I've been growing my curly hair for over 5 years now. Back in May of 2017 I had short platinum blonde hair (basically a pixie) and had struggled to get my hair past shoulder length for several years. My 3B curls have always been difficult to manage and I would always end up frustrated and chop my hair off.
Around Christmas of 2017 I had three inches of root growth and decided to go completely natural and cut off all the blonde, leaving myself with 3 inches of hair. I was devastated, but I knew if I wanted long hair I had to stop bleaching it.
Fast forward to 2022, and my hair is now WL with the goal of TBL. I went to three salons trying to brighten up my hair since my very long, ashy light brown hair started to seem boring to me after all these years. Each visit resulted in me being more and more frustrated, however, when the stylists were not listening to what I wanted. I ended up with a balayage and tone that I didn't like, and I started doing some research on henna.
I loved everything I heard about it but was scared of how permanent it is believed to be. I also had never tried red or warm colors on my hair because I have a cool complexion, but I shoved my fear away and ordered Khadi's copper hair color and applied it all over my head. And it was amazing. I got so many compliments! It perfectly blended the bad balayage and I was turning heads everywhere I went.
This worked great for a little bit until I realized henna actually requires serious upkeep. My initial belief was that because henna is so permanent that it doesn't fade, but I couldn't be more wrong. The initial vibrant color faded out after a week or two of regular washing, and when my ashy/grey roots started to come in I was mortified. The idea of having to sit there again and put more of the henna mud on my head and do it over and over, every month for the rest of my life, really overwhelmed me. I didn't like how I couldn't part my hair in the middle and wear braids without my roots loudly announcing that I was not a natural redhead. During this time I have been dealing with a circulation issue of unknown origin and it leaves my skin quite blueish-pink at times, and other times extremely pale. My lips are naturally blueish without lipstick and my eyes are bright blue. I started to dislike the red (which had now faded to an orangish color) against my skin tone. Even though I still got compliments daily on my hair color, I wasn't truly happy and didn't feel like myself. I have always been blonde, at least a dirty blonde, and while I was happy to step out of my comfort zone and try henna, it quickly lost it's appeal and I decided I wanted to do the impossible and go back to platinum blonde. Can I do it? I think I can.
The first step I have taken to go platinum blonde is to stop coloring with henna. Its a very simple first step. I returned my unopened boxes of henna and bought some supplies to try to fade the color. I want to keep the length of my hair as much as possible, but I am open to a significant trim if needed because I've had the experience of really long hair and I am ok with change if necessary. Here are two images of my hair in different lighting and showing how much it had faded after about a month of not using henna and using a Dove's charcoal and clay shampoo with each wash (this shampoo has really helped to fade it.)
Don't be fooled by the camera though, my natural roots are actually still vibrant reddish orange at this stage!
I then watched countless videos on Youtube and poured through the information here at LHC and discovered several ways people have faded their henna with success. My first fading treatment consisted of mixing Head & Shoulders dandruff shampoo with equal parts baking soda and fresh squeezed lemon juice. I basically just did a mixture I was comfortable with and with every treatment I'm going to mention, I did a test strand on an inconspicuous piece of hair to make sure there wouldn't be any kind of surprise chemical reaction. While Khadi does not put metallic salts in their products, I am extra cautious about my hair and making sure to not lose length if at all possible due to an unforeseen reaction. Also a note is that the Khadi Copper color I used does contain indigo, and in certain lighting I can definitely see the blueish tint of the indigo. So with all these treatments I was monitoring closely for any green to show up. Getting the "green" light to go ahead, I put the Head & Shoulders solution all over my head and left it on about 20 minutes. When I washed it out, my hair was quite sticky and felt really weird, pretty dry too, but it did fade the henna a bit. More of my blonde started to show through and it toned down the roots a bit. But it wasn't anything anyone would notice, (which is why I didn't take a picture), and I would not do this treatment again. I decided to do a different treatment on the same day. I had read in several places online that people have had success fading henna with Indian Aztec Healing bentonite clay, which works by trapping toxins and molecules that are not natural hair. It's been known to entirely strip out normal hair dye from bleached hair so I thought it would at least put a dent in the henna. I mixed the clay with a 1:1 ratio of clay powder and water, and then again half as much apple cider vinegar as water. It began to bubble as it neutralized and after a test strand I applied it all over my head and left it about 30 minutes. Then I rinsed and checked the results and was quite pleased. The combination of the Head & Shoulders treatment followed by the bentonite clay definitely faded and lightened the henna. Again though, it wasn't noticeable enough to merit a picture from me, but the blonde was definitely showing through much more and my roots had toned down as well.
At this point I knew I would eventually need to use chemicals to fully get rid of the henna and bleach to get platinum. I can completely respect anyone who is willing to have two toned hair for five years while it grows out, but that isn't a journey I wish to be on or know what that is like. I've had great patience just growing my hair for 5 years and I'm not doing it again with orange on my head. With this decision in place, I researched Color Oops extensively and decided to do a test strand. And it worked amazing! I left the Color Oops on the test strand for exactly 2 hours, checking every 15 minutes and applying heat with the blow dryer, keeping it wrapped in plastic. When I analyzed it after, nearly every trace of the henna had been removed. I also applied bentonite clay to the test strand after rinsing for only 5 minutes, because I had a suspicion it would not reoxidize if the bentonite trapped the henna molecules while they were small and removed them from the hair. It definitely worked, I was left with a strand that was completely blonde and had my natural color at the roots with just a slight golden cast over the entire thing that is the remaining henna. (Continued in comments)
Henna to Platinum Blonde Journey
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