When I started my healthy hair journey, I knew one of the first things I would have to stop using is hair dye. This was the most agonizing part of the whole process as I LOVE colour. I have dyed my hair blonde, red and everything in between. The only hair colour I never tried is indigo or blue-black. I never wore this colour because I didn’t think it was a shade that would accentuate my hue, given that my undertones are warm and not cool (blue or pink).
There’s a really cool trick to find out undertones if you have visible veins. Have a quick look at underside of your wrist; if your veins are greenish in colour, then you fall into the warm category. If they are bluish to violet in colour, then you have cool undertones.
There’s a really cool trick to find out undertones if you have visible veins. Have a quick look at underside of your wrist; if your veins are greenish in colour, then you fall into the warm category. If they are bluish to violet in colour, then you have cool undertones.
Anyway, back to hair. Just a few months into my healthy hair regime, I find myself fantasising about colour and I knew I had to find homemade/natural remedies because I wanted to eliminate the temptation of chemically dyeing my hair. A lot of prominent hair-dressers specialising in hair of African origin advise against dyeing relaxed hair.
After several hours of deliberation and pouring through alternative beauty books, I decided to go the lemon juice and honey route. Here’s what I used:
- 1/2 medium sized lemon (juiced)
- 80g Honey
- 150ml distilled water (you can use bottled water with low mineral composition)
- 1 bowl
- Shower cap
Here’s what I did:
- I mixed the honey and lemon in the bowl, stirring until the honey appeared to have ‘dissolved’ (it never really does and will settle at the bottom once you stop stirring)
- Then I added the water – you don’t really have to add water, but lemon juice is very acidic and tends to dry out hair, so I added the water to inhibit the process.
- Then I added the mixture to my hair, which was already shampooed twice. I did not condition after shampooing, but before I added the lemon-honey mixture I added coin sized portions of Roux porosity control corrector & conditioner (to keep the tangles away and to help with even distribution of colour) and a protein hair solution to balance out the acidity of the lemon juice.
NOTE: Hair in its natural state is acidic and relaxers are alkaline, some more than others, so the occasional acidic rinse is helpful.
After putting the mixture in my hair, I covered it with a shower cap and sat under a dryer for about 30 minutes. It can be kept on for longer, but since this was the first time, I decided to rinse it out after 30 minutes.
After rinsing the mixture out, I used the Aphogee 2 minute reconstructor. After combing through for even distribution, I put the shower cap back on for about 45 minutes without heat and then rinsed it out.
Styling was done as usual – water based moisturiser, leave-in conditioners, then an oil based moisturiser or oil (sweet almond oil or hemp oil) to seal it all in.
Results:
There were no drastic changes, but I noticed a slight lightening, with gold tones. That’s good enough for me right now. I hope to repeat the process in 2 weeks time. Will keep you posted.
I hope this has been helpful. If you do decide to try this, please let me know how it went and what results you got. Thanks.
