Colouring Grey Hair Medium Brown

The natural, henna based hair dyes we sell work quite differently to chemical dyes. Chemical dyes use nasty chemicals such as peroxide and PPD to penetrate and restructure your hair shaft and therefore it is possible to get any colour you want. All natural hair dyes will not be as effective at radically changing your hair colour as chemical dyes. They do not remove the pigment from your initial hair colour as chemical dyes do, but coat your hair with colour a semi-transparent layer of colour and therefore the resulting colour will be affected by your initial hair colour underneath. They will not lighten your hair as they do not contain peroxide to strip the colour.

It is not very easy to get a medium brown with all natural hair colours. I will list below all the products we have and if you read through this information you will get an idea of the kind of colour to expect. None of them are guaranteed a uniform medium brown shade all over your hair especially if you have multi-coloured hair with areas of dark and light hair. I give suggestions on page 3 of products to try on different initial hair colours, and how to deal with multi-coloured hair.

It’s Pure Organics Herbal Hair Colour Natural Brown
It's Pure Herbal Hair Colour Natural Brown will usually give a warm blonde to light brown shade on white hair. On some people’s hair it can be a slightly coppery on white hair. It tends to be darker and less coppery when you leave it on for a longer time. It will usually darken light or medium brown hair slightly. Natural Brown available here

It’s Pure Organics Herbal Hair Colour Dark Brown
If your hair is completely white all over it is possible that if you use an It’s Pure Dark Brown shade it will turn out light to medium brown but this is not guaranteed. You would need to strand test first. Strand testing will also ascertain how long to leave the colour on for. The longer you leave it the darker it will be. If you have dark and grey hair mixed together this Dark Brown shade will usually darken your already brown hair too. It is possible that medium brown hair can turn a darker brown and already dark brown hair colour go even darker. 

It’s Pure Organics Herbal Hair Colour Dark Brown Diluted with Cassia and/or Amla
Another possibility is using the It's Pure Herbal Hair Colour Dark Brown and diluting it with Cassia Powder which is colourless, or Amla Powder which is virtually colourless. The advantage of the Darker Brown Herbal shades is that they tend to be less reddish than the lighter brown shades because they contain more indigo. If you dilute this 1 part Dark Brown to 1 part cassia or amla you get something like a dark blonde/light brown shade on grey hair. If you dilute this 1 part Dark Brown to half a part cassia or amla you get more like a medium brown shade on grey hair. The more cassia or amla the lighter it will be.

You can alternatively dilute it with both amla and cassia. For example 1 part Dark Brown to ¼ part Amla Powder and ¼ part Cassia Powder

If you do try mixing the Dark Brown with Cassia or mixing any of the different shades together, it is essential to strand test a small inconspicuous area first before putting it all over your hair as we cannot precisely predict the colour result.

Mixing Your Own Homemade Henna Hair Colours
You can buy the ingredients to make your own herbal hair colours with Henna, Indigo, Cassia and/or Amla. There is more thought and work required to mix up your own concoctions but it can be done. You can tailor-make them to your own requirements. You need to experiment with different combinations. It is essential to strand test your concoction on a small inconspicuous area of hair first, before putting it all over your hair as we cannot precisely predict the colour result.

Henna and Indigo mixed together can achieve browns or reddish browns. Using a larger proportion of Indigo will make it darker and less red. Using a larger proportion of Henna will make it less dark and more red/copper. Cassia and Amla are virtually colourless so they will dilute the strength of the colour of the Henna and Indigo. Guidelines for proportions to use are as follows but they are not guaranteed. You would need to strand test the recipe on your hair:
Dark Brown on grey hair: try mixing together: 1 part Henna with 2 or 2.5 parts Indigo
Medium reddish brown on grey hair: 1 part Henna to 1 or 1¼ Part Indigo
Medium brown on grey hair, not too reddish: 1 part Henna and 2 parts Indigo and 1½ parts Cassia (or ¾ part Cassia and ¾ part Amla.

After strand testing you can tweak the proportions until you get the desired colour on your hair.

You can buy the pure organic Henna and other ingredients from Suvarna.

PLEASE NOTE CHEMICALLY DYED OR LIGHTENED HAIR MAY REACT DIFFERENTLY

The recommendations above are assuming that you have natural non-chemically dyed hair. If your hair has been chemically dyed especially if it is lightened with peroxide this is another factor in the equation and will affect the colour results. Chemical dyeing especially chemical lightening does damage your hair and it can make it more porous and it makes it behave differently. Sometimes the chemically lightened hair behaves the same as if it was your natural hair colour. However sometimes it absorbs too much colour in which case the colour will be stronger than expected or gives an unexpected colour.

Useful Links

It’s Herbal Hair Colour Pure Dark Brown

It's Pure Herbal Hair Colour Natural Brown

Its Pure Organic Cassia Powder

It's Pure Indigo Powder

It's Pure Henna powder

Achieving Optimum Results From Natural Hair Dye

Avoiding a Build Up of Colour on The Length

Hair Care Help Center

Technical Support

If after having read this information you still have some technical questions about our hair colours you can ask Tricia, our hair dye expert, a question on this page on our website here. Tricia does not answer questions by telephone.

Have a look at some of our customers' pictures for inspiration.