Fucking henna disaster *SIREN OF DESPAIR*

[LoserDust]

So, my hair has blonde forever (natural dark dirty blonde)

I'm apparently having a midlife crisis because I took it upon myself to buy some henna in Lush and wack it on my head. My hair was previously balayged (sp?) so dark roots and light blonde lengths.

My hair was ginger. Nay, ORANGE. Not actually a horrid colour but definitely didn't suit me. In an attempt to tone down the orange I got MORE henna from lush (caca brun) I know have almost black roots and ginger/reddish brown lengths. It looks fucking awful.

I know 'henna is permanent' etc etc but is there ANYTHING I can do apart from letting it fade/grow out? My hair is fairly strong so am prepared to bleach just not sure where to start with getting this shite out of my hair.

Ironically my hair feels fabulous

It looks nice!

If you really hate it though DO NOT BLEACH! I ended up with a full head of khaki coloured highlights when the hairdresser forgot to ask me about previous henna usage...

You will either have to see a professional or go darker if you want to DIY it.

Looks fine to me though so I vote leave it.

It looks blonde (and lovely)

So either take a better picture of your 'gingery' locks or shut up

Looks gorgeous!

It looks lovely

Another one who thinks it looks lovely :)

Lush henna was very very permanent on my hair and I ended up cutting it out to get rid of it, it never faded at all (over a year of growing).

Do not bleach it, like everyone else has said it will go green, and not even a pretty green, just a mouldy khaki.

My hairdresser hates Lush henna says it is the work of the devil, has caused many a fuck up in the salon when clients haven't told her that they have used it in the past, then she ends up having to sort it out, they have even had problems with people using the shampoo that has henna in and then trying to bleach over the top.

try washing with washing powder moxed with baby shampoo or head and shoulders. lather rinse repeat.

i just had a major mess up of my own hair and used wella colourcharm in white lady (i think) from amazon moxed with 6% peroxide. my hair was yellow stroke orange now a lovely beige blonde.

i read fudge purple shampoo is amazing. may be worth a try over the gingery colour.

fwiw i too think it looks lovely.

Your hair will NOT go green if you bleach it!!!

The only henna which reacts with bleach and other chemicals contains metallic salts, and most henna commercially available (and definitely ALL natural henna) does NOT contain metallic salts.

In fact bleach will make your hair go redder, not green (opposites on the colour wheel).

I have hennaed and bleached my hair for 30 years, and have NEVER had green hair, despite misinformation from hairdressers I've seen in the past. They are not trained in colour and henna, to enough of a degree to say this.

OP your hair will require several bleaches to remove the red. It can (and has) been done, but you will end up with fried hair.

It will naturally fade with time, but will always have a reddish hue (it isn't truly semi-permanent).

I think it looks nice. However, when I dyed my highlighted hair red (not with Henna), I hated it. I used loads of washing up liquid and mixed with baking soda, it seemed to work. It made my head itch a bit so ended up just washing a few times a day with washing up liquid. It took a week or two but most of the colour faded and then I had it highlighted again.

ouchieouchie my hair had only been dyed with Lush henna and it very much did go green when bleached by my hairdresser...... as did my friends when she bleached it at home, the henna boards are filled with similar stories

It's not too bad!

Oil before shampooing or Head and Shoulders might help, but henna is a bugger to shift.

The ginger will die down a lot over the next few days.

I went Irn bru orange but 3 days later was a very dark red.

But I think it looks lovely in the photo too.

This is me the morning after and then a few days later. I started off a brunette so the ginger was a big surprise.

OvO - its beautiful. Now that my hair has deepened a little and my roots and lengths have decided to (kind of) blend into each other it's not actually a bad colour. A really pretty auburn that I would look at on someone else and thank 'ooh that's nice'

It's just not me. I feel like I look old. Put some slap on this morning and look more refreshed but not as much as I would when I was blonde IYSWIM. DH has always preferred me blonde and despite his protestations I can tell he's not keen. Which makes me feel shit. I know I don't look my best and I can't just chuck some colour b4 on my head

It's not my worst hair disaster by a long mile but it's the least fixable

OMG it's amazing. I would embrace it and buy a lot of rocking new clothes.

Just reading this-colour b4 will not work on henna. It's only for chemically colored hair.

Have you thought about trying the oil OP?

What kind of oil are we talking about? I know going back to blonde is going to be a complete shitter and probably kill my hair so might have to just write it off to experience BUT would quite like to lighten it. It's a bit darker than it appears in the picture

Remove henna with oil

Click that link OP, seems like a mixture of three types.

At least it can't do any harm.

Thank you, I will try that.

It's my own fault, the girl in Lush warned me it was a bugger to get out. I just had delusions of being all Karen Gillan-esque but it's more Cilla Black

Karen Gilllan shaved her head a year or two back for a film role.

Colour B4 states it won't work on henna but I have used it and it did lighten it considerably, and didn't reoxidise. Others have also had success, you can see that on Google too if you do a quick search.

Wow great. Can I just ask, did it just lighten the henna or did you have neon orange hair and then cover it?

I had neon orange hair when I used it before and that was with chemical dye. I'm assuming the henna would be even more stubborn

It was still warm but I was going back to blonde so had it bleached and toned after. Had explained to the hairdresser about the henna and she did a strand test, luckily didn't go green so went ahead. Did leave a fortnight between colour b4 and the hairdressers though. I was a light strawberry blonde after colour b4, wasn't a colour I liked but I could live with it short term. It wasn't neon.

I have the same problem with my roots. Do not use any colour or bleach on your hair! I had a strand test from s slob and my hair dissolved and went like cotton wool! Any developer will burn your scalp and your hair would proberly break off!
Just leave your roots and use olive oil. On roots and a l oreal roots spray !! To match roots (the spray) in time they will blending (the roots and oil your hair with different oils is coconut,olive,almond, heated. Leave in over night!! Then wash out!!
Hood luck.

This thread is over three years old @Claudiamcdonald