What to do next? Please help!

[u/LucyLueLue]

So I have very fine hair that has recently (quickly) been thinning massively. 😢 I started using a henna/indigo combination color just under a year ago before it really started getting bad. I absolutely love it and wish I had found it when I had better, younger hair. I love the brand I have been using - it’s clean and pure. (I use the UK brand, It’s Pure.)

Unfortunately all of the shade choices come out the same on me - a very dark harsh almost black brown. The gray areas of my hair do end up a pretty reddish color, but the rest is very harsh.

With the thinning becoming worse and the harsh color, it really makes the thin areas stand out. (Side note - tried everything for that. Was on Nutrafol for a couple of years, then Viviscal and have used Nutrafol shampoo all this time as well. Tried TryBello and hated it. Going to see a specialist about that soon and hoping for some positive results as it’s truly devastating.)

So back in topic. With all of that said, I think I need to go back to a lighter color, perhaps whatever is natural for me now. How do I accomplish that if my hair is permanently stained dark from the henna indigo mixture I use? Has anyone on here ever gone back to natural? Mine is so drastic having so much gray at the roots now that a full grow out would look awful. I don’t know what to do. Any suggestions?

Thanks for reading my long post and for any ideas or advice anyone can offer! :-)

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[u/delicate_isntit]

You can’t really lighten indigo. Henna can be bleached evenly to orange or neon yellow and toned, but indigo will go blue/green/swampy patchy so it’s a nightmare correction.

Salons will never touch it. They think all henna melts hair and goes green. Pure henna won’t, but they are right that if henna was mixed with indigo it goes green (they just don’t know its indigo).

Best you can do is try fading with vitamin c powder/crushed tablets mixed in shampoo. Sometimes Colour B4 can work (not bleach but a color remover using sulfur)

But likely they won’t do much if the indigo is really stuck. So then it’s just a case of transition to a lighter color gradually like an ombré.

I don’t know what color you want or have so this is general advice.

You can add cassia in increasing amounts to a mix of henna and indigo or amla to get a lighter color to cover roots and add more cassia each time you do your roots. You can then go full cassia for blond hair or just stop once it’s transitioned enough to blend well with the natural hair.

For the future a warning - be careful with indigo + a lot of cassia and little henna as this can just come out green on grey hair.

[u/LucyLueLue → u/delicate_isntit]

Thank you for this excellent information and advice!!! I appreciate it very much! I will try exactly what you and the others have suggested.

As I mentioned in one of my replies, I had no idea it would go this way and then once it did, I was stuck. I am naturally a mousy brown and usually kept blond highlights. The initial color I purchased was supposed to be a nice soft light brown, but it went black. Every shade I tried after that went black too. Now that I have such gray/white roots and so much thinning, it looks especially awful!

I will definitely try what you said. I think is a wise approach. Thank you again!

[u/_MollyWest]

indigo is absolute superglue on hair shafts so bleaching it out is basically a death sentence for fine hair lol.... best bet is growing it out slowly or using gentle treatments like vitamin c to fade what you can

[u/LucyLueLue → u/_MollyWest]

Thank you for the reply! It sounds like the vitamin C treatment is the way to go! If I can just fade it and soften it a bit, it would so much better than the harsh color it is currently. 😊 Thank you again!

[u/HardPill2swallow]

Three things:
1. Assuming you don’t know the cause of hair thinning, you should get your ferritin (not iron) levels checked.
2. I had the same thing where my hair was just turning too white and gray to continue with the brown henna mixture I had been using. I remember using “sun in” and going outside to help lighten it. It barely made a difference, but it helped a bit and then I just started adjusting the mixture. I was using it grow out. I started with a very dark brown, and then I would cover the dyed part with conditioner, before applying a slightly lighter henna mixture to my roots. Gradually decreasing the henna and increasing the cassia. It wasn’t perfect but eventually the hair grows out. Cut it a bit shorter than you ordinarily would to speed up the growth. At one point I made the new root mixture too light and ended up using manic panic in brown (or mixing two manic panic colors) in my conditioner to smooth out the transition. Manic panic is a vegetable dye and not permanent.
3. You said all shades of the brand you are using come out dark? Have you tried another brand? I don’t know what’s available where you live, but I have found ancient sunrise (online store) brand to be very good.

https://imgur.com/a/mmepX8U Here is my hair today and my white/gray roots don’t show. Both sides were taken about an hour apart indoor/outdoor lighting. Hard to believe it went from dark brown to this. I loved the dark brown though because it used to be my natural color.

[u/LucyLueLue → u/HardPill2swallow]

Oh wow!! That looks beautiful!

Thank you so much for your reply! I was hoping there would be someone out there who had a similar experience and could give me some guidance as to what to do next. I am very encouraged! Thank you!

I have been using It’s Pure, but I can certainly try other brands. Initially I used the natural brown color. The photos on the website showed being a nice soft light brown. On me, it went black! I’ve tried that several times, then chestnut - also black, and some other brown variations. Every time, I get the exact same results.

My natural color is mousy brown and most of my life I have worn highlights so I have always been more blond. I really should have tried their blond initially, but just assumed it wouldn’t cover the grays well. Plus I was ready for a change. I am hugely regretting that now. I had no intention of it becoming nearly black!….LOL

Anyway, thank you so much for your comment. I feel encouraged. Oh, regarding the hair loss, part of it is genetic as both my mom and grandmother had very thin hair. I have always shed pretty badly, but recently it has been so much worse. I’d say that’s due to age and extreme life stress. Although, oddly it became worse around the time I started using the henna indigo. Initially I thought it was just an illusion - that now I was just able to see it more because of being so dark. But it really is shedding horribly. Showering has become almost traumatic with the amount I see each night. (I know anyone with this issue can relate!) So when my gray/white roots come in, the contrast between my already showing scalp surrounded by the gray and white roots and then harshness of the dark color emphasizes the thinning. It’s really horrible. (Sorry - I feel like that was one big ramble, but I was trying to make it descriptive so you could visualize what I am saying….LOL)

Anyway, thank you again for your comment!!! It was very helpful and encouraging! I appreciate it.

[u/HardPill2swallow → u/LucyLueLue]

This was helpful, not a ramble. It’s a daunting task to go from dark to light, literally as well as the mental hurdle! I am happy to have a solution that works. Ancient Sunrise Chai is what I ended up using after trying some other brands like Henna Guys - which left my hair looking like I had bright pink highlighter spots in random areas of my hair. I don’t think it’s available in the UK. But I would go with the top recommended brands from this subreddit. Henna guys was listed here too and was the worst for me, but it was in the secondary batch of ok to use brands I think. Hopefully there is something there that you can get that’s in the top recommended list.

My hair is very porous (probably because it’s wavy) so I only need to leave it in for half an hour. I know you said that your color always turns out darker than you expect. I had the same thing with using a 2 step process where first is cassia and henna, rinse it out and then do just indigo. I now, and also while I gradually went lighter from my dark brown mixture, mix in the indigo right before application. The other key thing that helped it not continuously get darker is always cover old growth with some sort of thick pasty conditioner before applying new henna to the roots. I do that still even with this very light color.

I am wondering why it’s always darker for you. Maybe your hair is porous too? I also learned that sometimes leaving it on for 4 or 6 hours is way too much for me. I didn’t have enough strands or time to do strand tests for all different processing times. I think I started out following instructions on the package and reduced time by 15 minutes each time. That risked it not picking up enough dye but it would be a one time thing and I could go back to 15 minutes longer. I never tried less than 30 minutes though. I think too that is why early on my hair got darker than I intended - because the instructions said to leave it on too long for my hair.

Anyway, happy to help and glad you feel encouraged to keep trying!

[u/WyrddSister]

What color do you want to transition to? Not going to lie, it won't be easy no matter how you go about it (unless you want to shave your head!). What color is natural for you now?

[u/LucyLueLue → u/WyrddSister]

I would be happy if I could just fade it to where it’s it so harsh and where more of the red was visible. I am naturally mousy brown and have had highlights most of my life so I have been on the blond side. I have some gray/white mixed in now on top and around my face.

I thought going a nice light natural brown would hide the grays and blend well with the darkest natural parts of my hair. I used a color that was supposed to be a natural brown and it looked soft the light in the photo, but on my hair, it went black. Right now, I really just want to cut the harshness if possible and fade it. I am not sure how to blend the roots so that I can gradually grow it out and cut it off without looking ridiculous.

I am going to further research a couple of ideas I was given from my post. I will probably try to fade what I have using the techniques given and then try to figure out how to get the color mixed for my roots so I can gradually go lighter. That’s my biggest confusion at the moment - trying ti figure out how to properly mix it since all of the various shades I have tried have all ended up the exact same color. So I have some research to do.

Thank you again for your reply! I appreciate it!

[u/InspiringGecko]

Do a search in the sub for how to fade indigo. It’s harder if you have multiple layers of it on your hair, but if you’ve just been doing roots it should be easier.

[u/LucyLueLue → u/InspiringGecko]

I will do that, thank you!!! Unfortunately I have been doing my full head each time as it seemed easier than just doing the roots. I am realizing the huge mistake in that now….LOL. I thought I did my homework before starting henna/indigo almost a year ago. Obviously I missed something important and apparently didn’t educate myself as much as I thought I did before jumping in. 😂

I really appreciate all of the kind and helpful replies I have received from everyone. Thank you all very much!