Drum roll please.....
The Allergy test did fine!! I'm not allergic to this crop of henna. Hooray! My skin did stain a teensy bit, apparently my skin the same color as the 2 hour staining time. haha!
But here's the thing. I read about the "release" time for the dye... and I was a little confused. With Chamomile [click here for info about chamomile and henna] ( Some people use Green tea or Chamomile, I chose Chamomile for its conditioning properties and mildness on the hair as opposed to lemon juice, which may over dry the hair. Both are still acidic enough to release the dye.)
But I never saw the release! It stayed a dark brown the entire time. Was that the release? I think it may have been since my arm has a faint brown henna stain on it. I thought it would take at least 4 hours. Apparently the dye loses its potency past the peak time. ( See the chart ) .
So I waited until just now, 9 hours later, and it looks the same. No change in the "cake batter-like substance". I still have to check out my mock "overnight" results. I let the henna gloss and full strength henna sit on for 9 hours. This is about the equivalent of an overnight leave in. I froze the batch and decided to just analyze the pieces done immediately, since their release probably happened at the peak time and I got the best stain possible somewhere in the first 1-4 hours of the process.
Doing the reading, it looks like I may have let my henna sit too long for a good application on my hair. Apparently using strong, hot tea made the dye release immediately, and that explains the weak stain on my arm. The hair results are obvious though. I would picture them here, but the camera did not pic up the color very well so all you'd be looking at is twisted hairballs with neat little labels. :) I did have a control batch of hair to compare them to, once rinsed and dried ( no Deep condition afterward for either ) the results were:
Henna Gloss - The hair is soft and shiny. The color was noticeably red in the sun, and just lighter brown looking in regular light. The smell was mostly conditioner, but a faint henna smell.
Full Strength Henna - Soft and shiny. Only SLIGHTLY drier than the gloss hair. Color was the EXACT same as the gloss hair. I actually had to smell them to tell them apart at one point, because I dropped them by accident. .
Control hair: MY hair is soft and shiny. The henna'd hair was not different in feel... possibly a little stiffer than my hair. It felt stronger, like it would take more effort to break it or tear it. My hair is extremely soft and breaks with an eyelash batt.. so this is a good thing. My hair is much duller in color, more brown/black with natural red highlights from the sun. It has always has a reddish brown tint. Once I get good at this henna thing I think I will try the two/tone indigo on the bottom look.
Conclusion:
My hair seems to take well to the color and my skin is not allergic. Hooray! I will make sure if I'm using hot tea again to let it cool a bit before mixing with the henna, to give it a chance to release a little slower on the times I plan on leaving it overnight. ( And to not burn my head!) I do think, however, that I probably dont need the overnight time. It looks like warm/cold chamomile releases ( refer to research link above ) within 1-2 hours. I could probably do this on a Sunday after church at least 4-6 hours and then do my DT with a leave-in conditioner in a twist out overnight.
On the other hand I kinda wanted to follow Nikki's regimen to the letter, especially since all the vids I've seen of folks that have done that tend to get the same results. Maybe I will leave in overnight. I only get one night out a week anyway! Perhaps kids movie night will now also be Mommy Henna night too!
I wanted to save the batch and try to thaw it for later use on my head when I was ready... but I'm thinking I will chuck that batch and start from scratch. :/ Ah well. Hope this was helpful!
Bless ya real good!,
Maya
.
The Allergy test did fine!! I'm not allergic to this crop of henna. Hooray! My skin did stain a teensy bit, apparently my skin the same color as the 2 hour staining time. haha!
But here's the thing. I read about the "release" time for the dye... and I was a little confused. With Chamomile [click here for info about chamomile and henna] ( Some people use Green tea or Chamomile, I chose Chamomile for its conditioning properties and mildness on the hair as opposed to lemon juice, which may over dry the hair. Both are still acidic enough to release the dye.)
But I never saw the release! It stayed a dark brown the entire time. Was that the release? I think it may have been since my arm has a faint brown henna stain on it. I thought it would take at least 4 hours. Apparently the dye loses its potency past the peak time. ( See the chart ) .
So I waited until just now, 9 hours later, and it looks the same. No change in the "cake batter-like substance". I still have to check out my mock "overnight" results. I let the henna gloss and full strength henna sit on for 9 hours. This is about the equivalent of an overnight leave in. I froze the batch and decided to just analyze the pieces done immediately, since their release probably happened at the peak time and I got the best stain possible somewhere in the first 1-4 hours of the process.
Doing the reading, it looks like I may have let my henna sit too long for a good application on my hair. Apparently using strong, hot tea made the dye release immediately, and that explains the weak stain on my arm. The hair results are obvious though. I would picture them here, but the camera did not pic up the color very well so all you'd be looking at is twisted hairballs with neat little labels. :) I did have a control batch of hair to compare them to, once rinsed and dried ( no Deep condition afterward for either ) the results were:
Henna Gloss - The hair is soft and shiny. The color was noticeably red in the sun, and just lighter brown looking in regular light. The smell was mostly conditioner, but a faint henna smell.
Full Strength Henna - Soft and shiny. Only SLIGHTLY drier than the gloss hair. Color was the EXACT same as the gloss hair. I actually had to smell them to tell them apart at one point, because I dropped them by accident. .
Control hair: MY hair is soft and shiny. The henna'd hair was not different in feel... possibly a little stiffer than my hair. It felt stronger, like it would take more effort to break it or tear it. My hair is extremely soft and breaks with an eyelash batt.. so this is a good thing. My hair is much duller in color, more brown/black with natural red highlights from the sun. It has always has a reddish brown tint. Once I get good at this henna thing I think I will try the two/tone indigo on the bottom look.
Conclusion:
My hair seems to take well to the color and my skin is not allergic. Hooray! I will make sure if I'm using hot tea again to let it cool a bit before mixing with the henna, to give it a chance to release a little slower on the times I plan on leaving it overnight. ( And to not burn my head!) I do think, however, that I probably dont need the overnight time. It looks like warm/cold chamomile releases ( refer to research link above ) within 1-2 hours. I could probably do this on a Sunday after church at least 4-6 hours and then do my DT with a leave-in conditioner in a twist out overnight.
On the other hand I kinda wanted to follow Nikki's regimen to the letter, especially since all the vids I've seen of folks that have done that tend to get the same results. Maybe I will leave in overnight. I only get one night out a week anyway! Perhaps kids movie night will now also be Mommy Henna night too!
I wanted to save the batch and try to thaw it for later use on my head when I was ready... but I'm thinking I will chuck that batch and start from scratch. :/ Ah well. Hope this was helpful!
Bless ya real good!,
Maya
.
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