Coloring My Sisterlocks

Call me vain, but I hate the gray. I am by no means ready to "grow old gracefully". I'm not even middle-aged yet!

When I got my locs installed they told me I should either color right before installation or I would have to wait a year. A year! I thought I could stick it out, I didn't want any chemicals on my hair before installation (at this point henna hadn't even crossed my radar). Back in July I had colored dark brown and within a month my roots were bad.

Tri-colored hair and I had colored
right after I took my braids out!

I've been artfully doing a side-part to hide the worst of it. But at my two-month tightening my loctitian made a random comment about the colors in my hair.

The colors in my hair aren't nearly
as pretty as the background.

Last week I contacted my loctitian and didn't exactly beg, but was possibly persuasive enough that she gave me the go-ahead to use henna a week before my re-ti (CAUTION!!!! This is not recommended!!!! My locs are only three months old and all responsibility for anything negative that happens is my own damn impatient fault).

 I ordered this kit and set aside half a day (after reading the reviews) to do my hair. It was a good reason to get caught up on Scandal ... 

Before

I know it's time to color
when I no longer get carded.

Step 1: Left on for about 30 minutes. My hair is coarse and has always taken longer to process everything, so I left it on double the time of the instructions even after letting it cure for an hour. And I did a bad thing. I forgot to bundle my ends! Oh shit! It took forever to rinse out and then I just prayed that I hadn't screwed up my locs.

And still it's barely red. Oops, I hope Step 2 takes away the rest of it.

After Step 1 there's a red tinge to my gray.
I guess I could have left it on a little longer but I didn't want brassy.

Step 2: Section and bundle! (Better late than never?) Slather something akin to mud made up of henna, indigo, herbs, and day-old coffee (more brown, less red), all over my head, cover with a plastic cap and apply heat .... unless you tend towards red, then don't use heat.

I tend towards red, so I used the included plastic cap, then covered with my shower cap and then a scarf. Marinate... and forget to set the timer. I figured I was done when it started dripping down my neck. I think it was on for about 2.5 hours.

After

It took almost an hour (really 20 minutes, but it felt like an hour. I mean have you ever washed your hair for 20 minutes straight?!?!?!?) to rinse until the water ran clear. The things we do for beauty....

I got carded at the grocery store :)
I mixed it with coffee instead of water and
that made a huge difference. More brown/black and less red.

My re-tightening is this Friday. I know I have slippage on one or two locs in the kitchen, but they were that way before I henna'd. Hopefully that's the only thing. My hair feels a little thicker and a little off texture-wise. Five days later there's still indigo coming off on my fingers, but it hasn't transferred to my skin, clothes or pillowcase, so that's a good thing.

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