Please remember when using any new hair product it is always recommended that you do hair strand tests first!
Important: Please keep in mind that everyone has their own unique hair texture. Herbal treatments can be drying for some, and it is recommended that you add hair oil to your recipe, or deep condition your hair afterwards. We recommend that everyone keep an open mind when using henna and natural herbs on their hair, and use the recipe that works best for you!
Henna, also known as lawsonia inermis
Mixing henna for healthy hair and beautiful red tones:
-Mix henna with warm water, or warm lemon juice, and allow the paste to sit from 2-12 hours (as this depends on the dye release of your henna powder chosen). Add enough liquid to make a paste the consistency of pancake batter.
-After dye release has been achieved, then apply the henna paste to your (damp or dry) hair by sections starting from the back and moving forward. Make sure you wear gloves when applying henna, as it will stain your hands.
-Wrap your hair and allow to sit from 1 to 6 hours. The longer you leave the henna in, the more dye will penetrate your hair.
-Rinse or wash the paste out.
-Your hair’s color will settle over the next 2 days.
Optional
- For redder tones you may add hibiscus or paprika.
- For browner tones you may add coffee, black tea, or even amla powder (this will tone down the red dye and give you great volume all at the same time).
- You may also try out a henna gloss. You can do this by adding some henna powder to your conditioner and let it sit in your hair for 30 minutes as a deep conditioning treatment and be able to achieve a less amount of dyeing.
- Feel free to add orange blossom water, rose water or essential oils to leave your hair smelling great!
How to store your powder: freezer.
How to store your henna paste: freezer.
Mixing katam for brown hair:
-Prepare the henna paste as directed.
-Once henna is ready, mix your katam with warm water and allow to sit for 10-15 minutes. Mix these two together. The more katam you add the darker the brown.
-Apply the paste to your hair by sections starting from the back and moving forward. Make sure you wear gloves, as it will stain your hands.
-Wrap your hair and allow to sit for 1 to 6 hours.
-Rinse or wash your paste out
-This process is called a one-step process.
-Your hair’s color will settle over the next 2 days.
How to store your powder: henna in your freezer and katam in your fridge or cool dark place
How to store your paste: throw leftovers away as the paste does not freeze or keep well.
Hi. I have been dying my hair black with henna & indigo for 4 years. I now want to go lighter, to brown. I regret using indigo now as it it PERMANENT. I have to cut my hair short to get rid of the indigo. Will katam and henna be suitable for my roots whilst I’m growing it out.
Thanks
Hi, I’ve been using henna for years to dye my hair red. I want a change, and want to eventually return my hair to it’s original light brown colour. At the moment I’ve got long brown roots, and the rest of my hair is red. I want to use either henna and indigo or henna and katam to get it all over browner to avoid such a drastic grown-out look.
What would you suggest? Using half henna, half indigo, or half katam, or another recipe? I’d rather browner tones, but don’t want my hair to be too dark brown, as I have very fair skin.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you for your post Roz. Yes it’ll be more suitable as it’ll be more brown since that’s the tone you’d like but if you’re hair is too dark naturally it won’t lighten your hair. It’ll come out brown if that’s your natural color more easily and on greys and light hair.
Hi Lauren. Thank you for posting. I’d recommend the katam then because it’s not as strong as the indigo is. 1/2 of each would be a good choice. We have samples on our website if you’d need to do hair strand tests to be sure.
can I cover my 100% very stubborn gray hair to a brown shade (including roots)?
Thank you for posting Nim. Yes you can and make sure you use henna along with the katam. It’ll cover it a brown shade. Our website for shopping is http://www.hennasooq.com
hi,
I would like to cover a lot of white hair in order to becoming dark brown like the rest of my hair…
May I mix henna, katam and buxus all together at once, without lemon juice, and use it straigth further without allowing the paste to sit?
How does buxus turn out with lemon juice?
Thanks for answering!
P.
Thank you for posting Patricia.
Katam and buxus are the same herb. You’ll need to mix your herbs with at least warm water and allow it to sit for dye release. If you don’t wait for dye release it wont color your hair. Dark brown tones are best achieved with using henna and indigo.
I would like to use either Katam or Indigo to cover about 10% grey in naturally very dark hair. The natural hair shade is darker even than chocolate brown–just about black (but a natural black, not a blue black). I am concerned that a two step (first henna and then indigo over the henna) will yield a black that does not look completely natural on me. Is that true? If I am wrong in my thinking, please correct me. If I am correct in that I should use a one step process, which herb (katam or indigo) and percentage (henna to other herb) would you recommend.
Thankm you for your post H.S.
Katam is not as strong as indigo so it may be a better choice to go dark brown for the greys. It won’t lighten your dark hair. It’s mainly the greys that will get coverage unless you used henna alone. A one step might be better as the two step is for black tones. If you want to maintain as close as possible to your natural hair color without going too dark then I’d recommend the percentage be 70% katam, or even indigo, and the rest henna: 30%
Hi! I have used a herbal henna mix (base of the Raj henna and then other herbs mixed in) which gave me the chocolate brown-black color and some brownish red/coppery highlights on my grays. Can I mix the katam in to tone down the copper?
Thank you for your post Michaela.
You made your own mixture, or was it out of a box?
If you just did the treatment very recently like this week then yes you can use katam but you need to mix it with some henna first as well to tone it down so that no spots on your hair get green toned.
It was a pre-made mix (I don’t know how you feel about putting a brand name out there so I won’t include it but it was already made all ayurvedic herbs added; no junk). Yes I did a treatment Labor Day weekend, froze the remainder then this past Friday mixed with conditioner for a henna gloss. So, I can just mix the katam in with the pre-made mix? Also, does cassia obavata have any toning properties when it comes to henna? I’ve read were folks have added it to henna for that purpose. I didn’t know you could use cassia for that; I’ve read over and over that you can use amla for that though. Thanks for responding to my questions!
Hello Michaela. Thanks for the respect with brands 🙂
Yes you can add katam to the pre-mix you have already.
Cassia can tone down the red of the henna making it more coppery or orangey depending on how much of each you use. Amla tones it down in more of a browner way. Welcome! Our pleasure
Hello,thank you for your amazing website. I have never dyed my hair with henna and I would like to experiment it. I have dark hair with about 20% of white hair. I would like to get a dark brown colour on my hair.
I was thinking of:
1) 60% Rajasthan henna + 40% Amla mixed with black tea (heard that henna straights on the hair, and with alma I hope avoiding it) or 3 hours
2) 60% katam + 40% rajasthan henna with black tea(should I mix it to something else to obtain a sticky paste?)for 2 hours
Do you think that I could get the colour I want with these two preparations?
Hi Rachel. Thank you for your post.
You actually don’t need to do both. It’s either one or the other, but the first one is more for reddish brown tones. Amla is fine to add to your recipe with number 2 recipe, and this can yield close to a dark brown especially so with the amla added.
But typically clients use indigo for dark brown tones. I hope this helps.
Thank you for your reply. I heard that as I have white hair, I should do the 2 steps so my white hair will become brown, that’s why I was planning to do it that way. I don’t feel like using indigo, so maybe I’ll go for a 60% katam, 20% amla and 20% henna. Thanks a lot for your help.
Hi Rachel. Some clients have begun to do this as an alternative to indigo but if you add indigo to your henna then you’ll be able to do one step rather then two steps. Unless someone is allergic to indigo I’m not sure why it’d be recommend to do 2 steps as it’d take more time.
I’m not trying to discourage you but if you are allergic to indigo then I’d recommend that for you absolutely.
But for the above recipe with 60%, 20% and 20% that sounds really good.
Could indigo and katam both be added to henna
at the same time and used as one step coloring.I am afraid of having vey dark brown or black hair color and prefer to have medium chocolate brown but dont want to have any orange tones.
pls let me know where i can get KATAM pls guide me to get it from the market.
what is the name in HINDI (KATAM) pls reply to my email
Amy, thank you for your email. You could try adding both but using one over the other is fine and less expensive I would feel. The indigo and henna at 50/50 or 60% indigo and 40% henna will yield you the tones you’d like.
Sajid, there is no hindi name for katam as it’s not an indian herb. It’s from yemen and it’s called either katam or buxus. Thank you!
Hi Khadija, I wrote awhile back about using katam with a ready-made henna mix. When I used the mix, it made my grays more coppery red and I am going for a dark cherry, auburn brown for my grays. Should I try mixing the katam with my mix (which has Raj henna plus amla and other herbs) or should I start from scratch with a 100% henna like Raj and just add either katam or indigo? My hair is already a black-brown with the reddish highlights and then the coppery strands. The indigo makes me a little nervous. Thanks!
Hello Michaela. The indigo will tone it down and bringing it down to a darker shade. Bringing it darker and then going to use just henna only should make those red tones show up more.
Henna alone is what’s used when trying to get reddish tones to come through strongly.
So since indigo is stronger, it will most likely, when mixed in some porportion with the henna, take out the coppery color on my grays? I’m just not sure the katam is strong enough to battle my grays that are now coppery 🙂
Michaela yes indigo would be stronger and better choice for darkening.
Thanks Khadija!
Can u pls tell me from where can i buy katham
Yes absolutely Ruweena, purchase your katam here: http://www.hennasooq.com/katam-hair-dye/
i have jet black hair and have quite a bit of white hair now im only 24. can you help me in covering to the nearest colour possible to black the halal way.
Hey I’m a natural strawberry blond and I use Light Mountain henna – light red. My hair looks dirty blond/gray now so I put in henna. 10 minutes gives me a faint red that fades as my hair grows out, so it is not noticeable. 45 minutes makes the hair bright red…like when I was ten and the grow-out is stark. I use the 10 minute treatment now.
Hi,
I used henna to try and cover my grey hair that is about 40%. However , I got a beautiful color over my chocolate colored hair but the grey hair turned to to coppery color . I would like to have a chocolate brown color and not sure what the best mix will be? Also wondering what does amla do when added to hena?
Thanx
Hi!
I’ve been dyeing my hair with a henna/cassia mix for a while now and I’ve been pleased with the results. My only problem is that when I first started to use henna I had a reddish medium brown chemical dye underneath so the result with henna/cassia on top of that was darker than it would have been on my virgin hair, which is a very light blonde colour. So the problem is starting to present itself now when my natural colour is starting to be quite noticable in my roots. I don’t wish to dye the roots first with a chemical dye and henna on top of that. I also would not want to use anything that would make the dye come out cooler in tone, since I’m aiming for a very natural medium red, think a natural born ginger head like Lily Cole; http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTdYRqtlUOmZzy5Rea5zcaU5ZxVXvL8wSe74x1Q9H2TdhrE5pFp and a cool toned red hair simply doesn’t exist in nature. 😀
If I dye my roots with henna only the result will be VERY fiery red since my natural colour is so light. If I add only cassia it will simply turn out orange or even yellow, because my natural colour doesn’t have any brown/darkness to add to those orange-y tones (this is pretty much the situation I’m in at the moment). If I add amla the result will be too cool for my liking. The same is probably true about indigo and would very easily be too dark for what I’m looking for. So would katam finally be the answer to my problems? 😀 How much katam would you recommend for me to mix in with my 50/50 henna/cassia mix to achieve something like the colour Lily has in the picture above?
Sorry for such a long ramble and THANK YOU in advance! 😀
Oh and one more question; I actually have katha (acacia katechu) powder at hand so would that work in the desired way as explained above? Or would katam (or something else that I haven’t yet thought of) be better?
pls what is the name of cassia in urdo
Sorry we don’t know of any other name for cassia.
Assalamualaikum
I have never coloured my hair. I am asian so i have naturally black hair, a little coppery under the sun. I have been tempted to colour my hair but never did because I have always been scared the hair colourant they sell in stores is not possible for my wudhu’ to be absorbed. So i just googled what is permitted and found katam and henna is ok. I want to achieve a brown colour so that my hair looks softer plus I already have some grey hair. From what i have read, katam is only to be used to darken the hair. So does that mean i should only use henna + amla (i still dont know what amla is. Will google it right after this)? What should be the ratio? Thank you.
Walaikum salaam Hamizah! With natural herbs and henna you can’t go lighter since it’s not a chemical treatment and those strip the hair color out. If you’d like a lighter looking tone you can use our Red Raj but you have to be consistent with colorings being every 4-6 weeks and this would be your best choice. I’m not sure if indigo or katam can help unless you had a high percentage of grey hair to make that brown tone naturally. We currently don’t have katam in stock.
Hello! I have somewhat faded cherry red hair that was chemically dyed. I want to dye my hair with henna and I want to end up a burgundy on the more purple side with red tones to it. What do you recommend I do to achieve my desired color? Thanks!
I am having trouble finding a 100% pure henna and indigo powders without quimicals in them. I want to buy the purest henna but not sure I trust some websites that sell it because I read that some products claim to be natural but have chemicals in them to help color last. Where can I buy henna and indigo that is completely pure and doesnt have any added quimicals to it? Thanks so much!
Good day Alex. Here at the Henna Sooq we promise to you and guarantee that our henna and all our ayurvedic herbs are free from chemicals. Please view and shop with us at http://www.HennaSooq.com
I have 1/4″ grey roots coming in and would like to dye them a very dark purple. Is there a henna mixture for this? I was thinking of 50% henna with 50% indigo then using a vinegar rinse on dried hair. Or, a 2 step process of henna then Katam.
Hello Ann. Thank you for your message on our blog. Unfortunately we don’t have a natural recipe for purple tones. You can achieve burgundy but 50% of henna and indigo creates a brown, and then katam over that won’t make much of a difference. Katam is out of stock and very hard to get since Yemen has many political issues at this time. We’re unable to import it.
Can anybody help me in knowing in shop in Pune, Maharashtra, India – KATAM is available.
i have heard alcohol! with indigo goes straight purple.. even beer..
Oh wow. Interesting.