How I Henna My Hair : Light Mountain Red Natural Hair Dye on Medium Dark Brown Hair

Watch the video HERE.

I've been dying my hair with henna for several years now and this is what works for me to get the brightest red.

I've experimented with other colors and combinations of henna and indigo, but I keep coming back to the red, I find it so stunning, especially in the warmer months.

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Step 1:
Shower and shampoo. No conditioner. I usually do this a day in advance.

Step 2:
Mix your dye.
Add a few tablespoons of lemon juice for a brighter red.
Add hot water until the consistency is nice.
Let the mix sit for half an hour (or so) so the color can activate.

Step 3:
Prepare your work space.
Put a towel on the floor. Wear junky clothing, especially a top that you can get over your head very easily. Get plastic gloves for your hands. Get a mirror to view the back of your head. Maybe invest in a little hair dye brush for more precise application.

Step 4:
Apply the henna.
I like to start at the top and just form each section into a bun on top of my head. When my hair was shorter, I had to use clips to keep the hair up and out of the way. I've tried starting from the bottom and working up and starting from the top working down and I find starting at the top is a little easier for me personally. Then you also don't have to worry too much about running out of product toward the end, it's not a big deal if it's the underside of your hair.

Step 5:
Wrap hair in plastic wrap for a brighter red. Put a beanie on top for even more warmth and brightness. And wait. Try to keep it on for at least two hours. The longer, the better.

Step 6:
Time to rinse.
Use conditioner to rinse. I don't use shampoo for about 2 days after I henna. Rinse with conditioner many times. When you think you've rinsed for the last time, do it once more just in case. This time I rinsed three times with a cleansing conditioner.

Step 7:
Blow dry your hair so you can immediately see the results.
I have no patience. I need to see how things turned out immediately, so I almost always blow dry right afterwards. :)

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The color lasts amazingly well. It will stay bright until you're ready to do your roots again. There's no need to touch up the overall color, the only time I know it needs to be done is because my roots are getting out of hand. And when I am ready to do my roots, I will focus on them, but still drag the color through the rest of my hair too just for a little refresher.

I typically dye every 3 months, but this time around it's been a lot longer, about 6 months! Ever since the birth of my first son in May 2016, I've stretched the time between colorings more than I did before the kiddos.

I really hope this was helpful for you and you found some good tips. I've been dying my hair with henna for several years now and this is what works for me.

Love,
Alaina

John Frieda Brilliant Brunette Visibly Brighter In-Shower Treatment and Multi Tone Revealing Shampoo & Conditioner

If you've been following me awhile, you know that I have been using natural products to dye my hair for awhile now. If you just go to my "Hair" page, you'll see many posts about my hair adventures.

However, I'm tired of the maintenance and have decided I'm going to work on getting my regular hair color back before my son is born (DD 6-17-16) so I don't have to worry about my hair with a new baby.

With that being said, I decided to try out some of these brunette products from John Frieda.

In-Shower Treatment:
This stuff really works. I would say it changed my hair the full "1 shade lighter" just like the box claimed. I went from essentially black to actually brunette.
It does have a strong scent at first, but I have also never dyed my hair with anything other than henna and indigo, so those who dye their hair more regularly might not find it to be a strong scent. I just opened up the shower curtain halfway so I wasn't stuck inside that closed space with the scent.
I washed my hair with the Multi Tone Revealing Shampoo, then wrung out my hair. I put on gloves (the box didn't instruct you to do so, but from the reviews I read, people recommended it) and applied the In-Shower Treatment all over my hair. It gets foamy and feels like it penetrates well, so you don't have to be super precise with the application. I let it sit for 5 minutes and rinsed, then shampooed and conditioned as usual using the Multi Tone Revealing line again.
It did seem as though my roots were lightened quite a bit more than the lengths of my hair which have been dyed over a few times. With that being said, I think this will work wonders on virgin hair. I think my roots might have gotten two shades lighter.

Shampoo & Conditioner:
The shampoo does have sulfates, so I would only recommend this to those natural brunettes who just want to enhance their own color. Sulfates are going to kill your color. So, in my case, the sulfates are actually helpful since I trying to get back to my regular brunette hair.
Both the shampoo and conditioner have a slight tint to them, it looks like a caramel color.

Afterwards, my hair felt nice and soft and really manageable, so unlike many reviews I read, I didn't find it to be damaging or drying for my hair. Now I can't attribute the softness just to the treatment, it could also be from the shampoo and conditioner. Overall, using this whole system together, I was very happy with my results and would totally recommend to anyone looking to slightly lighten their brunette hair in a super natural looking and easy way. I will keep you posted on any long term results in the future too.

I hope this was helpful!
Love,
Alaina

Removing and Fading My Henna and Indigo Hair Color

As you probably know if you've been following me for awhile, I really got into henna last summer, then for winter plunged into the indigo world. But now I am five months pregnant and don't plan on dying my hair once my son gets here. I just don't plan on worrying about my hair and trying to maintain anything with a new baby around. Plus, henna and indigo aren't your typical 30 min hair dying extravaganza, it's a half day process.

With that being said, I also just plain missed my regular medium brown hair (and wanted to be able to play around with my Hair Secrets extensions in this color again! They're actually an awesome way to tell when I'm getting close to my regular hair color haha.). So here are the experiments I carried out to get myself back as close to my natural hair color as possible.

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Test #1 :
Recipe: About equal parts honey, lemon juice, olive oil heated, and cheap conditioner applied to entire hair, wrapped in saran wrap and let sit for 30 min. Washed out 2x with daily clarifying shampoo and 1x regular shampoo with sulfates, then conditioned.

Results: This actually worked pretty well on the roots that had been dyed just a couple weeks back. I bet it would work awesome if you had only done your hair once or twice, but the lengths of my hair have been dyed over a handful of times so I knew that would be harder to remove. Noticed the slightest change in the rest of my hair to have more of an overall brown look as opposed to the blueish burgundy of the black.

Test #1

Test #2:
Recipe: 2 parts coconut oil to 1 part conditioner, 1 Tbsp lemon juice, 1 Tbsp honey, 4 vitamin c tabs crushed. Did not cover the hair, left in 45 minutes. Washed out 3x with regular shampoo with sulfates, then conditioned.

Results: I am starting to see the natural red-brown tones coming out, although the hair is overall still pretty dark.

Test #3:
John Frieda Brilliant Brunette Visibly Brighter In-Shower Treatment and John Frieda Brilliant Brunette Multi Tone Revealing Shampoo & Conditioner

Results: I took before and after pics, so it really helps to see the difference. You can definitely tell a difference. It took my hair from essentially black to noticeably brown. It's still a super dark brown, but you can at least see that there's the warmth of the brown tones. I think it lightened up my roots a little more too. This is recommended for use once a month, so if my hair is still awfully dark in a month, I might try it again.

Test #3

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I know I'm not back to my natural hair just yet, but with time I have confidence I will get it back over time. I'm just glad I'm back in the brunette spectrum. I was just getting tired of the black.

I hope this was helpful!
Love,
Alaina

Electric Hair Straightening Brush by Drok on Amazon Review

Buy this product here!

Right off the bat, let me tell you that I was sent this product for free from the company. However, I am not being paid to tell you about it. Here you'll find my own 100% honest opinion of this hair tool, so let's get into the review.

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Here's a little product overview...

As I write this, the pink version of this hair tool is currently $26.99 on Amazon. The black version is priced at $39.99. Either way, I think it's an awesome deal and very worth it.

So this product is exactly what it sounds like. It's an electric hair straightening brush. You plug it into the wall and brush your hair with it to get straight locks.

You hold the power button to turn it on and it's even heat adjustable (which is one of my must-haves for a heated hair tool product). The temperature is digitally displayed in either Celsius or Fahrenheit.

The power cord has a Velcro tie on it so it's super easy to wrap up the cord when you're finished using it. This makes storage super easy. It might sound like a silly little simple thing, but trust me, you'll love this little feature.  

The little bristles don't heat up, it's the plate behind them that heats up, so you don't have to worry about burning your scalp with the brush.

You want to use this on slightly damp hair with a heat protectant or leave-in conditioner applied. 

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Now for the performance of the tool...

As you can see in the picture above, you can achieve straight hair with this tool (my hair is naturally wavy in texture).

It takes me about 20 minutes to do my entire head (I have thick hair and section it off to get the under sections as well). It typically will take me 5 minutes to blow dry my hair, then an additional 10-15 minutes to flat iron. Since you are leaving your hair somewhat damp, using this will cut down on blow dry time, so I would say this takes roughly the same amount of time to do my hair as traditionally flat ironing does. And another thing is, I've only been using it a week or so. I know it will get easier with time and I can probably cut down that styling time by 5 minutes.

This product straightens without looking fake and overly pin straight. I think it gives the most natural straight appearance. No one will think you used a heat tool to make your hair behave this way. It just looks like you have naturally straight hair! You may be able to tell in the picture that there is a little bit of wave on the ends of my hair. That sort of result is what makes it look so natural.

My favorite way to use this is when I wake up in the morning, I run it over the top layers of my hair to calm it down. Sometimes your hair is just kinked strangely in the morning and this product does an excellent job of calming it down quickly without having to go over your entire head. 

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Keep an eye out for an upcoming video review to see this little guy in action on my YouTube channel. 

I hope you enjoyed!

Love,

Alaina

My Henna and Indigo Hair - Light Mountain Black, Burgundy, & Henna Dream Black Hair Dye

So you may have seen my updated henna hair post from this past summer! Well, I've changed it up again so let me show you and tell you a bit about it.

Light Mountain Black Henna/Indigo Dye Results

I loved my red henna hair (Light Mountain Bright Red). It was magnificent, so vibrant, and just great looking. The color stayed sooo well and it never faded. The only reason I needed to re-do was for my roots. However, even though I loved it, I just wanted to change things up and see if I could get my hair black with henna and indigo. That was the color I was going for when I first began this journey last year. And yes, "journey" is the correct word to use because henna/indigo is a journey. It can turn out different on every hair color and type, sometimes you have to build up your color with 2-3 or even more applications (as you'll see here or have seen in the other post links here)! But it's a smooth journey at least, it gradually changes your hair, so even if you don't get the color you want right off the bat, it still looks beautiful and natural.

Ok, so let's talk about this process. I last henna-d my hair red 7 weeks ago. (I was actually just doing the top red and the underneath portions of my hair was black/burgundy, but you mostly just noticed the red because it was on top, just FYI).

Results of Light Mountain Burgundy & Henna Dream Black 

I had some leftover dyes and figured, hey, let's just use these up. So I mixed together Light Mountain Burgundy and Henna Dream Black dyes. The ratio was probably something like 1 part Burgundy to 2 parts Black. And This gave me a beautiful deep chocolate brown! It was gorgeous and I definitely could have just left it at that. But I kept on trucking in this journey to see what I could get. Talk about going from one extreme to the other... Ha.

Light Mountain Black

But instead I ordered a box of Light Mountain Black to see just how dark we could get this hair! It was about a week in between applications.

I used about half of the box because I was only going to do the top portion of my hair (since, like I mentioned earlier, I had already been dying the lower half dark anyway). I just used warm water from the tap and didn't add anything to the mixture. I applied it immediately and left it on my hair for 3 hours.

Light Mountain Black - (left on for 3 hours)

During this waiting time my henna/indigo got a crazy metallic purple/green sheen to it which I've never witnessed before. My husband thought it was going to turn my hair purple (which I would have been okay with honestly lol). But it all turned out fine. I rinsed it out twice with conditioner (no shampoo!!! I always wait 48 hours to shampoo).

Indigo stained fingers after first blow dry

As I blow dried my hair (because I'm impatient and must see the results in their full glory immediately) I could see the blue of the indigo on my fingers when I ran them through my hair. (I could have done an extra conditioner rinse). But I'd never noticed that before with any of the other henna/indigo mixtures/brands I've used before. The indigo dye really released well this time around! I don't know if it's the brand or the fact that I didn't use super hot water to mix it with, but it turned out great.

Light Mountain Black Results

Now it's just time to see how it lasts. Will it fade a bit upon first shampoo? Will it stick around for weeks and months just as intense as red henna? Only time will tell and I'll definitely keep you guys updated.

Do you henna/indigo your hair?

Thanks for reading!
Love,
Alaina

My Henna Hair : July/August 2015 Red and Black Henna on Medium/Dark Brown Hair

completed hair, outdoors, partial sunlight

Hey everyone!

Today I wanted to tell you guys my henna hair story, but let's get some things out of the way first of all... I am not a hairstylist. I am also not a scientist. I'm just a girl playing around with hair color that I believe is much safer and healthier for my hair than traditional dyes. Any information I give you is based on what I have researched online on various hair care and henna websites.

Henna or Indigo or any other natural dye you're going to be using to color your hair is going to turn out different on everyone's hair, please keep that in mind. If you have virgin hair that is of a similar tone to mine, you might come out with similar results, but it all really depends on your own hair color, texture, and whether or not it has been dyed before.

FYI
Henna-ing your hair can be a day-long extravaganza, much different from dying with traditional dyes at home. Henna needs to sit around for awhile to cure before it starts releasing dye. Indigo is the opposite, you need to pile it on your head as quickly as possible. The longer you let it sit on your hair, the better color payoff you're going to get. Henna is what gives the red color, Indigo gives a dark blue or black. However, the two black hennas I used contained a mixture of both, along with other ingredients as well. If you want to know more about the application methods I have used or the ingredients in each product, please see the links below.

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After helping my older sister dye her hair with henna, I decided it was time to take the plunge as well. I always vowed to never dye my hair because I loved my brown hair and didn't want to damage it with chemical dyes. However, after learning more about henna, I figured if I wanted to color my hair, that would be the way to go. I have always gone through cycles of growing my hair out and cutting it all off, then starting the process over again, so the idea of dying my hair and causing damage was not appealing at all. I took pride in my hair and didn't want to hurt it. I wasn't so much concerned about the chemicals in hair dye getting into my body or whatever, it was more of a concern for my hair's health than my body's health, if that makes any sense. lol.

So I dyed my long, virgin medium/dark brown hair last summer 2014 with Lush Caca Noir. I loved the results. It just darkened my hair about a shade or two. It definitely wasn't black. In the sunlight you could see a deep burgundy color because of the henna/indigo mix. I thought it was much more dramatic at the time than it actually was though. I never saw any roots, so I assumed it just faded out naturally.

The second time I dyed my hair, I used Caca Noir again and my hair was short. I also learned that by going back in a few days later to dye my hair again REALLY brought out the color more. That second layer of color was essential to getting the color payoff I wanted. I dyed my short hair twice with this method (Nov 2014 & March 2015). Still with this color, I never noticed any roots.

Then this summer 2015, I got the urge to dye my hair red. So I went to Lush and picked up Caca Rouge for my sister and I to try out. I was super happy with the color I got and thought it couldn't get any better than this.

But then I found Light Mountain Bright Red henna after doing some research and wanting to get the reddest red possible. I applied Bright Red to the crown of my head, just the top portions of my head as a test (I already had this idea that I wanted the top portions to be the brightest red with the under parts of my hair a little less red). It turned out awesome.

So now, with fall approaching, I got the random idea to add some black in with the red. This time I was sent Henna Dream Black from the company. This actually turned my hair about one shade lighter than black, unlike Caca Noir that just turned it a shade or two darker brown. With one application of Henna Dream, it was a very dark brown (still darker than Noir, but not quite black yet). When I went in one week later for a second application, it was definitely dark. It's not a midnight black, but like I said before, henna reacts differently on every hair color.

On the application day I used Henna Dream Black on bottom, and I went back in and applied Bright Red again to all of the rest of my hair that wasn't getting the black, since I was henna-ing my hair anyway that day, I figured I might as well henna it all.

My hair shows you the two extremes you can get out of Henna/Indigo dying if you have medium/dark brown hair to begin with. It does take some patience and it can be many applications before you achieve the color you desire, but the awesome thing about henna is that it's good for your hair. The more you apply it, the more intense the color and the shinier and prettier your hair gets overall, compared to traditional dyes that can harm your hair.

So the final product equals...
1 application of Lush Caca Rouge all over
wait 2 weeks
1 application of Light Mountain Bright Red on very top portion of hair
wait 1 week
1 application Henna Dream Black on very bottom portion of hair
1 application Light Mountain Bright Red on everything else (this includes the very top portion (which had Bright Red before (so top portion now has 2 rounds of Bright Red) and the middle portion (which only had Lush Caca Rouge))
wait 1 week
1 application Henna Dream Black on bottom again

Thank you so much for reading! I really hope this was helpful in some way or at least entertaining or educational. I am so happy with the results. They just keep getting better and better with each application.

Love,
Alaina

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TIMELINE in PHOTOS

before the red experiment (3-4 months after noir)

after caca rouge sunlight

after caca rouge indoors

after light mountain red on top indoors

after light mountain red on top indoors

after light mountain red on top outdoors

after light mountain red on top outdoors

dividing up the hair

after one application henna dream black, two (three on top) applications light mountain red

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

after one application henna dream black on bottom, two light mountain red on top indoors

process of applying henna dream black on bottom for the second time

completed hair, outdoors, shade

completed hair, outdoors, sunlight

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If you are interested in my other henna posts, here you go!
My first henna experience ever. Used Lush Caca Noir on my long hair 7/14

My second experience with Caca Noir on my short hair 11/14

My first Caca Rouge experience 7/15

My first experience using Light Mountain Bright Red henna powder 8/15

If you are wondering where you can find any of these products, here are some links for you.
Lush Caca Noir
Lush Caca Rouge
Light Mountain Bright Red
Henna Dream Black

Disclosure: I received the Henna Dream Black dye for review purposes, everything else I purchased with my own money. I am not being paid to talk about this product. My review is 100% my own honest opinion, as always.

Light Mountain Bright Red Henna Hair Dye Review + Pictures

Here are some links you might be interested in:

First Henna Experience w/ Caca Noir
Second Henna Experience w/ Caca Noir applied twice
First Lush Experience with Caca Rouge

As you may have seen in my latest Lush Caca Henna Hair Dye post, I am in love with red hair! And this all began because I used a filter on Instagram on a selfie that made my hair look red. So I was like, hey, it's about time to henna my hair again, let's try red this time.

I have used Lush's Henna Hair Dye before, you can see the links up top to those posts. I have never dyed my hair with anything other than these hennas. I've never used chemicals or bleach or anything like that, just FYI.

So, after using Caca Rouge, I fell in love with the red hair and wanted to try to get it as bright as possible. I knew this was going to be a long shot since my hair is naturally on the medium/dark brown side of things. I had hope though. So I started looking at reviews and checking out how to just use henna powder on your hair. It's cheaper than the Lush Hennas which come in bricks with cocoa butter and other ingredients mixed into them, plus it seemed to me that everyone was getting way better results with just straight up henna powders.

So I decided on the brand Light Mountain, after reading a bunch of reviews on different forums and all kinds of stuff. I got mine on Amazon for about $8 with shipping. I chose the color Bright Red because that's what I wanted. I knew I wouldn't get like crazy fiery bright red hair, but I wanted it as close as I could get to that.

(Here you can see the difference between the top portion of my hair that I dyed with Light Mountain Bright Red, compared to the bottom portion which just has Lush Caca Rouge from 2 weeks ago on it)

I just wanted to test it out on the uppermost portions of my hair because I got this idea that I liked the way that would look anyway. Lighter hair on top with darker underneath, to give some dimension. I didn't do a strand test because it wasn't going to turn out "too orange" on me. In my opinion, the oranger the better. I plan to do the rest of my hair once it starts to fade a little bit anyway. This was just a trial run. I also thought that if I just did a portion of my hair, I could better compare it to my hair before because they would be right next to each other in real life for comparison, instead of trying to examine before and after pictures.

So I read the instructions, along with other methods given by those henna gurus online and this is what I came up with...

I mixed about half hot water/half hot lemon juice with the henna powder, along with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil  for extra conditioning and let it sit for about 45 minutes to cure before I applied it. I added the lemon juice both because people say it helps bring out the brightness of the red and also because another site I saw said that if you have hard water, it's good to add lemon juice to change the pH level, and we have hard water in our house.

I had it on my hair for almost 3 hours and heated it with a blow drier for a minute or so on three separate occasions in the first hour. It was wrapped in Saran wrap and a bandanna for the first 2 hours, then I found a beanie and put in on top of that for the remaining hour.

I rinsed it out in the shower with a cleansing conditioner, the same one I have used with my other henna experiences lately. I must say the coconut oil is way harder to rinse out than the cocoa butter in the Lush hennas was.

This experience was much less messy than Lush because it is a fine powder. It was a smooth consistency because of this. It was not as chunky and gritty and mud-like as Lush was.

I have also noticed my hair is more voluminous since using this henna, especially at the crown of my head where I only applied Light Mountain, not the Caca Rouge. My hair isn't flat when I wake up in the morning like it usually is, which of course is great.

I can't really say whether or not it was more vibrant than Lush though. Of course it looks like it. You can tell the difference in the photo up my hair up. But the fact that I applied it right on top of my previously henna'd hair from 2 weeks ago automatically will make it brighter because I layered it up, so I can't tell if it's simply because of the brand of henna I used or if it's just because I built it up on top of the base color of henna before. I hope that makes sense.

However, the fact that the method of application was so much less messy and the product was actually more affordable than Lush, I must say I like this Light Mountain more than Lush's Henna hair dye.

And those are my thoughts! Let the pictures speak for themselves! I am super happy with the results and will definitely keep you guys updated on how it fades or changes over time. By the way, I'm thinking of dying the underside of my hair with a black henna from Henna Dream, so keep a look out for that review hopefully coming soon!

I hope this was helpful! 

Check out my links back at the top to see more pictures of other henna experiences I have had!

Love,

Alaina

Target Beauty Boxes - Summer 2015 - Head of the Class & Honor Roll - Back to School Time!

Head of the Class

(Smaller Box)

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Honor Roll

(Larger Box)

For $5 these boxes are an awesome deal, I must say!