Henna Color Recipes

Tired of chemical color?  With henna and herbs you can get natural color, or go bold without chemicals and without fading – really! You can brighten brown hair, deepen your red or get a rich black, including gray coverage. And blonds can go from red to raven.  

You can color your hair naturally, using plants and herbs.  We'll have more color recipes for you in time for Valentine's Day.  In the meantime, here are some guidelines to get you started, followed by a blog post about how I color my own black and gray hair with henna and indigo.

Which herbs are used to dye hair?

There are several plants you can use to color your hair.  The most popular are henna, cassia, and indigo.  Other herbs are used to deepen or enhance colors, including chamomile, amla (gooseberry), and hibiscus among others.

Which colors can you dye your hair?

Plant-based dyes like henna can be used to darken, but not lighten hair.  So if you're hair is brown or black, you can't use herbs to go blond. 

Natural blondes can dye their hair the widest range of colors - from enhancing their blond to strawberry, red, auburn, brown or black.

Those with 100% white and light gray hair have the same options as blondes. 

Those with light to medium brown hair can brighten their color or go auburn, shades of darker brown or black.

Natural redheads can enhance their color and deepen the red tones or go dark brown or black. 

Those with very dark brown or black hair can only go deeper brown or to the blackest blue-black.

How do I mix the right color for my hair?

Do a strand test!  Collect your hair in a baggie and saturate it with your henna mix.  In a few hours, you'll see exactly what the color will look like on your hair. You can adjust the proportions according to the outcome. (If this just sounds too complicated, Natural HaiRevolution offers henna color mixing.)

To achieve the right color for myself, I've relied heavily on reputable suppliers of henna and herbs for hair color recipes and mixing guidelines, and have made adjustments from there.  Below is my recipe for coloring my dark brown hair with grays.