I just couldn't stay off the henna bandwagon long enough before I found myself hennaing again. For those of you that don't know about my on again off again relationship with henna, in short, I love the conditioning effects but not so much the color. I've tried indigo and henna to lessen the red, but that experiment left my hair as dry as a desert; and Cassia, unfortunately, didn't prove to be groundbreaking. I've heard good things about the Lush Henna Bar, and thought it might be worth a try (just this once). The great thing is that it comes in four different colors: Caca Rouge, Caca Marron, Caca Brun and Caca Noir. So you can essentially choose how red, how brown, or how black you'd like your hair. And your hair won't look like caca afterwards, I promise.
I opted for the Caca Noir because I don't want to go down the red path again, and my usual dark brown strands could use some umph, some richness. I find my ash dark brown hair tends to look dull very easily. The great thing about these bars (specifically the brown and black bars) are that the main ratios of Henna to Indigo are already determined to help you achieve that brown, dark brown or black hair you want. This aspect is nice because it saves you time in measuring out those ratios, waiting for the henna's dye to release, then mixing in the indigo at the last minute (since your not supposed to let that one sit for too long). The bar also contains several other ingredients such as Cocoa butter for extra conditioning.
So last week, I went in for the kill. I read Lush's directions and watched their how-to video, which ultimately leaves it up to you to master making your henna bar.
STEP 1: CHOP
You can grate or chop up the block. I chose to chop the block in squares because I did not feel like grating the henna block like a wad of cheese. The directions don't give you measurements, so you'll have to eyeball everything. (**I ended up using the entire bar, which was a MISTAKE. I had so much left over! I would say use half, it will be more than enough.)
STEP 2: POUR
The next step after chopping/grating the block is to add hot water. I basically added enough so the pieces were covered in water, but you don't want to fill it up to the top because you risk the paste being too watery. The key is to eventually get it to a yogurt consistency, so I just added a little bit of water at a time, and let it steep for about 10 minutes. Letting the squares steep will help soften the pieces making for easier stirring. You can also add more water if you find your paste is too thick.
STEP 3: STEEP
STEP 4: MIX
STEP 5: APPLY
Once you have everything incorporated, it's time to apply. This part, as with any henna treatment, is extremely MESSY! Be sure to line your bathroom with newspaper. If some does end up getting onto things, which it might, cleaning spray (windex, fantastik, or whatever you use) should get it off easily. I used about half of the mixture in my hair, so approximately half of the bar.
STEP 6: WRAP
Next, I wrap my hair in cling wrap and put a plastic shower cap on top. At this point you can leave the mixture on from one to six hours depending on how dark you want your hair. (In my case, I only left mine in for 1.5 hours for a natural black). After rinsing for what seemed like 20 times, I still didn't manage to get all of the gunk completely out. Henna users know of those annoying little particles and debris that are a pain to wash out. So annoying! After rinsing, my hair felt strangely stiff. But not a dry stiff, more like a stiffness as if I put gel in my hair. My curls were super defined though, and the color was a beautiful natural black, not harsh at all. To retaliate against the weird stiffness, I deep conditioned I used Shea Moisture Deep Treatment Masque and I left it in for about 30 mins. Afterwards, my hair felt great and the shine was definitely noticeable.
Bottom line: CONS, Lush Henna Bar may seem to be a time saver, but it's not! It, like all henna treatments, will take up your whole day. It is extremely messy and somewhat hard to wash out, compared to previous non-bar henna treatments I've done. PROS, However, the results were just what I was looking for in terms of color and shine. I was left with shiny, beautiful natural black hair. Even though the process was annoying and time consuming, the results came out great. If you can get past that stuff, then I highly recommend Lush Henna Bar!
-Sophia