Using henna as a hair dye is an effective alternative to commercial hair products, especially when it comes to covering gray hair! Commercial hair dyes are one of the most toxic beauty products on the market, but henna provides a natural alternative with just as good (if not better!) results. This is why I decided to create a blonde henna hair recipe to cover my grays and white hair naturally, turning them blond!
I’ve been having gray and white hair since I was 20, inherited from my father’s genes who’s whole head turned white when he was 35!
When I was young (and foolish), I dyed my hair black, purple, red and blond all with chemical dyes. At that time, I did not know better and ended up with hair so dry I had to cut them very short.
In my late 20’s, I started to have white hair but never covered them with a chemical dye. There was no way I was going to use chemicals on my head every month or so just because have white or grey hair isn’t “socially” acceptable.
To be honest it never bothered me to have white hair as they blend with my natural color and my thinking is that it is what nature intended for me.
Plus is having grey and white hair a sign of wisdom? I’d like to think so!
Then I heard about blond henna and became intrigued, it looked like it would give blond highlights on grey hair and naturally blend with your color. So I decided to get a henna mix for hair and make my own blonde henna hair recipe this summer and was not disappointed.
I found that it turned out even better after the second application and the third….I also noticed my hair started to grow much longer and faster!
Here is a before and after photo of my hair, before I use the blond henna and after I use it. This is my real hair and I did not use photoshop.
You can see there is a clear difference and all my white hair have turned blond! I also noticed there was less frizz which is an added bonus of henna.
Henna is a natural alternative to synthetic hair dyes. Traditional henna is made from a plant called the Henna Tree, and has been used to dye both skin and hair for centuries. The earliest known use of it as a hair dye was in Ancient Egypt in 1574 BCE! It has commonly been used in Northern Africa, the Middle East and in India.
Today henna dyes are often mixed with other natural plant dyes, like Cassia Obovata for a blond henna hair recipe, to achieve a range of colors. These plant-based dyes, though a mixture, are typically still marketed as henna.
Unlike synthetic dyes that contain harsh salts and chemicals that can damage hair, henna actually has beneficial properties. Henna helps to balance the scalp pH, which can boost hair growth and reduce hair loss. Henna has also been used to treat and prevent conditions like dandruff, and itchy scalp. Unlike conventional dyes that have a drying effect on the hair and scalp, henna is conditioning and helps control frizz.
Other benefits of henna include:
Traditional henna is great for achieving a range of red and brown colors. You can find below a blonde henna hair recipe but if you are using red henna color, it is a similar process.
Red henna has long been used to achieve vibrant red color in hair, and can be blended with other types of henna to imbue red tones in brown hair.
My favorite is blonde henna with Cassia Obovata. Particularly when used over grey hair, this achieves a result that resembles blond highlights if you add chamomile to it.
Black henna is often derived from indigo, and can achieve a dark color ranging from deep brown to true black. Some black henna brands use a chemical called P-Phenylenediamine (PPD) that you should watch out for. Choose an indigo henna that does not use this chemical like this one.
PPD is added to darker henna dyes because it helps to stain the skin or hair more quickly to achieve deeper results. It is essentially a short cut additive – but you should avoid dyes that use it because many people are allergic to this chemical and it can cause scarring to the skin and scalp. Exposure to PPD can also cause a lifelong sensitivity to coal tar derivatives and other dyes. The worst part is that damages to the skin can take up to 72 hours to appear so be very careful to choose a quality henna.
Choosing a high-quality natural henna is far superior to conventional hair dyes that contain numerous chemicals:
These are just a few of the major chemicals that commercial hair dyes may contain. In addition to the deleterious health effects of these chemicals, commercial dyes work by opening the hair cuticle, which damages the hair shaft. This makes hair weak and porous, susceptible to damage, and strips it of its shine.
You end up in a vicious cycle, having to redo commercial hair dyes every month or so and damaging your hair again and again.
You can make your own henna hair dye recipe with additional ingredients to benefit your hair:
Chamomile flower tea or chammomile powder gives the blond color in this henna recipe and can be used to create highlights in darker hair. On its own, chamomile brightens blonde shades and has a clarifying effect on the scalp.
Amla powder mixed with henna can help to further condition hair as you color it. It can also improve hair texture and boost volume.
Lemon juice boosts the lightening effect of henna and also helps to alkalize the scalp’s pH. Adding lemon juice to your henna mix recipe can also be used on its own as a natural dandruff remedy. Don’t add too much as it can dry the hair.
Honey can be added to henna to smooth the hair shaft and repair damaged hair. Honey is also great for moisturizing the scalp and is a natural antibacterial agent.
Coffee brew mixed with henna helps to deepen dark hair colors and can achieve a great richness. This henna color is also stated to help boost hair growth.
Do not use henna if you have colored your hair with chemical dye within 6 months. It can turn your hair green. To be safe, if you have colored your hair with chemical or commercial dye, do a hair strand test before applying to your whole head.
To get you started, this is my favorite blonde henna hair recipe that can help you to achieve a beautiful blonde shade and to cover grays and white hair naturally:
LIGHT BLONDE HENNA INSTRUCTIONS
Please let me know what you think of this blonde henna hair recipe and instructions in the comments below. Let me know if you have ever dyed your hair with henna naturally!
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Hullo;
Originally my hair was a dark brown. I started going gray early with it showing up by the time I was 18. After that I dyed my hair constantly. I've been brown, black, green, red, orange, blue, blond, and any other color imaginable ever since. However, I let it all grow out a few years back because it was so tedious to keep up.
At 56, I'm as gray as in your first photo shows. However, my hair on the sides is very short to scalp but it is white. I would like to try blonde thinking it would be far easier to keep up when the shorter white hair begins growing in, and thus will not appear so obvious like a darker shade does.
However, if after doing this I should decide that I would rather it be dark again, could I redye it with a darker henna? Or would I have to wait for the previous henna dye to grow out entirely?
Thank you kindly,
Anthony
I have been using a cassia obovata for 6 years. I have light/medium brown, and every day I am happier for more grays. I started with a few strands of gray, and now I have maybe 15%-20% gray, most in front. I tried of all of the ingredients the author suggested. Now, my recipe is cassia obovato, distilled water….and just this morning a little bit of lemon. 4 hours sitting and 3 hours on the head. It looks gorgeous. At first, my hair didn’t get healthier because I had a bad dye job. It took awhile, but I used the cassia anyway. It was better than that dye! My hair is pretty healthy now on the ends, and very healthy on the rest. Tomorrow is my 70th birthday. People think I am 50. I teach yoga, eat mostly well, and have a happy life. Everything is natural. Of course my hair is a big part of the package. Thanks to cassia obovato, and blogs like this.
Ahh I really wanted to love it. I tried it twice without success. I don’t want to give up. I think I want to try couple more time before I call it quits. I didn’t use turmeric but are you still using this? What’s your results and how you feel after a long time?
I tried it while following all the steps, ingredients, and setting timing and it did not do a thing to my white hair.
The only difference I see is that I used Cassia Auriculata instead of Cassia Obovata. Meanwhile waiting for the mix to work, I've read more about henne and cassia and I discovered that Cassia Obovata do in fact color white hair in pale wheat if you let it sit more than 30 min (and so 4 hours for pale blond color). SO that would explain why it did not work with my Cassia Auriculata, since this type of cassia is really neutral.
Knowing this, I now know that the chamomile tea will not help you at all (I did 50g of full flowers chamomile decoction for an entire night and the tea was very dark, it did nothing).
I also learned that honey is not helpful for any dye to set well in your hair. Do your honey/yogourt/coffee/pizza's sauce mask AFTER your cassia or henna, if you really want to use them in your hair instead of eating them. Any other ingredient than cassia, henna and amla will just work against your main goal (which to color your hair).
The amla is not optional if you want to color your hair with cassia OBOVOTA or lawsonia (red henna) because this acid is actually what will activate the dying effect from the plant. It is why you have to wait after blending your ingredients before putting it in your hair. The lemon juice could replace the amla, but it can make your color oxidize with time and turn darker over weeks (and maybe it would be your goal).
The tumeric in this recipe is just not helpful. My hair are still bright white and at best I've got one yellow Tumeric's spotting on my scalp (the white hair around it are still white). It looks ridiculous and anyway Tumeric goes away for our skin with wash so it is really not necessary or helpful to use it.
So, I am skeptical this blogger really got to dye her hair blond with this recipe, but I will give the benefit of the doubt since I did not have Cassia Obovata, and I would recommend you be sure to have the right cassia (not auriculata) since you would really loose your time as I did.
Now that I have learned more about cassia, lawsonia and indigo, I also know that the best way to achieve a light blond on withe haire is to mix 4 part cassia, 1 part lawsonia and 1 part indigo + 1 part amla powder. That mix will not fade over time and you don't need yogurt or honey or mayonnaise in it (keep them for your lunch). Be sure to mix the indigo powder only last minute before you put the entire mix on your head since the indigo will lose power with extend contact with oxygen+water. (you let the cassia+lawsonia+alma sit for 4 hours than you add indigo and you are ready to apply).
Good luck.
ps: My hair are natural light brown, with light blond highlights and I've got 2 inches of 10% white hair on my roots.
Hello all, after 1 month of testing I have finally been able to achieve the goal of dying my grey hair without changing my natural color (I am light brown). The mix I was suggesting in my previous message is actually the right one for me. I now have beautiful brown hair with golden-caramel highlights. Depending of your hair color, you'll have to change the proportion but testing really worth it. This morning I have the most beautiful natural hair, without any gray, and it will last (until it grows, of course)! No weird orange tone. If you want to learn more about all the techniques, search for Ancient Sunrise Henna website, they have all the articles that explain to you well what is best with henna and how to do it properly.
I have read extensively on Cassia Obovata and in itself, is supposed to deposit golden color to light colored hair. Chamomile does also, but not required to achieve golden effects. Chamomile powder leaves bits of stuff in hair that’s really hard to remove. Not worth the extra aggravation in my opinion! And making chamomile tea is one more step to an already time consuming project. Covering grey hair is a challenge and I recommend only relying on (cassia) herbal treatments to build shine, not cover grey. Henna only makes hair orange, cassia is not henna. Don’t know why it’s marketed as such! Everyone, do extensive research by reading lots of blogs from people with lots of actual hands on experience. You can always do henna on colored hair, no adverse effects. But you can’t color over henna with other chemical products, so consider henna your last resort. And lastly, if henna yields too dark result, (hair) peroxide can lighten hair so henna appears lighter. But not much!
I actually used commercial chemical hair color over my hennaed hair. It turned out fine, no greenish effect.
I have been using regular henna for quite a while, in the beginning I used Light Mountain Color the Grey. I chose dark brown and it came out okay. Not the best but covered up my greys which was about 60%. But the dark tint came out faster so my grey tend to look for orangey. That's why I used the chemical hair color, just to cover up the end of my hair.
You can totally cover grey hair with henna and have a golden color, no orange, if you mix your red henna with indigo... all this with a lot of Cassia Obovata.
I did it this morning and it's gorgeous.
Turned out great! I am naturally blond but have been dyeing my hair for 20 years. I waited 8 weeks after last touching up my roots, (not the recommended 6 months) but hair didn’t turn green at all. I did a 4 hour strand test first to make sure. My hair looks very much like the picture you provided, blond on top with darker underneath but no gray! I followed the recipe to a T, even purchasing the same ingredients that are featured, and I let the tea sit all day and the henna mixture all night so a total of 24 hours of prep time. I do have a question though… I used 50gr of chamomile tea flowers which is about 2 1/2 cups. I boiled it in 3 cups of filtered water for 10 minutes and let it sit covered in a glass bowl for 12 hours. The flowers soaked up all the water and after “forcing” the liquid out through a strainer (this took about a half hour), I only could get about a cup of tea. I had to use about a cup of additional water to make up the henna paste. For next time… should I start with more water, or maybe use less chamomile? Thanks!
I just made a 50gr of chamomile tea flowers (full flowers) with 3 cups of filtered water. Before pouring the water, I crushed all the flowers so they were more like powder at the end (no full flower anymore). I ended up having enough tea water to do a perfect mix with the cassia powder. I even kept some leftover to do a chamomile rinse on my hair for after I finish the process. I did not have to work much to get the water out, just waiting around an hour to let the water come out of the strainer.
I think the fact that I crushed the flowers first helped the water not get stuck inside them when straining.
Hope that helps.
I am now waiting 4 hours for the mixture to set before I apply it to my hair. I hope this will work.
Update: I now just finish trying this and since I had the wrong cassia, it did not work at all. The chamomile flower infusion is totally unnecessary since it did not work out. If it worked out for you, it's probably because of the Cassia Obovata only (this type of Cassia is known for dying white hair blond if you let it sit long enough). So next time I suggest you skip the chamomile ingredient (and also the Tumeric and honey), you probably won't see a difference.
I did this verbatim with the exception of Washing it out and using a conditioner. I used paba free products. It's not completely dry yet, but my roots are not grey/white. I will update when my hair drys.
Hi Eve, do you think its absolutely necessary to leave the mixture overnight before applying it? I tried your recipe, with 6 camomile tea bags (that's all i had at home) and everything else in the recipe, but I didn't let it sit. It didn't work at all and I don't know if it's because I didn't let it sit overnight, or because there wasn't enough camomile flowers.
I usually dye my hair with a mix of Lawsonia, Indigo and Cassia into a brown, without letting it sit at all, just adding warm water, and it covers all my white hair growth. The mixture I did from this recipe, without letting it sit didn't cover anything, unfortunately.
I'd love to know if the overnight time is important?
Thank you
hi valentina, it could be that the flower in the tea bags are too grounded and not whole, the tea needs to be a strong decoction and very yellow. That whats give the blogn highlights. I find that using chamomile flower powder works better than the tea and adding 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric. But this will only work on white or gray hair and not on brown hair to be clear. The overnight part helps with the tea blending with the henna, if you use the powder no need for it.
So how is this recipe different if you use the chamomile powder instead of tea? How much do you add?
ThankYou for your recipe! I was blond for years and have been using henna to color my hair red for last 4 years. I want to goBack to blond and start to use your process to coloring my roots blond to grow out my hair blond. Any helpful hints or ideas how the blond henna will look over the red henna? I’m excited to try and am hoping for the best! Thanks for your help and post!!
Hi Jennifer, I would advise doing a hair strand test first before doing your whole head. If you are doing blond henna over red henna it may turn orange, hard to say, and predict the results as hair behaves so differently!
Trust me, you are NOT going to get blonde highlights, or anything else w/cassia. And it should not take a set up time period of 12 hours. That is absurd. Henna sets up in 20 minutes.
My guess is that the comparative photos above: gray before/gorgeous, perfect blonde after are the same shot with a filter to create a blonde appearance.
How do I know? I tried for YEARS to achieve blonde following different instructions to the "T" and nada. And I don't have stubborn grays. I have soft, white hair that immediately takes to darker henna colors w/no problem. If there really was a yellow dye molecule in cassia, my hair should take to it easily.
I did not change the photo before and after and this is my real hair. The key is to use chammomile tea which gives a yellow color and then color your white hair blond.
Lets be clear, It will NOT bleach your hair if you have brown hair. it only works on greys/white hair.
If you use henna only for 20 minutes, it will not set if you are using the natural herb, need at least 2hours and I prefer to leave it for 3 / 4 hours personally.
Thank you for the recommendation. Appreciate the feedback and will do a strand test.
Rather stupid question...but...knowing the henna is like mud when you are rinsing it out of your hair and wondered if this is a problem going down your shower drain!? Have been staying with friends during Covid 19 in their mobile home and do not want to make enemies if I clog up their drain.
I have not had any issues, just keep the water running for a while to be on the safe side!