IT MAKES "CENTS" TO ME FOR FRIDAY - NOVEMBER 8th

Hi everyone,

Okay, so this post is four days late. I'm really sorry. Talk about a crazy last few days.  We're gearing up for the holiday season at work and it's already starting to tire me out. 

I hope all of you are doing well this week so far.

One of the things I LOVE to do is color my hair. I keep it pretty much my natural color with a hint of red in it for warmth.  That and I am starting to see just a few white hairs.  I've decided I don't want to go all white  until I'm at least 50 years old.

Coloring my hair at home is NOT an option, since I make such a big mess in the bathroom every single time. I also have some limited mobility in my right shoulder, so that is sometimes painful and not the easiest thing to work around when trying to apply color to my head.

I'd heard about henna hair color and thought I would give it a try.  There is a LUSH cosmetics store in Carmel that sells this wonderful, chemical-free henna.  I went for a color called "Caca Rouge"..yes, they used that word on purpose because when it's all mixed it up it looks like muddy runny stuff. It looks gross, but it works fabulous.

The salon I go to normally charges $65 for color application.  Here at my local LUSH cosmetics store they only charged about $28 for the henna.

I called the store ahead of time to make an appointment, just in case they were busy.  This particular henna is set with cocoa butter into hard blocks like this, but it melts down easily with warm/hot water.   When it's melted down, it sort of looks like this:

It does feel a little heavy on the head, especially after it starts to dry. However, once it is applied to the head, I looked a bit like a cave woman:

I also didn't have a blessed stitch of makeup on my face, not even moisturizer.  Henna takes a really long time to set.  Here I waited about 3 hours total before I washed it out.  Now I left for home as soon as the henna was applied to my head. I did wait a little bit while the lady who a pplied henna to my hair helped other customers. While waiting a took a couple photos of the store.  It's a beautiful store that is light, airy and just really lovely:

The store was small but so well decorated.  I didn't feel closed in.

After the henna had been drying in my hair for about three hours, it was time to wash it out. That took about 15 minutes, because it was caked on my hair and it's really, really grainy and gritty.  It took me awhile to wash all the henna out of my hair. I LOVE the color result.  I wanted to add back some of the red undertones in my natural hair color and this did that.  However, my white hairs are now carrot orange...but when blended in with the rest of my hair it looks great.  Next time, I'll probably try the LUSH "caca marron" henna. That's more of a reddish brown color.

The only real negative is the smell. It doesn't smell bad. It reminded me a bit of muddy wet grass while it was wet. Later, after I washed it out, the smell of my hair reminded me of patchouli spices.  Here is how my hair color turned out. It wasn't a dramatic color difference, but it did add a lot of vibrancy to my hair.

This is what my hair looks like from the back.  I deliberately stood in direct sunlight so that you'd be able to see the red tones a little bit better.  All in all, I'm very pleased about how my hair color turned out. I'll let you know if I try it again.

The associate at my local LUSH cosmetics store said that it fades out in about 4 weeks.

Have you ever tried henna hair color? Or do you use something else to color your hair? What do you do to keep up with hair color and save a little money at the same time? I'd love to hear your thoughts and comments.

That's the news from the ocean shores of California today. Love and hugs, Heather :)