Henna Gloss

Ok, this is obviously a picture of my hair from back when my hair was texturized, but natural or texturized the results should be essentially the same.

Here's how I do my henna glosses: First,  pick your henna of choice ( VERY IMPORTANT - make CERTAIN your henna of choice is BODY ART QUALITY henna).

I like to use yemen henna or jamila henna, and I use as much henna as necessary to completely cover all of my hair. For me that's about 200g henna. I add some hot water to help in the mixing, but generally I just use a cheap conditioner like vO5 or suave. So, I place my 200 g of henna in a plastic bowl, add a little hot water just to get the mixture wet and stir a bit, then I start adding my cheap conditioner. I keep adding the conditioner until I get my henna mixture to a yogurty consistency. I then apply it to my hair (I've applied it to dry hair and to wet hair and the results are essentially the same - perhaps applying it to wet hair makes it a bit easier because there's a little more slip). I then wrap my hair in saran wrap and a towel and let it sit on my hair for about 3 hours. That's what I did to get the results above.

If you want more color deposit, you may want to let your henna gloss sit in a warm place for several hours -  up to 8 hours if you'd like. Or as another option, you can apply your henna gloss to your hair, wrap your hair in saran wrap, and then go to bed ( got this idea from curlynikki). When you wake in the morning, co-wash it out.

An excellent way to rinse henna out is to fill your sink with warm water and then submerge your hair in the water, swishing your head from side to side. It's much easier to get all the henna out this way than to try to simply washing it out in the shower.

I have personally done full henna's, using only henna and lemon juice, and henna glosses which I described above. I personally think henna glosses are less drying. Now this is not to say that you don't need to deep conditioner after your henna gloss - you most definitely should, but as a comparison, I just think the henna gloss is a little less drying - this is just my personal experience.