Natural hair dye

[deeindiana]

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

[WildThing]

oh look a normal titled thread.

[Meld256]

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