Hothouse Bath and Body News

With all of the nasty carcinogens found in typical drugstore box hair colors, I decided to seek out a healthier alternative for coloring my hair.  I have natural dark brown hair and my greys started showing when I was in my mid-twenties.  Since my mother and aunt had breast cancer, I’ve been looking at all my of personal care products in a new light and don’t want to subject myself to any avoidable toxic ingredients.

A few weeks ago I found a hair color from Aubrey Organics, Color Me Natural, 100% Natural Permanent Hair Color in Dark Brown on iherb.com.  It does not contain phenylenediamine, coal tar dyes, resorcinol, ammonia, synthetic colors, preservatives, or fragrance.  To make the dye you add about a mug of very  hot (but not boiling) water to a dry mix and then stir it until it forms a cake batter like consistency.  From there you can transfer the hot batter into a bottle with a tip (I opted for a plastic sandwich bag and cut one of the ends off).  When you put it on your hair it has a strange gritty consistency and it makes you feel like you’re putting hot crunchy peanut butter in your hair.  After the recommended 90 minutes, I had a hard time getting the color and the grittiness out of my hair.  There was also a strong wood smoke smell that it left in my hair.  While I admire the fact that the hair color doesn’t have any toxic ingredients and is so safe you can use it while pregnant, the color didn’t cover my roots and I needed to recolor a week later.  Also, the horrible wood smoke odor continued to linger in my hair over a week.

Last week I decided to try Surya Henna, Brasil Cream Hair Color in Chocolate from iherb.com. It does not contain peroxide, ammonia, heavy metals, PPD, resorcinol, parabens, mineral oils, or synthetic fragrance.  It does contain a plethora of organic extracts including  henna, arnica, chamomile, brazil nut, acerola, acai, carrot, guarana, honey, and hazelnut.  I loved how easy this was to apply — no mixing.  The consistency was pretty much the same as a regular hair color, just a little thicker.  If you have short hair  and you don’t use the whole bottle, you can just cap the bottle and use it next time.   I have long hair, so I used the entire bottle.  It took a lot less time to color — only 30 minutes.  This color smelled great going on because of all the organic ingredients and did not have me trying to hold my breath (like some drugstore box colors).   My hair smelled lovely right after coloring also. The color was a fabulous dark chocolatey brown and covered my roots completely.  There does seem to be quite a large amount of color coming out when I wash my hair, so I’m not sure how long it will hold (also it is semi-permanent).  I will be sure to post an update on this in a few weeks. Right now I would say I highly recommend Surya Henna’s hair color!

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