Week 43 Hair: Henna Madness!

 So yea, I finally got the courage to try Henna. I LOVE how it had made my hair look and feel! It feels stronger, longer, fuller and heavier...all good things to me! However, for my schedule, and the realities of life, this is NOT something I can do every month. 

I got up at 8am on Sunday and wasn't finished with my hair until 11pm that night and I am not exaggerating.  The thought of sleeping with that stuff in my hair grossed me out. I am not a person that "sleeps pretty" so that gunk would have been all over the bed. That's why I had to do it all in one day. I actually mixed it the night before and then applied it the next morning.

The Henna process takes extreme patience in the application and rinsing out of the product, especially the rinising out of it. I can see myself wanting to do it every month because of the benefits but getting lazy with it. 

You really have to be careful to rinse that stuff out of your hair. It takes awhile. Right now I'm thinking I will do it once every 2 months. When my schedule slows down (in the summer) I might consider doing it on a monthly basis.

In the post Week 41 Hair, I didn't actually shampoo my hair. Since I didn't have the aloe vera juice I didn't see any real point in starting the process and having to finish it later. So I sucked it up and just wore my hair in updos for the rest of the week.

Last week is when I applied the Henna. Many people don't use shampoo to rinse out the Henna but I did. Partly because it had been 2 weeks since I shampooed and I wanted to have a clean scalp, and partly because I wanted to make sure the Henna rinsed out completely.

So here's the step-by-step process in pictures, Curly Nikki style.

This is how the bathroom was prepped. People aren't lying when they say it's messy. So if you are thinking of trying it make sure that you protect your bathroom. The Henna I used didn't have any color in it so nothing was stained anyway. Kudos to my husband for buying the plastic I put on the floor and cleaning up when I was done!

This is the mix. I made mine exactly how Curly Nikki makes her mix. I added 4 green tea bags to warm water and let it steep. After that I mixed it in with the Henna and then added about 2 tbsp. of honey. I made 200g of the Henna and froze my leftovers. Like I mentioned above, I let it sit overnight (approximately 8 hours).

This is my hair before the application. I wet my hair and throughly detangled before applying the Henna. It's important to do so because you don't want to manipulate your hair much in the application process.

This is at some point in the beginning of the process before I got super messy. The technique is to "smoosh" the Henna on your hair and not rake it through. Make sure you have some plastic gloves!

It is so hard to get this stuff evenly on the hair, or at least I thought so. Next time I will try to make it a tad bit more watery. I think it was too thick. But I did a decent job for my first time.

Now I'm one the second half of my hair. I split my hair into two sections and started each section in the back.

What my hair looked like before I put on my plastic bag. Again, the application was not exactly uniform but I did my best.

Here's a top shot.

 As you can see, I was filthy at the end. Make sure you wear clothes you don't mind getting dirty (or staining if you use Henna with color).

 Here I am again after cleaning up a bit. Now this stuff stayed on for 8 hours.

 After the 8 hours I was itching to rinse this out because it started leaking. Imagine sleeping with this stuff on!

 Yes, it is a complete mess!

Me in the shower right before rinsing it out.

I don't have any post-Henna pictures because, like I said, I didn't finish until 11pm and I was tired. But after rinsing it out really well (I used up all the hot water doing so!) I applied my deep conditioner. I added honey, olive oil and coconut milk to it. My hair felt great afterwards. I didn't have any problems with excessive drying.

I left the deep conditioner in for 1.5 hours and then applied my kimmaytube and twisted my hair up. It was a long process but I truly believe my hair reaped benefits from it. 

I recommend Henna but warn that it is an involved process. Only do this when you are in the mood and don't have to leave the house.