For thousands of years, women have used plants from the family Lawsonia, called henna, to color, condition and enhance their hair. Henna is primarily used for safe, natural, chemical-free hair coloring. Chemical coloring agents weaken and destroy the hair shaft over time. In contrast, henna has a long history as a safe, gentle hair color. It is a natural product, subject to variations from harvest to harvest that responds somewhat differently to different hair conditions and colors.

Although the primary plant species yields shades of red, the use of neutral and black henna has allowed the development of a wide range of available shades of henna hair coloring, from pure neutral, a natural conditioning and high- lighting agent with no coloring agent to a range of reds, rich browns, dark chestnuts and gleaming black.