The other thing is... there's an "illusion" behind coloring hair. Highlighting and dyeing hair makes hair look thicker because it adds dimension, by having more than one tone as if there was light and shadow (like your hair has more depth).

Anais

I think it depends on your hair, probably on how porous your hair is. My henna job faded after a month and there weren't any roots. It might have been because the natural color is quite dark anyway.

"Misshenna"!

Anais

Misshenna! lol  Nice.  Sorry if I go on about henna alot, but it really has changed my hair so much for the better.....it's my goal to covert everyone to it!!!  World domination! (insert evil laughter here)

But seriously....there is henna and there is henna.  Body Art Quality (BAQ) henna is an entirely different thing to what you can buy commercially. The commercial (compound) hennas are often sold in different colours, in other words they are FULL of additives.  Pure BAQ henna only stains one colour..RED.  However, having said that, you can add your own herbs to henna to tip the colour in various different directions.  For example coffee, cloves and indigo (especially) will make henna more brown.  Adding more indigo will make it a VERY dark brown to black.  BAQ henna will not fade, not even a little bit! Indigo however, can fade out of your hair over several weeks.  Personally, I use henna mixed with amla and cloves (amla for curl retention as henna has been known to straighten hair) and I get a lovely copper red which is my ultimate hair colour

I henna every 3 weeks. I have a cycle, henna week 1, amla week 2, cassia week 3 and then back to henna and start all over again.  I get significant roots after this time (i'm getting quite grey  ).  Sometimes I only do my roots with henna and then do a gloss over the lengths.  But henna does such wonderful things for my hair, that I often just end up splurging and doing the whole head henna.

Now Susan, what you have at home in that little jar should be thrown away!  There is no such thing as "brown henna" and I would be suspicious if it says it will fade.  Pure henna is permanent and will NOT fade.  Also, pure henna can be used on dyed hair and then even dyed over the top of (always best to do a strand test first).  The reason commercial henna sometimes comes out bright green is because of the reaction with the metallic salts (in the chemically dyed hair and in the additives in the compound henna).  Commercial henna can also be quite drying.

Really, using BAQ henna will be a whole new world for you!  It thickens, conditions, adds shine, stops hair fall, cures scalp problems...amongst other things.

Just an aside here: my sister used to use the Lush "henna" and found it hard to apply and quite drying on her hair.  Because of this she was very sceptical about my use of henna, but since she has seen my results she wants to try it too.  She now realises that what I am using for my hair is not at all the same as the "henna" she was using.

Now as for the commitment to henna (due to its permanence), this is something I would do anyway even if it did not colour my hair. Henna is a conditioning treatment for me and I love to do it as often as I can.  The side benefit is that it also imparts colour (which I love also).  You seriously can not get the conditioning effects that you get from henna from anything else! At least I've never had my hair feel or look this good from anything else (and I thought that salon conditioning treatments made my hair feel great....well nothing compared to this!).  I actually enjoy and look forward to my henna ritual.  Apparently in India, henna is a weekly ritual that involves the whole family (the women anyway). You can do a henna as often as you want (if you have the time).

So....I'll stop here. Sorry to go on so much. Gee, can you tell I love henna??  Anyway, if you have any more questions then please just ask me and I'll be happy to help.  Once again, I refer you to http://www.hennaforhair.com - www.hennaforhair.com which is a wealth of information.  There is a forum there which I am a regular poster to (these days just to help other newbies and share techniques) and you can also get lots of help there.

PS: Don't be scared of henna, it's been around for a very loooooong time and is much studied and tested.

Susan, according to Catherine (who runs the hennaforhair site and is a henna guru!) the labelling on commercially sold henna is really bad! They don't say what is in it (really), so I wouldn't trust the labels.  Remember, you can't have "brown" henna if it is just pure henna. Henna is not brown.

If you're going to do it, I'd just go all out and get the good stuff. Your hair is precious (especially since we are all growing it out and it's going to be around on our heads for a number of years!) so treat it to a real henna