Shahin - Natural hair coloring: how to use henna and other pure plant pigments for chemical-free beauty

In memory of Terry Darling, L.C. thank you for the keys

Thank you, Creator, for my life and all experiences. I am grateful too for any beneficent results that may come from it for others.

I dedicate this book to Planet Earth. May we know, love, and abide by your natural laws as we mature in our interstellar experience, affirming our rightful place in the one song known as Universe.

To Astarte, goddess of beauty and love with a little war on the side, thank you for your example of how to integrate these seemingly opposite models.

To Henna, Indigo, Cassia, and Amla, thank you for your gifts of healing and color and for our relationship.

Beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.

It is not a mouth thirsting
nor an empty hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul enchanted.

It is not the image you would see
nor the song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you close your eyes and a song you hear though you shut your ears.

It is not the sap within the furrowed bark,
nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and a flock of angels for ever in flight.

People of Orphalese,
beauty is life when life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.

Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror.
But you are eternity and you are the mirror.

Khalil Gibran, from The Prophet

I fell in love with henna when I first discovered it in my early teens and became an official mudhead. I love the rich red highlights it creates in my dark brown hair, and I have used it regularly, almost religiously, for many years.

As invariably happens when I discover something I love, I want to share it with others. Soon I was convincing everyone I could to try henna! There was almost always a henna session after the herb classes I offered, and Id have henna parties at my large herbal conferences, where I would henna 20 to 30 people at a time. I even took henna with me on my Plant Lovers Journeys. My travel companions and I once used it around a campfire in the jungles of Belize, once on a riverbank in the far outback of Patagonia, several times in the courtyard of an Italian villa in Tuscany, and once in a provincial farmhouse in a small French village. Wed sit around in the warm sun, sipping tea and talking of those things that mattered most in life until the henna had done its magic. It was such fun to watch people rinse out the green-hued paste and discover vibrant shades of red, copper, and brown, along with rich golden highlights.

But it was more than just the colorful highlights and the conditioning effect that seemed to draw people to henna; an actual transformation happened during the mudding process, an enchantment that made people feel better. This is what I love best about henna it not only makes peoples hair light up, but it also seems to make them glow from within.

Recently, I was sent something fabulous in the mail: a copy of this book. Absolutely the best book on natural hair care and coloring Ive ever come across, it captures both the magic and the art of natural hair care. Christine is a coloring maestro who has had years of experience using natural colorants, and she shares her knowledge generously and warmly. Included in her wonderfully comprehensive book are all of the reasons for coloring (or not coloring) your hair with natural colorants, instructions on how to mix and apply muds, fabulous color formulations, recipes for shampoos and conditioners, and information on what not to do. Written with such beauty and sensitivity and accented with the loveliest quotes, Natural Hair Coloring is a pleasure to read.

Christine is adept at blending henna with other supportive herbs to tone down the bright red and orange hues that sometimes result from henna, and she has developed some particularly unique combinations for conditioning challenging hair. Thank you, Christine, for your beautiful, radiant book, and for sharing your knowledge and experience with such beauty and wisdom. Youve made it all so much fun.

What we do with our hair has had powerful symbolic and emotional effects in every culture for thousands of years, says Christine... may our stories continue!

In gratitude,
Rosemary Gladstar
Best-selling author of
Rosemary Gladstars Medicinal Herbs: A Beginners Guide

The appearance of things changes according to the emotions, and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.

Khalil Gibran

I am excited to be writing this book about coloring hair with natural herbal colorants after many years of practice! Here I sit thinking about what to share with you regarding my natural beauty journey and how its evolved into the current manifestation of this book. Its a story that started a long time ago, but dont they all?

My paternal grandparents emigrated from Lebanon during the Great Depression. My father, born Khalil, was one of seven children. His mother died when he was 12 years old, and per her deathbed wish, my father became an Antiochian Orthodox Christian priest. One of my most influential experiences growing up was summer church camp in the midst of the Allegheny Mountains. Sunrise services and evening vespers surrounded by flora and fauna connected me spiritually to the environment.

My mother was born to Lebanese American parents near Beirut. She grew up there until the age of 16, when she left her two sisters, uncle, and aunt to come live with her father in Elmira, New York. My formative years were strongly influenced by Arabic Christian culture within an American culture, making me bicultural, as our daughter Shadia says.

Growing up, I was interested in fashion and had many good examples of beauty. Beauty is important in both my cultures, as a sign of self-care, self-respect, and self-expression. Lebanese women across the world tend to be very fashion-conscious, as were my mother and her sisters, including the eldest, Esther, a store model I aspired to emulate. My mother Jeanine, a petite woman who always received compliments and wore no makeup, except for some lipstick on occasion, would put her thick, butt-length black hair in a top chignon; her style was simple elegance.

Though I never witnessed my mother in front of a mirror applying makeup (she did practice daily skin care and continues to do so to this day), using makeup came quite instinctively to me. I purchased my first eye pencil and foundation at age 13. As Mama and I grew together, there were rare occasions when she would ask me to do her makeup. This same request spontaneously came from friends and classmates for special occasions, though I never considered beauty as a career. People always inquired of my ethnicity, and I always seemed to be fighting it, trying to look more mainstream by ironing my hair, bleaching facial hair, and having electrolysis on my eyebrows starting at age 12.