Dyeing hair with vegetable dyes - benefits and disadvantages
Since my hair color is a pretty boring ash-brown-blonde, I've been coloring it for decades. I used all sorts of dyeings, washing tints, foaming tints, intensive tinting, highlights and therefore I have gained a lot of experience.
Conclusion was:
either everything quickly washes out again - which does not have to be a disadvantage if you only want a different color for a short time - or your hair suffers.
Of course, freshly dyed hair looks good, because of the care ingredients that contain the colorants. After a few washes, the hair becomes brittle, easily ridiculed and difficult to comb out. Especially with longer hair you can see that. After a few weeks, the hairline has to be dyed and the hair undergoes a new chemical treatment (because after a certain exposure, the remaining hair must be covered with the paint to get a uniform color ) and are damaged even more.
The process of dyeing is simple and relatively fast:
the paint is in two components, paint and 'developer' (= peroxide), which you have to mix, apply, leave to work, rinse, done.
But I do not want to conceal another advantage:
only with chemical colors can you lighten your hair! But one has a high consumption of rinses, cures, etc., to make the hair look reasonably good.
When coloring, the following happens:
The natural hair color is bleached out with peroxide and the new color is anchored inside the hair. Blondes contain a lot of peroxide, which can lead to extreme brightening. These peroxides damage the hair structure, make the hair brittle, and dry it out. In addition, the chemical colors have a high allergy potential and contain carcinogenic substances, the v. a. can lead to bladder cancer. It is said, who wants to be beautiful, must suffer, but so?
After years, I tried a plant hair color with henna for the first time. Since I had a perm at the time, chemically dyeing did not really work anymore.
A henna dye works like this:
the natural hair color 'connects' with the henna color to an individual result. The natural color is left in the hair and the plant color is deposited around the outside of the hair, smoothing and thickening the individual hair without it becoming stringy or flabby.
This color is as permanent as a chemical dye. The hair can not be lighter, only darker. Only reds, shades of brown and black to blue-black go.
Since pure henna only turns red, other plant extracts are added: Walnut, coffee, indigo, etc. to achieve the different shades. Of course, there is also an allergy risk and you should therefore first test on a sensitive skin site!
The coloring goes like this:
The color powder is mixed with boiling water. Here you can already experiment: instead of water is also black tea, coffee (which makes the color a bit darker) or red wine for more intense reds.
When the mixture has cooled down enough for you to put on the skin, apply it to your hair, put on a plastic hood (usually included with the pack), wrap a towel around it for the heat and let it work.
A small disadvantage is the long exposure time, namely 2 hours. However, you have nothing to do in the two hours and can therefore focus on house cleaning, crawl in front of the TV or read a nice book. After 2 hours, it is rinsed out.
Since the plant porridge is not so easy to wash, you have to rinse again, preferably with a rinse, because the 'practically' 'seals' the color in the hair and lets it last longer.
The visible after a few weeks hairline looks by far not as stark as with chemical colors and can be easily dyed.
My first try was not that great, it got pretty carrot red. However, I immediately noticed how full and shiny my hair was and what beautiful curls I had. Since you can over-dye again after a short time and improve the hair condition even more, I then over-dyed with a shade of brown and my favorite hair color, chestnut red, found.
All vegetable colors are miscible with each other, you simply mix the different powders before mixing.
Plant hair dyes and pure Henna powder are available in health food stores and drugstores, as you are from about 5-6 euros and it is also not more expensive than a chemical color. In an asiatic shop I also saw pure henna for 1,50 Euro ... but in case of doubt I would prefer to spend a little more, all plant colors, which I found here in health food stores and drugstores, were examined by Ökotest for pollutants and very well judged.(I do not want to make any surreptitious advertising here, but gladly share with you what I've already taken)
My tip to all is when you dye, color with plants - your hair and your health will thank you! And since you need less care, you also save time and money. Thank you for reading this 'novel' ...
