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Citrus Fruits and Citric Acid: Tapdancing Lizard LLC

Citrus fruits and acid

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Eva Wolfe
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31 views

Citrus Fruits and Citric Acid: Tapdancing Lizard LLC

Citrus fruits and acid

Uploaded by

Eva Wolfe
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Citrus Fruits and Citric Acid

When mixing henna for use as hair dye, citrus juice is convenient, smells nice, and is very
reliable. Dilute orange juice1 or lemon juice with filtered or distilled water, or use it straight
from a bottle; there is no need to squeeze it fresh. If you want to dilute juice, add filtered or
distilled water or tea until it tastes like mild lemonade; that’s sour enough. You can dilute the
acidity to as little as a few spoonfuls per cup of water and still maintain a hydrogen rich paste.
Citrus fruit juices mixed with henna create hair stains that are initially a light color, gradually
darken, and do not fade over time.

Lemon juice, pH 2.3, mixed with henna leaves a pale orange stain at first, the stain will gradually
darken to a deep auburn. Many women with very dark but graying hair simply add lemon juice
to henna and leave the paste in their hair overnight for a thorough saturation in a hydrogen-rich
medium. With this technique, the gray is virtually invisible and the dark hair shimmers deep red
in the sunlight.

The sensation of dryness that follows a lemon juice application is not hair damage, though it may
feel ‘crunchy’ when you handle the hair. This ‘crunchy’ feeling is caused by the scales of
keratin being raised to bind with the lawsone, rather like rubbing a cat’s hair backwards to more
effectively sprinkle in flea powder. The scales will settle back down in a few washings. Rinsing
with hair conditioner will eliminate the ‘roughed-up’ sensation more quickly.

Lime juice, pH 2, is very acidic. At first, hair dyed with henna/lime juice paste is very light, but
it will gradually darken to the darkest of all acidic mixes. Lime juice is the juice most likely to
cause skin irritation and can be phototoxic, so use it cautiously.

1
Orange juice is very convenient because it’s in most people’s refrigerators, but many brands of orange juice
contain pulp. This might not be a problem in your hair dye, if you don’t mind washing out a bit of pulp, but don’t
use orange juice with pulp for your henna body art paste. I made that mistake once. Very embarrassing.
“Ancient Sunrise® Henna for Hair,” Chapter 6, Henna and Acidic Mixes, Copyright © 2015, Catherine Cartwright-Jones PhD,
TapDancing Lizard LLC http://www.mehandi.com http://www.hennaforhair.com http://www.ancientsunrise.com
Ancient Sunrise® Citric Acid

Ancient Sunrise® Citric Acid is convenient for mixing a mildly acidic henna paste. You can add
powdered citric acid to your favorite tea, filtered, or distilled water. Add 6g or 1 teaspoon per
100g of henna, or enough citric acid to the tea or water to make it taste as tart as lemonade. Citric
acid mixture stains do not darken as much as citrus juice mixtures. Citric acid paste mixtures
tend to create bright coppery stains that stay light and bright.

Citric acid and citrus fruits can irritate some people’s skin. Other fruit acids with different
characteristics can be used to make a hydrogen-rich henna paste. These will give slightly
different results.

The above example shows the difference between cassia stains created with a mixture of purified
citric acid and water, and a stain created with a mixture of other natural fruit acids.

Citric acid mixed with henna and cassia creates the lightest, brightest henna and cassia stains on
pale, gray hair. Fruit acids and juices that are more chemically complex, containing contain other
acids, enzymes, antioxidants, and anthocyanins. By varying the fruit acids and juices, you subtly
vary the colors with henna, cassia, and indigo on hair.

“Ancient Sunrise® Henna for Hair,” Chapter 6, Henna and Acidic Mixes, Copyright © 2015, Catherine Cartwright-Jones PhD,
TapDancing Lizard LLC http://www.mehandi.com http://www.hennaforhair.com http://www.ancientsunrise.com
Ancient Sunrise® Henna for Hair, Chapter 6, Henna and Acidic Mixes

Copyright © 2015 Catherine Cartwright-Jones

Cover Graphic by Alex Morgan

Published by TapDancing Lizard® LLC

339 Tallmadge Rd. Kent, Ohio, 44240

Terms of Service: Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0


Unported

You are free to Share, to copy and redistribute this material in any medium or format under
the following terms. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the
license terms.

Attribution - You must give appropriate credit and provide a link to the license. You may do
so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or
your use.

Non-Commercial - You may not use this material for commercial purposes.

No-Derivatives - If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute
the modified material in any form or by any means.

For further information on henna and hair, please visit www.hennaforhair.com

To purchase henna, please visit www.mehandi.com

HELP DESK AND ORDER DESK: call 330-673-0600 or toll-free 855-MEHANDI

“Ancient Sunrise® Henna for Hair,” Chapter 6, Henna and Acidic Mixes, Copyright © 2015, Catherine Cartwright-Jones PhD,
TapDancing Lizard LLC http://www.mehandi.com http://www.hennaforhair.com http://www.ancientsunrise.com

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