Confession: You are about to know WAY more about 1. Lush henna hair dye and 2. my night last night than you ever, ever wanted to know. Get cozy, stay awhile. Before I tell that story, I must share the link to the new LGBT Pride Month Proclamation from President Obama posted on the whitehouse.gov website yesterday. It pleases me – I still need to see more significant action, but I am pleased. Especially with this part (bolding mine):
These issues affect not only the LGBT community, but also our entire Nation. As long as the promise of equality for all remains unfulfilled, all Americans are affected. If we can work together to advance the principles upon which our Nation was founded, every American will benefit. During LGBT Pride Month, I call upon the LGBT community, the Congress, and the American people to work together to promote equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 2009 as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Pride Month. I call upon the people of the United States to turn back discrimination and prejudice everywhere it exists.
Back to the story. M is in Phoenix on business and last night seemed like the perfect time to commit to appx. 8 hrs. of semi-risky hair experimentation. The objective: To make my newly cut hair shinier (yes, shinier) and a little bit richer and more even in color via one bar of Lush’s Caca Brun Hair Mama Henna. I really wanted to NOT dump more chemicals into my hair b/c, well, it’s gross and not conducive to shininess. Pursuant to the overall advice of countless forum and comment posts I researched, I chucked the bar into the blender with a freshly brewed 1/2 pot of delicious coffee, observed the fact that once blended to the consistency of brownie or cake batter, it looks JUST LIKE GREEN BABY POOP and went to town thoroughly applying the dye with gloves out of my DIY bain marie.
No more than 10-15 minutes after committing my head to a slimy-but-gritty green beehive wrapped tightly with plastic cling wrap, ready for a full night’s sleep, did our building’s fire alarm go off. Dudes, seriously? I was like Eminem on MTV Movie Awards Night: ARE YOU SERIOUS!? ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!??!?!?!?!?!?! Eff. My. Life. It was so worst case scenario it’s not even funny. I got the petite up. Got the puppies together. Grabbed my documents and phone and rummaged through M’s things to put on one of her beanies – A FUCKING BEANIE!!! – over the slime-hive of baby poop death and schlepped downstairs, where all 60 or so of our neighbors waited for the fire dept. to come and investigate and then finally turn the deafening alarms off. When I say deafening, I am not kidding. That shit is louder than standing right in front of a speaker at a Sonic Youth show, and shrill as hell. It cannot possibly be within legal decibel levels.
I suppose I should note that it is common knowledge that REAL fires would trigger the overhead sprinklers, so the only real danger was my total and utter embarrassment. The bldg. was cleared within 10-15 minutes, in the meantime I cooed soothing things to the puppy and repeatedly asked my petite if slime was oozing out of the hat anywhere. She said no, but she was also sleepily giggling at me. Once we were safely back in our loft, I tried to sleep, but woke up every 30 or so minutes from 12:30AM through 5:30AM, at which point I could no longer stand it and got up to rinse all the dye out and shower, while M slept just as fitfully from her hotel room in Phoenix because we are awesomely pathetic like that. She watched an Arizona sunrise, I obtained shinier, more uniform dark brown hair with soft hints of auburn.
But you’ll have to wait until my next blog post to see it!
More fun facts about Lush hair dye:
- They come in four colors – rouge/red, marron/chestnut, noir/black and brun/brown. The results vary wildly by hair type, condition and natural color, but the guarantees are pretty much that your hair will be: shinier, healthier, chemical-free, in terms of color, richer and multi-dimensional.
- People experiment wildly with these – adding DIY, at-home ingredients like paprika, lemon juice, cloves, etc. to the mix and swapping plain hot or boiling water with brewed coffee, red zinger or chamomile or black tea, etc. depending on your desired result. Oils like olive or lavender are also popular additions, as much for shine as texture or scent.
- Next time, I’d probably do a 2:1 ratio of marron:brun or even marron:rouge over my dark, dark hair, because it really seems to make the strands pop like whoa. I envy like hell any blondes/dirty blondes who can get away with their reds – the results are simply stunning, provided you have healthy hair and a decent cut to start with. Like Tori Amos stunning.
- It also seems like some of the added ingredients are meant to help with the smell, which folks whine about A LOT, but for me it was just like an especially earthy and damp green tea.
- Another thing I’d do different next time is buy a few empty hair dye applicator bottles from the beauty store, fill them up with the hot henna mix, and plunk ‘em into near-boiling water (bain marie or whatnot) to make application easier. It’s messier than regular dye, but not THAT much messier.
- People also seem to get more intense results when they babysit it with a blow dryer every 30 minutes or so for 2-3 hrs., as opposed to no heat overnight, like I did, so I’d probably try that as well.
