For a while, I’ve been considering colouring my hair with henna instead of using chemical dyes.  This has partly been driven by the fact that I hate the thought of all the icky chemicals I’ve been smearing on my head for years, and partly because I’m consistently disappointed with their lack of grey coverage.

So, finally, this week I took the plunge.   I used 200g of henna and about 50g of indigo, to darken it up a bit and make it a bit more brunette than just red.

Here are some before photos – I had a cocktail of colours including old dye jobs, old highlights, and my natural blend of mouse brown and badger grey.

And here are the after photos.    These were taken the day after, and since then the colour has darkened up a bit.

I was concerned that I’d still have a really strong tide mark where the old blonde was growing out – but although it’s still there, it’s slightly less obvious. I was also a bit scared of coming out fire-engine red, but since the henna sits on top of your existing hair colour, that is unlikely unless your hair is very fair to begin with. Plus, the addition of indigo was a good way to tone it down.

Most of all I’m impressed with the grey coverage. I have tried endless dyes that claim “100% grey coverage” and each and every time I have still been able to see greys immediately after I used the damn stuff. It’s been a few days now, and several shampoos later I still can’t see the greys peeking through – I can tell that some hairs are lighter than the others, but they’re a pleasant coppery red rather than grey. Plus my hair feels like it’s in better condition than before. It’s a double win!