Every henna and ayurvedic hair recipe requires a liquid when mixing it into a paste for use. There are so many choices and you might be overwhelmed. Our guide directs you to the best choices and especially to start with where your hair focus is so that you will decide on the right liquid for you and your hair.
There are so many choices and the good news is that there is no liquid that is a wrong choice.
The first question will be to ask yourself: What is the focus of your hair recipe?
Hair Focus: Color
Treatment every 4-6 weeks
- Your liquid must be warm to hot. Not cold, not boiling
- Keep it Simple Recipe: water, green tea or ACV (apple cider vinegar)
- Lemon Juice: this can help boost color results, but it can also drying for normal-dry hair types. We usually recommend adding this as a supplement boost to another main liquid you’ve chosen to use.
- Boost the Red: hibiscus tea, red rooibos tea, beet juice, and any other red liquids/teas
- Boost the Golden: chamomile tea. This would typically be used in an organic cassia recipe. Golden tones won’t come through in a henna recipe
- Boost the Brown: liquid form of coffee, and dark teas
- Moisture: hair oils such as olive oil, grapeseed, Black Raven, Organic Argan Oil, Organic Golden Jojoba Oil, Organic Camellia Oil, Organic Amla Oil (great for growth) and our Organic Aloe Vera powder are perfect choices
- Essentials Oils: these add amazing hair benefits and scent to your recipe
- Exception: Indigo powder can only be mixed with water or distilled water. Other liquids will badly affect the proper dye release needed from your indigo powder.
Hair Focus: Moisture
Treatment every 2-3 weeks
- Creamy Recipes: coconut milk, yoghurt, glycerine, molasses
- Honey: this is added to attract moisture into the recipe. It’s also a natural hydrogen peroxide, and sometimes used to lighten the hair
- Shea Butter & Cocoa Butter: ideal to be added when creating a deep conditioning treatment
- Conditioner: added to create a light, yet moisturizing henna gloss treatment
- Protein: eggs and other proteins. Do note that henna and ayurvedic herbs do act like protein treatments. If you’re hair isn’t fond of protein treatments do not add eggs to your recipe
Things to Remember:
- A Hair Focus of Color can’t be combined into one recipe with a Hair Focus of Moisture recipe. These two categories of Hair Focus must be done on their own at separate times. Usually 2-3 weeks between each of these types of recipes is ideal
- Perishable ingredients that are added to your recipe must be added at the very end as you don’t want to create a rancid recipe
- Every henna and herb absorb liquid differently so you may have noticed that we don’t give specific quantities to add to your recipe. Just add your liquids slowly until it’s of the proper consistency. Hair recipes should be the consistency of pancake batter, depending on how thick or thing you like your pancakes 🙂
- This is: Your Hair, Your Way. Naturally! So keep in mind that you’re creating your very own unique recipe, and you’ve come to Henna Sooq because we support you, and have all the products you’ll need to get started, and maintain a healthy natural hair regimen. There are many recipes out there, but yours is going to be unique to you and your hair
Hello Amy. Adding some cassia obovata will actually really bring you down to that color you’d like over just honey and lemon juice.
Hello.
1. Light brown can be very difficult to achieve. What is your natural hair color? DO you have grey hair?
2. It’s better to use more henna in that recipe as the 50/50 is really a medium brown recipe. At least with our products. More henna for more red/copper tones. If you add more indigo and less henna it’ll go more brown or dark brown.
Thank you for your reply! My natural hair color is light brown (tends to go a bit to the red) and yes, I do have greys and I don’t want my hair to go dark. I didn’t understand your answer to point number 2, because I didn’t use indigo. Do you advice me to use indigo or you meant cassia?
Welcome. Sorry I misread at first. Maybe add more cassia to your mix and some amla powder as well. It’s a tricky recipe that has to be played around with but we haven’t tried it too often. Sorry!
Hello Taje. A lot of our clients have low porosity hair and have success with our products. You have to make sure you use a really rich dyeing henna and herbs in your regimen. You can check us out at http://www.hennasooq.com and we’d be more then happy to help!
Hello. The henna powder is 100% pure henna powder. No mixes or blends are carried by us here at Henna Sooq.
Hi ..after adding hot water to henna can i apply it immediately or do I have to keep it overnight ?
Make sure your water is only between warm to hot and not too hot nor boiling so it doesn’t push the dye release too quickly. The timings for dye release vary on the powder you use. See our guide on dye release: https://hennablogspot.com/the-deal-on-dye-release-testing-your-henna-paste-for-a-more-effective-stain/
We hope this helps.
Thank you so much for this blog post, I’ve been struggling to make a red henna dye mix for my hair and this really helped me understand how to mix things. x
Welcome!!
Hello! Yes you should slightly warm your liquids used for mixing henna and indigo. All herbs actually like a nice warm liquid to start. Yes you can add both to darken but do note the hibiscus does not darken. It brightens the red so you may want to omit that from your recipe. Since my reply is a bit delayed, did you happen to get a chance to color your hair? If so how did it turn out?
Welcome! Please keep us posted and if there’s anything else we can help with 🙂
Some websites say to dye release henna for 3-4 hours and some say for 8-12 hours. Why the difference?
It really depends on the crop year of the particular henna you’re using and also it does vary for hair use versus body art use.
Hello Lisa. Yes absolutely. You could start adding honey as it’s a natural lightener. Do you use henna and indigo currently?
I use all natural henna from lush. As far as I know it does not contain indigo. I usually use a combination of brun, rouge, and marron to get a mostly brown with some reddish shades. How much honey should I use and is there a particular type of honey that works best?
Hello. You can use any type of honey you prefer and add at least 10-20% of your whole amount of henna that you’re using. You may want to consider switching to henna powder so as to have more control over your color directly. What color are you hoping to achieve?
Hi Khadija… I’m wondering why on almost all posts says the henna has to rest over night., and the henna soq only 3 to 4 hours…there is differents kind of hennas?
Hello Fatima. I believe from what I’ve seen is that the posts of henna sitting out overnight are much older information or old posts. Just review the dates on the information you’re reading. More recent years has the henna having better dye release and color. We found it doesn’t require such long times for dye release. 3-4 hours works perfectly. We hope this helps.
Would you like your hair to be a brown shade? Or what end color would you like?
When using henna and indigo to dye my grays, if the indigo didn’t turn my hair black and left it a brownish copper tone, is it ok to do the indigo treatment again the next day and will it turn my hair black?
Yes you can definitely indigo it again the very next day. Did you try that?
Hi. I have grey hair and want to turn then brown with henna. But i don’t have indigo powder Plz suggest me something..im confused by reading so much. Plz help
For sure to make your hair brown you need our moroccan henna powder and indigo for hair. We hope this helps
https://www.hennasooq.com
Adding aloe vera powder is the most amazing moisturizing herb you can add to your henna recipe without all the added dryness.
Which henna and indigo are you currently using? Sometimes adding indigo to the first step creates a darker base and you can also clarify with our soap-nut shampoo bar to really open your hair strands up to receiving the henna and indigo.
It may be that your hair has low porosity. Let us know which henna and indigo you use and we can help narrow it down.
That sounds so beautiful!!! Wish we could see 🙂
Hello Arroj !
So great to hear from you. Sorry for my delayed reply. Have you considered maybe not doing all of your hair every time? Maybe just the roots so it doesn’t get so dark on the length? Let us know how it’s going with your henna hair color.
I am confused your blog, says never use indigo first or it will turn your hair green.
So are you suggesting i still put the indigo first.
Sorry for my confusing reply. What I meant is that you add indigo in your first step when you’re using henna. To create a darker base with henna and indigo, not using indigo alone. This then you can do and follow up as a second step with indigo for the darkest results and better grey coverage. I hope this clarifies what I meant.
There are several older posts that when the dye content of henna wasn’t as strong and better standards of growing henna were around, that the dye needed more time to release. As of recent crops and batches of henna they only require max 3-4 hours and Moroccan henna 1-2 hours. I hope this helps.
Welcome and thank you!
Yes this blog belongs to Henna Sooq. I’m one of the owners for our brand and expert henna hair colorist. You may want to read this article we wrote about differences in henna products: https://hennablogspot.com/not-all-henna-is-created-equally/
Lemon juice can also be very drying. Indigo should only ever be mixed with warm distilled water as it doesn’t like acid. We hope this helps and please let us know how everything turns out.
Oh ok thanks lots!