by Lindsay Prater

Created on: August 14, 2009

Go Green when Going Red

Want to take your adoration of Lucille Ball to the next level by being a redhead yourself? Good for you! However, deciding to dye your hair red is not a decision to be taken lightly. The dyes and chemicals used in your average drug-store box are hardly environmentally friendly. They range from ammonium hydroxide and propylene glycol to all sorts of funny sounding words that the average person doesn't even recognize. Besides, the nose hair curdling fumes themselves are enough reason to look at other options. So, if you are prone to allergies or just want to avoid contact with excess toxins, why not opt for an environmentally friendly and natural way? Use henna. Sold at most natural and organic grocery stores and markets, henna is a natural and safe way to redden your locks. Just ask Lucille Ball herself, who is famous for saying, My God, I'm outliving my henna! Thereby, not only crediting this herb with giving her hair that famous strawberry blonde hue, but also for being long-lasting as well. Made from the ground up leaves of the Lawsonia inermis plant, not from some bubbling chemical concoction in a lab, henna is 100% natural and quite literally green. The mixture actually takes on a greenish hue when mixed with water.

Another advantage of Henna is that it is cheap! An entire box usually costs under $10. Depending on how much you use in one application, one box can last for multiple applications. Which means that you can afford to do a few trial and error runs to find the right shade for you. Do-overs with the drugstore-box or salon route, on the other hand, can add up to a small fortune. Try a minimal amount of the mixture first. Leaving it on for 1-3 minutes, rinse out and dry. Let a few days pass to let the pigments fully oxidize in your hair and to see the full results. If you don't like it, try again adding more of the mixture and leaving it on for a longer period of time. This way, you can ease into being a redhead gently and avoid the risk of any kind of Bozo the clown outcome.

A word of caution: henna is strong. Just because it is a plant, doesn't mean that it is weak. It can dye your clothes and skin too. Take a lesson from me, who had a ruddy mitten pattern stain on my hands for weeks after my first henna session. Wear plastic gloves when mixing and applying henna at all times.

Finally, the biggest advantage in my opinion, is that when people say to you, Wow. Is that your natural hair color?

You can in good conscience answer, Well, it is natural.

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