Brazilian blowout-hair straightener chemical

[KnottedYet]

My red hair started going gray in my mid-20's. I've used red henna for probably 20 years, but as my hair has lost more of its own color (it is now all gun-metal gray with patches of white) it has started to look orange-y with pure red henna.

So over the last couple years I have started adding larger and larger proportions of brown henna to my red henna. At this point I use mostly brown henna, with just a bit of red mixed in.

I've used the same brand of Henna ("Light Mountain" http://www.light-mountain-hair-color.com ) it seems like forever, so I'm pretty confident mixing and matching my own henna recipes. My hair chickie (who has been cutting my hair since before I started dyeing it) says that when it goes totally white I can keep the color perky by dyeing first with red henna, then dyeing over it with brown.

Quite honestly, if I end up with the same lovely hair my grandma had, I won't dye that.

Eden - I'm very interested in how your hair turns out!

[Eden]

Eden - I'm very interested in how your hair turns out!

So after it dried it was not crazy curly like salt water makes it - I'm sure that's because when at the beach the salt dries in, and with a salt scrub it gets washed out. It also didn't make my hair sticky or prone to tangle like salt water does. It doesn't seem to have dried my hair out, which I was a bit concerned about and was thinking about using sugar instead, but I had some epsom salt so I tried that.

I intentionally did it today as it needed washing and I'd have otherwise shampooed it, so I'd see if salt cleaned it well enough, but I also wasn't going anywhere, so if it didn't I wouldn't have to go anywhere looking like a greasy head....

It looks like the salt did do a good job cleaning up my scalp - I don't have any dandruff and it did a fair job at cleaning my hair, not nasty looking, but not squeaky clean looking either- then again if I get it that clean then it goes all frizz again....

I've always heard that when you kick the shampoo habit you do go through a stage where your hair overcompensates and gets oily, but after a while it reaches equilibrium - but I've never been able to tolerate it long enough to see if it stops looking nasty.. This may be 1/2 way enough to get me to stop the shampoo all together. We'll see.

Cutting down on shampoo and going with a sulfate free brand helped a lot - my hair usually curls rather than frizzing and I no longer have millions of spit ends, so kicking the shampoo habit all together could be a really good thing if I can keep my hair looking clean!

p.s. - I use Light Mountain too - I've been getting the plain "red", but when my grey (well, white really... I think that's probably good?) starts to show I think I may try Mahogany or Chestnut as they are closer to my natural hair color.

[OakLeaf]

To clarify ... only the red henna is actually henna. The consumer information from Light Mountain talks about the three different species they use in their color blends.

Years ago when my hair was long I used neutral henna (Cassia). It made my hair so silky, strong and lustrous.

Right now I'm sort of okay with the grey, but only sort of (and there isn't a lot of it yet). You've revived my interest in henna.

[GLC1968]

I had that chemical straigtening procedure done on my hair - twice (also referred to as 'thermal reconditioning'). The first time the results were spectacular. The second time (they had to redo the roots as my hair obvously grew back in curly) was only ok. It looked fine, but I started getting a lot of breakage. I was also having some hormonal issues at the time, so the jury is still out on what caused the weak hair.

As a girl who grew up with a frizzy mass of heavy, long, curly hair - having it smooth and silky with little effort was a real treat. And my hair was not stick straight, either - the ends did their natural bend. Basically, I had barbie doll hair (but brunette!)...I was constantly being told how gorgeous my hair was (by strangers) when it was smooth like that. I get the same compliments when I blow it out now...which I haven't done in 2 years, actually.

Now that I'm curly again and also growing out my hair (that straitening experiment was 8 years ago), I also don't use shampoo. I only use a chlorine removal shampoo after swimming - no other times. I 'wash' my hair with conditioner or just rinse with water, daily. The biggest key to doing this long term are the styling products. You cannot use anything that is not water-soluable otherwise it will build up and make your hair dull and lifeless very, very quickly. Avoid any product with a 'cone' in it (silicone, dimethecone, etc) - these ingredients are designed to smooth out the hair, but they also lock out all moisture - and that's a problem if you aren't regularly removing it with shampoo. I also often use regular daily conditioner as a leave-in on the ends - works GREAT! Honestly, I don't think my hairdryer has been plugged in since we moved here. For me, it's either curls or it's a pixie cut. Everything else is too much work!

If you really want some good info on the no shampoo curl routine, check out this book:
Curly Girl book

Editing to add that the 'thermal reconditioning' that I had done was different than the 'brazilian blowout' product listed in the original article. My procedure took over 6 hours and cost well over the $300 that they quoted...