Braids out!

I took down my kinky twists in the fourth week I thought I could carry them for at least six but they were getting real loose around my edges thanks to new growth and I didn’t want to risk them pulling my edges out seeing as my hair is weakest around that area. I couldn’t be asked to fix them so I decided to take them down instead and get something else done. Take down took me all of two hours! Seriously it was that easy their size and the fact that they were twists greatly helped in the take down. Take down over I finger detangled then saturated my hair with leave in conditioner and went to bed. The next day I detangled properly with a wide toothed comb there were one or two knots but nothing too tangled so that was stress free. Detangling done I proceeded to apply my previously mixed henna (I mixed with the juice of a fresh lemon and cold black tea) from roots to tip, covered that with a cling film/wrap, tied a scarf over it and let it sit for two hours.

henna mix

The company whose henna I use decided to start selling super finely ground double maybe triple sifted henna and I could kiss them for that. It is so much easier to handle than the not so finely sifted and ground henna that they have had for eons. This new pack is super fine, swells more when in contact with water and spreads easily. I remember mentioning in a different post that my hair was getting too thick for 100grams of henna, scrap that lets replace it with my hair was getting too thick for 100grams of the not so super finely ground henna. This new pack was 90grams and it was more than enough it covered my entire hair very well and still had some left over in the bowl which I just piled on top of my already hennaed head. It was too little too store and I didn’t want to waste it so I just added it in. I use henna from Sudan the new pack I got from my local BSS looks like this;

It is distributed in a few countries from the little English information I could read on the pack everything else was in Arabic. I have never really tried any of the sourced from India brands come to think of it maybe next time I will get one of those that has other herbs in them and see how my hair likes it. The old not so super finely ground pack that I used to buy from the same company I bought out of familiarity more than anything else it is what I have known for eons and seen being used by women around me for as long as I can remember.

Back to my wash day after the two hours watching TV were up I proceeded to rinse it out and once again super finely ground henna rinses out much quicker than the not so fine ones and doesn’t leave as much twigs and leaves plant particles in your hair as does the not so finely ground one on rinsing. The leftover henna specks are hardly noticeable and don’t bother me because they fly away on combing or blow drying anyway. Henna rinse done I shampooed with TRESemme naturals twice and then conditioned for like ten minutes and rinsed off. I t-shirt blotted my hair dry applied my leave ins and coconut oil and let it air dry some more, detangled a bit and then did one braid and let it dry like that.

 I really need to start wearing gloves when applying henna usually they get stained but clear off after a hand dishwashing session or two on the same day but this time round because I used a generous amount of lemon juice and probably because of the better quality henna they were still slightly stained three days later. I mixed the henna and applied it less than 30 minutes after mixing, application took me 10-15 minutes not enough time to leave a lasting stain on a regular application day. Usually I will add vinegar to my henna mix since I never seem to have lemons in the house on application day and leave the henna out for four hours plus sometimes overnight for the dye to release and my hands were never stained for this long but this time round the lemon juice reminded me of the need to wear gloves while applying henna.