Popular as Henna, Lawsonia Inermis can actually enrich, color and enhance your
hair. It is not necessarily a food that you consume but it is used externally on the outside of the hair rather than taken internally.
Henna is a powerful and natural hair conditioner that can help heal the
hair shaft by repairing and sealing the cuticle, protecting hair against
breakage and loss of shine.
Henna is excellent for the maintenance of healthy
hair. It's believed that Henna is one of those rare herbs which is aligned with
the Earth's polar fields and thus attract the powerful magnetic forces of the
Earth and this might be the reason why it is still used in most of the sacred ceremonies and festivals in India and world over.
Henna is a small tree or
large shrub which grows up to a height of 6 meters.
It is glabrous, multibranched
with spine tipped branchlets. Leaves are opposite, entire, glabrous,
sub-sessile, elliptical, and broadly lanceolate. Henna plant has lateral
branches with leaves that grow in pairs, around 2 to 4 centimeters in length.
Henna leaves have a red-orange dye, lawsone, and the highest dye concentration
is in the petiole (the central vein). Young leaves have the highest petiole dye
content. The dye content reduces as leaves grow Older.
Lawsone has an affinity
for bonding with protein, and thus has been used to dye skin, hair, fingernails,
leather, silk and wool. Henna body art is made by applying henna paste to the
skin: the lawsone in the paste migrates into the outermost layer of the skin and
makes a red-brown stain.
Henna also imparts excellent conditioning affect
as well as thickness to the hair.
The henna works more efficiently when the
extract of some plants like amla (Indian gooseberry), reetha (Soap nuts),
Shikakai (Acacia Concinna) etc. are mixed added to it.
Henna can be used in any
type of hair whether brunette or blond, whether straight or curly. However, the
darker hair produce excellent result when henna is applied on it. When used as a
conditioner, Henna imparts following benefits:
- Prevents hair loss
-
Strengthens hair
- Controls dandruff
- Conditions hair
- Tones and
promotes healthy scalp
- Removes excess oil from the scalp
- Relieves
headaches and scalp tension
In the early Ayurveda texts, Henna is being
mentioned as a cure for number of skin and hair problems. It is used to
manufacture natural and herbal hair oils and shampoos.
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