After dying my hair for 25 years, I suddenly became allergic to hair dye about 1 1/2 years ago and was forced to let it go gray. Ugh!! Please don't give me any platitudes about growing old gracefully. I hate how tired, sallow, dull and old I look with gray hair! A clerk at the health food store passed along a recipe for a natural way to blend in the gray hair and it seems to be working - and, so far, without any adverse effects to my thinning hair and sensitive scalp. I wanted to share.
For turning gray hair into blondish highlights
2 pints bottled water
2T. dried chamomile flowers
1T. dried marigold petals (also called calendula)
1 pinch of saffron threads
Put into a non-aluminum pan and bring to a boil. Reduce and let simmer 30 minutes. Turn off heat and let steep three hours. Pour through a coffee filter to strain. Pour over dry hair -- CATCH the excess in a bowl or basin so you can use it again. Do NOT rinse out. Style hair as usual. Do this several days in a row until you reach the desired color. Then you just have to freshen every couple of weeks.
After two days, my mixture turned a funny green color so I dumped it and made a new batch. So far, I like it. The grays seems to be blending in well -- plus my hair is shining and smells wonderful! My fingers are crossed that it doesn't fade away too quickly. But...the cost wasn't too bad so I could mix up some pretty often. I found all the ingredients at the health food store.
BTW: She said not to add too many marigold petals or it will go brassy yellow.
And to make it redder, add more saffron.
Deb
oh look a normal titled thread.
Very interesting, Deb!
A natural and easy way to color even with sensitive skin or scalp. Cool! ;) I'm sure it looks great.
I'll pass this along to my MIL. She is mostly grey, but has had a stylist color her hair blonde lately and it looks good on her. She would love to find a way to do this with less cost.
I'm getting very grey myself, and am still coloring "out of a box." ;) Maybe I will look into a more natural way of doing this myself.
Thanks for the great info!
Melinda