before the whole mess:


after first step with ahmad (pure henna, posed 2h) on length andbrown herbal henna on roots:



after second step (60% soft black, 40% dark brown, and a very cold one):



i think i still have to wash out tons of indigo lol. thecolor is an almost black with  hereand there henna still showing through.

Incredible Styg--I love the color and shine.  I understand why you like henna so much.   

Quote:

i wasn't sure my virgin hair color was dark enough for such a big difference in value. in theory gray/white hair or very light hair is better hennaed first before putting the final color. henna is the only thing that can change your value. but herbal henna colors contain henna as well though. so i tried to put twice a herbal henna on my roots cuze i wanted to check if it would work equally well and i am rather satisfied. i did that mostly cuze i wanted absolutely to avoid having red showing through at my roots since it's not easy to get especially the herbal henna everywhere.

You have gorgeous hair!!!  Thanks for sharing the photos.   8)

I have some I need to get developed.  I'll be putting them up soon!

Lynn

i've been rinsing for at least 45 min every time i hennaed and the last time i washed at least three times with conditioner and did several vinegar rinses (and that in an icecold bathroom    )
i have only slight marks on my pillow, most of my clothes are black so i don't care lol. i just noticed i got slightly blue hands while oiling massively (to try to undo the overdontioning). i've washed twice since and that seems to have stopped too.

i finally bought pure and herbal henna from "everyday mehndi", they sell mostly body art quality henna:
http://www.everydayhenna.com/powder_types.html#ahmad
http://www.everydayhenna.com/hair_dyes.html
i used ahmad ( a pure, supposedly darkest staining henna) because i wasn't sure two applications with just a herbal henna would be enough to cover the big difference in value. but since i chickened out and didn't want to end up with partially red roots i finally did use twice the herbal henna on my roots (if you do just one application, the difference is usually just very subtile) and put the ahmad on my length cuze i wanted to see what pure henna wuld give on my hair (well, i had bought it anyhow so) and after turning it almost black that would have been impossible (i suppose i could use the ahmad as a neutral henna now).
of course i did strand tests, i wasn't entirely sure if it would react weirdly with the chemical dye in my hair. both their dark brown (which is not at all the awfully light and warm brown you get from a bottle!) and soft black gave more or less the same result on my strand tests: very dark and cold brown, or a warm black (for many people anything dark is black, that is how a friend called my color lol).