Most hair coloring agents rely on harsh chemicals like hydrogen peroxide or ammonia to strip the hair and allow it to "take", or absorb, the chemical color applied to it. The word "natural" on a bottle of hair color doesn't necessarily mean chemical-free; some brands commonly found in natural products stores rely on peroxide to prepare the hair for their colorants.

What effect do these chemicals have on the hair?

First, they weaken and destroy the hair shaft over time. Additionally, many of the chemical hair colorants use various petroleum of coal tar-based ingredients derived from the environmentally harmful processing of oil or coal-tar processing ingredients that have been found, over time, to increase the long-term risk of various forms of cancer.

In contrast, henna has a long history as a safe, gentle hair color. The Food and Drug Administration has issued a monograph that approves henna for this use; henna is one of a select group of natural products to achieve official FDA recognition.

Using henna on gray hair has always been possible, but somewhat difficult. Henna has a harder time attaching to gray hair because of changes in the protein base of gray hair. After years of research, Light Mountain has developed a two-step product, Color the Gray! that effectively colors most gray hair.