Natural hair dye

October 6, 2016 2:10 PM

Looking for a hair dye made up of the least amount of chemicals

After a few grey hairs now is the time to look for a black/brown hair dye/coloring that has the least amount of chemicals. I would be using very little of it per use but want to keep chemicals out of my hair. Any suggestions for such a dye would be great. Also open to natural remedies.

posted by metajim to Shopping (11 answers total)

Brown henna is a thing. And so is black henna. That's the most natural hair dye I can think of. Of course it does, like all substances, contain chemicals... but it's not synthetic.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:13 PM on October 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

What exactly do you mean by chemicals? Pretty much all hair dyes are going to be 100% made of chemicals (like water, or, you know, anything else in a dye). Do you mean the fewest # of ingredients? Or are you limiting to a specific kind of chemical (e.g., naturally occurring chemicals)?
posted by brainmouse at 2:14 PM on October 6, 2016 [13 favorites]

It might be helpful to know where in the world you are able to shop. That said, this may be an option.
posted by Too-Ticky at 2:19 PM on October 6, 2016

Lots and lots of plants and natural things have been used as dye through human history.
You certainly can use black walnuts as dye.
posted by littlewater at 2:46 PM on October 6, 2016

Please, respectfully, do a lot of research on anything called black henna. People have had HORRIBLE allergic reactions to it, sensitizing their bodies to many related and unavoidable chemicals. I have read some awful things about it.

Pure, natural, unadulterated henna has no chemicals added to it and should not cause any reaction but you should do a strand test. And the only colour you can get from PURE henna is gorgeous red in varying intensities depending on how dark your hair is and how long you leave it on. If your hair is dark you'll just get a rich glow, my mousy brown hair used to turn a wonderful auburn.
posted by antiquated at 3:24 PM on October 6, 2016 [8 favorites]

Try Madison Reed.
posted by all about eevee at 4:07 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

That "without chemicals" is basically meaningless has been well-covered. It sounds like you're looking for something minimally processed, GRAS-heavy and/or plant-based, however. You can use various combinations of henna and/or indigo to get brown and black shades. Catherine Cartwright-Jones seems to have revamped her "Henna for Hair" pages (there used to be an area where you could see various people's results and the recipes used for each one, but I haven't found it yet) but you can get more information about henna mixes here and indigo-specific information here. She also talks about covering gray here.
posted by spelunkingplato at 5:58 PM on October 6, 2016 [2 favorites]

Lush sells a bunch of henna-indigo mixes that are a pain to apply but give pretty good coverage--you'd want either the brun or noir.
posted by karayel at 10:02 PM on October 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

The easiest way to dye your hair without using chemicals is to hypnotise yourself to not see the grey. The "henna" people are recommending consists of an herbal paste containing 2-hydroxy-1,4-napthoquinone. A lot of so-called black henna will contain 1,4-diaminobenzene, which is a potent skin sensitiser causing an EC3 response in the Local Lymph Node assay at only 0.06% concentration.
posted by koolkat at 6:03 AM on October 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

You can get washout "hair mascara" at beauty supply shops (it costs $3-20) to temporarily paint out greys. I have dark hair and use a $3 tube of black Halloween creme makeup and a small paintbrush to cover mine. In a pinch I've smeared eyelash mascara on my hand or on my mirror, and then used a small stiff makeup brush (like an angled brow brush) and a drop of water to make a quick paint to hide a few greys. This is a nonpermanent method that will leave a few smears on your pillow, but otherwise no big deal- easy, fast, no scary chemicals (although personally I believe that everything in the world, including oxygen, is a scary chemical, and therefore nothing is).
posted by pseudostrabismus at 1:11 PM on October 8, 2016

I have used this brand in the past. It's sold in most natural food stores and is a "natural" alternative to home hair color, works pretty well, but fades out in about a month. Here is another brand that I've seen at my local Co-op, I haven't tried this one though.
posted by ezrainch at 8:29 PM on October 15, 2016