Now that pretty much everybody I'm going to see has seen my new hair in real life, I get to post some pictures for the masses. It's been super fun surprising people ("surprise"?! it's like the days before the internet!!). I was doing some reading online about taking care of long hair, and I found a lot of positive comments about 100% pure henna, body art quality as a deep conditioner and a way to get more shine.
After doing extensive research, I decided to buy 500 g of Ancient Sunrise-brand Purity Henna (the one with the second-highest lawsone content) from this website, whose owner is working on a PhD in henna (which, apparently, exists). I learned there are a ton of variations for recipes in terms of what to mix the henna with, so this is what ended up doing:
400 g Ancient Sunrise-brand Purity Henna (hennaforhair.com)
15 fl oz lemon juice
approx. 6 oz of Trader Joe’s orange-peach-mango juice (because I ran out of lemon juice and didn't feel like going to the store -- and the e-Book I read said that any acidic juice should work)
four spoonfuls of cinnamon (for delicious smell)
latex gloves (two pairs -- one for me and one for my friend Monica)
plastic bowl
plastic spoon
newspaper for protecting living room
clear plastic wrap
pizza (for eating)
Mixed around midnight.
Let sit until about 1:30 pm next day.
Added more orange-peach-mango juice & stirred.
I enlisted the help of my friend Monica, who had done henna on herself before. She came over and after thoroughly newspapering my living room and eating some bacon, we went to work. It was extremely messy to apply -- think mud wrestling. It is totally necessary to wear clothes you don't care about staining, as well as have a towel of similar status. I have some pretty ridiculous pictures of myself with the mud all over my hair -- and, after much debate, eyebrows even though it said on the website not to -- but since I look like a Swamp Thing, I'm not posting them lest I ruin my presidential campaign.
We plastic-wrapped my head, put a towel over it, and left the henna on for three hours.
Because the e-Book said that it would come out coppery bright at first and then oxidize to a darker color within three days, I had done all of this on a Saturday, expecting that I may need to hibernate until it looked less ridiculous. Fortunately and unfortunately, it ended up looking exactly like I wanted it just after we finished, so we went out for a drink.
Over the next few days, the color did get darker, as promised and as depicted below (poorly, due to flash and bad lighting). I still liked the initial Little-Mermaid-esque color better, so next time I won't be afraid to get the highest dye content, which is the Celebration henna.
Close-up on hair before, immediately after, and next day:
:
In honor of joining the redhead ranks -- this is a fabulous Dylan cover by Neko Case.
I've been super into her lately. Gorgeous voice.
And another gorgeous one -- not a cover:
Also, a few weeks ago I was looking at things on the Internet, as I am often wont to do, and I stumbled across this nail art tumblr. Lo and behold, the artist, Fleury Rose, works in Brooklyn, so I made an appointment and got my nails done to match my new stockings:
I'm into it. Pretty much played "Pro Nails" by Kid Sister on repeat all the way home.
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