Behind the Brow Tint

Having Acne as a teenager taught me how detrimental your image can be on your wellbeing if you are struggling with facial issues. This lead to my ultimate life goal to help people, be that with their skin conditions or with creating face-framing brows and lashes.

Popularized now more than ever by celebrities, brows are now a big deal. Personally, having fine and sparse hair, I could never find a tint that would last more than a few days at the most so when I first heard of using henna for brows during a brow training class I was super intrigued.

Would it be orange? What possible shade of blonde or brown could we create? What about black henna? Doesn’t that burn people?

I started playing with the product 4 years ago - using one colour and controlling the outcome for the client by regulating how much water I used in the mix and how long I left it on for – and I was in love. Even over microbladed or cosmetically tattooed brows, it was an instant hit! Any clients with white, grey, resistant or sparse hair like myself who couldn’t get a good outcome with tinting were in love! The ability to use a natural based product with the dual effect of a skin and hair stain was a winner in my eyes.

I used henna on each and every one of my brow clients to see the possibilities of it and the limitations. Definitely being a skin trained therapist helped me there to explain to my clients what henna would and wouldn’t do. I started importing and training in henna brow design within 12 months and have seen the amazing outcomes achieved by my students and industry peers not only in Australia but all over the world.

Henna for brow tinting is made from the henna plant, it is mainly grown in India and Egypt, countries that have a very hot and dry summer season followed by a monsoon/heavy rain season. Henna is a shrub that grows after summer to 4 - 6 ft, depending on how much rain the area gets from the monsoon. The entire crop is harvested by hand once a year.

It takes 35 cycles (years!) to reach full maturity and stability of colour that the henna can create. Immature plants will not create stable colours. Henna that is deemed organic has to be replanted every 3 years - so, therefore, the colour cannot be as stable or mature.

Only the leaves of the henna plant are used for henna and traditionally it is used as a hair dye, mixed with warm water, oils and lemon juice to release the lawson molecule - this is what creates the colour. The mixing process alone can take hours as the henna needs to rest after being mixed and then the hair dying process takes over two hours to develop and up to 24-48 hours for the full colour to develop in the hair once the henna paste is washed off.

Henna is also traditionally and most commonly known as being used in body art and usually has a deep red brick brown colour but this is rarely pure henna. You will also hear horror stories of burns from henna tattoos due to other ingredients being added to the mix in other countries.

Once the leaves are harvested they are dried and sorted, removing all the stems and twigs to just have the henna leaves. These are then triple milled to create a fine powder. Within the henna leaves, there is a molecule called the lawson molecule. When the dried henna is mixed with an activator (water) it migrates out and attaches to protein i.e. keratin in our skin, hair and nails and binds to make a longlasting stain. The lawson molecule is absorbed into the stratum corneum (top layer of the skin) and the cortex of the hair hence why it is deemed a permanent hair colour. As brows have such a quicker growth cycle you will rarely see re-growth, but you will see excellent retention of colour for your client’s brows.

By using henna we can create a longer lasting skin stain - up to 2 weeks with the average being about 7 days depending on your client’s skin and homecare routine. The hair stain will last a good 4-6 weeks on the majority of customers.

This is perfect for our clients with over-tweezed, misshapen brows. It allows us to create a guide for our clients so that we can teach them where they need to grow their brows back in and where they will need to use brow products like growth enhancers, brow pencils, brow butters or powders to create the illusion of more symmetrical brows.

With the use of henna we can create a very strong brow for our client with a lot of skin stain giving the temporary appearance of a cosmetic tattoo (this is perfect for cosmetic tattooist to use in their consult so the client can get an idea of what they will look like with new brows) and we can also create a very light skin stain for those clients who don’t want the made-up look, but would like their overall look to be more natural.

Filling in sparse areas is a breeze with henna as we can add extra layers of henna to sparse or bare areas to create the illusion of a fuller brow.

There are many different brands of henna on the market now and each will have its limitations and advantages. Finding what works best for you and your clients can be quite a struggle. On my journey with henna, I have faced irritations, colours grabbing too dark or too much, yellow or orange tones being thrown and clients and students being scared that they will only be able to create black brows and not knowing what colours to mix.

On a final note, I often get asked about chemicals and what the difference is. Everything is a chemical - some are manmade and some are natural but for something to be chemical free means it doesn’t exist, as each product must go through a chemical process to reach you.