Henna is an incredible herb that is amazing at colouring your hair naturally, and can be easily maintained with root touch ups in between full head applications. There’s no reason to stop hennaing when hennaing the roots only is an easy option!
Root touch ups are as easy as a full head application, if not easier! To do roots-only, do stick with your usual recipe to maintain a consistent color. On your second root touch up, overlap the dye onto the previously dyed root touch up to keep the colour even, or apply a gloss all over after a root touch up. Glosses can be done on the entire length to refresh the colour as well.
To make root touch ups with henna easier, freeze henna in ice cube trays or little blobs (thanks to Anje @ LHC for the great tip), or in small zip-lock baggies. Around 30-50 grams of combined powder is needed for a root touch up.
What can I use to apply henna paste to the roots?
- Zip lock baggie with the corner cut
- Carrot bag or henna cones (easy and less messy option)
- Our Plastic Bottle to apply along your root line
- With a dye brush separating sections.
- A small icing piping bag with a smooth plastic round tip
- Most of these found at: Henna Sooq
- Divide hair into 6 braids (loose at the base) and use an applicator to squirt henna into the roots.
- Make small buns with loose bases and squirt henna into the base.
- Part the hair as you go along and squirt or paint henna onto the roots.
- Randomly squirt henna onto roots.
- Apply handfuls of henna to hair and ‘smoosh’ henna paste into roots (this works well with shorter hair).
- Apply henna to roots while your head is ‘upside down’ by smooshing or using our plastic squeezy bottle.
After the henna has been applied to the roots only, feel free to smooth the length in oil, conditioner or a henna gloss and wrap your hair up with plastic wrap. Root touch ups can be applied whenever you see new roots. Usually new growth will appear within 2-4 weeks.
I retouch my roots every 6-8 weeks- making a batch of henna paste and then freezing is a great idea. I don’t notice any color difference using fresh henna paste vs frozen henna past.
Can you freeze henna mixed with indigo? I want to do a root touch-up and it would be great if I could mix a batch and freeze it. However, I read somewhere that indigo doesn’t freeze well. Thanks.
Hello Tiffany. Unfortunately you can’t freeze henna and indigo as one. Indigo doesn’t freeze well at all and needs to be discarded. You can freeze your henna batches but indigo as to be prepared and added fresh.
So if I do a root touch up will my roots be orange? Won’t my length have henna build up and be a deeper red? I’ve done a couple red raj applications on my medium brown hair and I love the color.
Hello Nikki. No you shouldn’t get orange tones with a root touch unless you put together a recipe for orange tones. You will have to do the exact same recipe for your root touch as you would have done for your length so that everything matches. When you do a root touch up you’ll be only doing the roots, and avoiding the length. The length then won’t get any more henna on it and hence no further build up until you decide to do the length again. I hope this helps
I too wonder about color match/processing time. I have 5 full head apps (was trying to get past orange stage on my dark blonde hair). Final app was Red Raj. Since it took so many coats to get past orange, how will one app on my roots match? Do I have to sleep in it? Each app was between 4-6 hours.
I have just recently started using henna. I have naturally med brown hair and used the natural red henna. I am wanting the I love Lucy red. My problem is I have tried to henna my roots and it is not taking the henna at all. It is still brown without any red tint. I am afraid I will have to go back to chemical color. I work in a professional environment and my boss would find long brown roots and half red hair unacceptable. I am at a loss.
Can I freeze henna and cassia as one? I recently colored my roots with Jamila for hair that had been frozen and it covered the grey perfectly. It did turn out a little darker than I wanted, so I was wondering if it’s best to mix henna with cassia or leave the paste (only henna)for a shorter period of time to get a lighter color? I left the henna paste on for 3,5 hour. Anyways; love the henna paste, it was so easy to apply and was so not messy at all 🙂
Here’s how I have learned to do my roots; Just like Kadija says do everything just like when you did the whole entire head but only on the roots. But now that I have more grays I do have to do 1 more step after that and after I rinse I then apply 50% henna and 50% indigo to my orange roots ONLY for 20 to 30 min. I do 25 min. And they match beautifully. I was very worried about doing this the first time so I did a test spot and it worked. I learned of this from Gallimaufry Grove.
Hi Patti. Great to hear from you! Oh wow that sounds amazing. You leave it on such a short amount of time and get such great results. Do you have photos? Would love to see your process or before and after results 🙂
how often can you touch up your roots with a henna and indigo mixture?
Hello Suzi. You can do a root touch every 2-4 weeks as needed. As long as your hair feels good and ok as well.
Hi, I have natural ginger hair and used the red henna clay on my hair around 6 months ago. My haircolor got very amplified and I loved it very much!It has now faded a little and I have a lot of roots that needs to be taken care of… I want to know how I can color the roots and make it even with the rest of my hair; what technique and products I should use to get the best result 🙂
HI Hannah. Thank you for your post. What color did it become with the red henna clay? If I know which red tone (range) you’d like to achieve that would help me make recommendations on which products. For a root touch up once you have your choice of henna and recipe, it’s easy. You’ll just make a smaller portioned recipe and apply to the roots only by sections. It might be easier to do all of your hair to make sure consistency of the color is closest to the same overall.
This is the colour I got after using red henna clay. My hair is originally very light orange, as you can see if you look closely at the roots. The colour is now lighter and I have about 8 cm of bright roots. I appreciate the fast answer to my last comment 🙂 -Hannah
Okita great to hear from you! Thank you for sharing a photo. Perfect and just so gorgeous. I may have missed your last comment. I’m so sorry. This may have gotten overlooked. Can you repeat it here for me to reply to?
How can I color my roots without making the color too strong there than the rest of my hair. How can I even out the color?
Okita you will just repeat the exact same recipe on your root growth only. Here is a great blog post Vanessa wrote about root touch ups. I hope this helps: https://hennablogspot.com/the-ins-and-outs-of-root-touch-ups/
Hello, this will be my third henna application and my second root touch up. I have mousy brown roots that have grown out about 2-3 inches now and my questions is, if I just apply the henna to my whole head again, will the color differences in my roots and length be really noticeable? I found it tricky to only get the henna on the roots and not on the already hennaed parts of my hair.
Hi Krista. A whole head application should be fine. It should be consistent color if you’re doing the same color application recipe to match.
I hope this helps.
I have previously hennaed my hair before but it has grown out about 3 inches and I need a touch up. My hair is starting to gray and I want to make sure that the touch up will match, as the previously hennaed hair didn’t have as much gray. I don’t want bright red roots with auburn colored hair.
Hello! In that case to keep it auburn you may just have to add more indigo to get the roots darker to match. Or just do a root touch up.