Alison's Transformation: From Henna to Naturally Silver Hair
katie goes platinum
Growing up, I had very shiny and smooth chocolate-brown hair. With my blue eyes and fair skin, it felt like my dark brown hair color was part of my identity.
I always loved my hair for the first few days after spending $300 at the salon for a beautiful caramel balayage treatment. But my hair was very porous and became damaged very easily and I missed the shiny hair of my youth.
I quickly learned that henna over brunette hair results in a beautiful rich auburn color but unfortunately henna over brunette hair with gray roots results in auburn hair with bright orange roots that Ronald McDonald would be proud of.
So I learned to mix my henna with indigo to get a dark color for my roots to match the rest of my hair, which meant that every 4-6 weeks I’d spend a full day doing a 2-3 step process to achieve the perfect color so my roots were covered and matched the rest of my hair.
Then in late 2021, I started to become annoyed with how quickly my roots were showing and how burdened I felt by organizing my life around coloring my hair.
I visited a colorist for the first time in years only to find out that nobody would attempt to remove the henna or lighten my hair for fear of damaging it.
Surprisingly, I discovered that most of my white hair was around my hairline and temples. The back of my hair still has a lot of my natural brunette color.
Interestingly, I think I probably do look older, but I’ve gained some peace with allowing myself to just be who I am at this moment in time, and not chase a youthful appearance that I ultimately can’t maintain.