, yes, do contain harmful chemicals such as p-Phenylenediamine, which the EPA.gov website describes thusly:
“p-Phenylenediamine is primarily used as a dye intermediate and as a dye. Acute (short-term) exposure to high levels of p-phenylenediamine may cause severe dermatitis, eye irritation and tearing, asthma, gastritis, renal failure, vertigo, tremors, convulsions, and coma in humans. Eczematoid contact dermatitis may result from chronic (long-term) exposure in humans. In rats and mice chronically exposed to p-phenylenediamine in their diet, depressed body weights, but no other clinical signs of toxicity, were observed in several studies. No information is available on the reproductive, developmental, or carcinogenic effects of p-phenylenediamine in humans.”
I think it’s fair to say that I don’t want that leaching into my scalp every month. I didn’t intend to imply, either, that something merely being unpronounceable makes it bad.
Obviously, everything on this earth can be broken down into chemical compounds (spoke about this with a friend who’s currently taking some intensive chemistry classes for vet school just this morning) including natural substances straight out of the earth. I’d think it was clear, considering the context, that I was referring to the nasty ones in most store-bought and salon hair dyes.
And yes, I have seen Idiocracy and love it. Though I must say, I don’t see Starre’s comment (or my post, if that’s what you’re referring to) as oversimplifying science. :)
April 21st, 2008 at 1:54 pmStephanie,
Thanks for clearing that up for me :-)
April 21st, 2008 at 2:18 pmOverall, a great debate. I think many women think that whatever’s in their shampoos, hairdyes, and other regular personal care products have been tested for safety- and they haven’t! I have talked to so many women that are absolutely shocked (and some who flat-out don’t believe me) when I tell them that every human-made chemical hasn’t been tested for safety. The truth is that most of the ingredients for personal care products are on the GRAS list (literally a government acronym that means ‘generally recognized as safe’) which HAVE NOT been tested for their effects on human health or the environment. I’m sure some of them are benign, but plenty of them are not- the point is we don’t know which are which. It is certainly true that not all chemicals are automatically bad- even human created ones. What is true is that we have no idea how many of them affect us or water systems (not to mention what happens when these chemicals mix together) and that’s really disturbing to me. Some non-profit health groups have asserted that we are basically running a huge science experiment (with us as guinea pigs) on our bodies and the planet. To me, it makes sense to use basic, known ingrediets until we suss out the problems from the benigns. But right now, we just don’t know. And I think it’s time we did know. Let’s test this stuff, find out how toxic - or nontoxic- it is and THEN decide if we are going to put in on or in our bodies, but not before!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:41 pm