In Which I Use Caca On My Head

It is time for a review, friends. But first, a little background. I have curly hair. Well...wavy hair. Curly on good days, frizzy nothing on bad days. And my hair will do a whole lot in between. In the curly girl world, I have type 2B hair. Up until about 3 years ago, I didn't realize that if I used the right products and coaxed my hair correctly, I could actually get it to look more curly and less frizzy. Consequentially, I have spent most of my life blow drying and straightening my hair. Which is pretty terrible. I also dyed it quite frequently with your standard boxed dyes from the drug store. That's even more terrible.


This brings us to the review at hand. There's a lot of buzz on the curly girl web circuit about henna. It's a natural way of dying your hair that's not exactly permanent, but also a lot healthier for your hair than your traditional boxed dye. I had used henna once before that I purchased at the Honest Weight Food Co-op and liked the results. I didn't feel the dryness I had seen with other hair dyes nor the hair loss that could also occur. This time I decided to try a different brand.


My friend Aprill told me about Lush's henna called Caca Rouge Mama, and the 5 year old in me laughed. Caca? Really? But Lush has never let me down before, so who was I to squabble with their choice in name? Where the henna I had used before was a powder, this comes in blocks and is packed full of good things like cocoa butter and lemon juice, things that my hair loves. I didn't take a picture of the bar itself, but the box it came in looked like this:

Adorable.

Because I am so thorough, I decided to take a few pictures of the actual process. Let's start with a before picture: 

(Keep in mind, this was one of many before pictures. Most ended up being just of my eyebrows.)

As you can see, I have longish, thickish hair. That color is not my natural color. I'm naturally a brunette, but Aprill insists she'll no longer be my friend if I'm not a redhead, so I am caught in the vicious cycle of dying.

The directions say to use 3-4 of the 6 squares for longer hair. I decided to use all 6 squares, because I didn't want to worry about running out. Also, if I only had 2 squares left over at the end, they wouldn't be much help in the future.

You're supposed to put the the squares in very hot water and let them seep until you can mix them up. Some people suggest hammering the pieces in a bag first so they break up and are more easily dissolved. I decided to do this at 11pm and didn't want to wake my neighbors, so I just broke pieces off in my hands and put them in the bowl. Then I put very hot water into the bowl, and this is where the panicking began. 

The key in everything I read is that the hotter the water, the better the henna will be absorbed into your hair. After adding the water, it looked like I had added to much water, and I didn't keep in mind the fact that as the blocks dissolved, the consistency would become thicker. All I kept thinking was, "I need to get this mixed up NOW before it cools down!" So without letting it fully seep, I began stirring and crushing the mixture, praying that I wouldn't end up with soupy henna. This is what the end product looked like:

Yum.

As you can see, it was very lumpy, and this would come to hinder me later in the process.

Everything you read about the application always has a big warning that states MESSY! And the warning is not an exaggeration. Do not do this on a rug or surface that you care dearly about, as you will ruin it. I chose to do this in the bathtub. If I do this again, I will line the bathtub with newspaper, as I can just throw away the mess in the end. As it is, I had to scrub my bathtub at 1am to make sure nothing became stained. Every girl's dream Friday night.

I digress. Lush gives you gloves to use, and you need to use them. If not, you'll end up with reddish hands. I applied at the roots of my hair first and made my way out to the tips. As I was scooping up handfuls of the goop, I realized that some of those clumps you saw pictured were still dry in the middle. So I would try to rub them between my fingers and expose them to the moisture. As it was, at points it felt like I was rubbing little sticks into my hair, getting it call tangled up. Not pleasant. After about 30 minutes, though, I finally got all of my hair fully saturated with the henna. I did end up using the entire mixture, too, FYI.

After cleaning myself AND the bathtub up, I had to wrap my hair up. I used about 6 layers of plastic wrap around all of my hair to seal in the juices, and used two shower caps to be extra safe.

Conehead Shelby, reporting for duty. Mike is one lucky man.

So the package says to leave the mixture on for 2-6 hours, and recommends you do this at night so you can sleep on it. Who the heck only sleeps for 6 hours and is able to function appropriately the next morning? Not me. So I decided I'd go to sleep and wake up whenever the heck I wanted to. It's the weekend. I'm entitled.

I slept on a towel just to be careful and the mixture ended up being on my hair for roughly 8 hours. The removal of the henna was almost at difficult. I stood under the water just letting the water trickle through the mud and tried my best to coax the little sticks down the drain. I ended up co-washing my hair with Herbal Essence's Hello Hydration Conditioner twice not only to help remove the henna, but also because my hair was feeling surprisingly dry. All accounts I had read said that the mixture would over-hydrate your hair, but I found the opposite to be true.

I rinsed for about 30 minutes, got out, cleaned the tub (AGAIN), put some Organix Moroccan Oil Curl Defining Cream in, and went about my day. Here are some pictures of the finished product:

I really do love the color. I don't think the pictures do it justice. However, I don't think I'll be using this particular brand again. For starters, the price ($25) is to me unreasonable. Also, for all of the moisturizing elements in the bar, my hair didn't really feel all that hydrated. I guess the real test will be how long the color actually lasts for.


So I'm on the fence. Does anybody know of a good henna I can try next?