The Benefits Of And How To Henna Relaxed And Natural Hair Part 1

Just bear in mind that pure natural henna of the highest quality only comes in one color and should not have any variation as opportunists would have you believe. Black henna is simply not henna.

Here is a fun fact, did you know that Lucille Ball from ‘I Love Lucy” used henna to get her famous red hair? she dyed her hair using pure henna and at that time getting it in its purest form was rare in areas such as the United States, which is a far cry from how things are now.

How Does Henna Work

This will involve a little science so put on your left brain thinking caps on. The Henna molecule lawsone like water, and coconut oil is small enough to penetrate the hair shaft.

Because of lawsone’s high affinity for keratin, once you apply the paste to your hair the dye molecule migrates into the shaft binding with the keratin within. This binding effect not only strengthens your hair but allows the color to pretty much stick to the strand leaving it with a  rich red color.

Henna molecules binding with keratin is what makes it most like a protein treatment, because the dye helps to fill gaps and holes created in our hair shafts as a result of day to day styling. This is also the reason why henna* is considered a permanent color treatment. While a little henna may be lost with each consecutive wash, it’s usually impossible to completely remove henna from your hair.

Another fun fact. A henna tattoo is technically a permanent tattoo. The reason it fades is that you are constantly losing skin cells and as the cells containing henna* are lost, your tattoo fades.

Another thing to note is that your hennaed head will more than likely look different from another woman’s hennaed head even though the dye is the same color. The color that you get depends entirely on what color your hair was to begin with and how much of the lawsone bonds to your hair.