Henna is a leaf of small shrub of an Indian plant, dried, powdered and used for hair coloring. With powder hair dyes that use henna as a base, coloring hair has become an economical and less time consuming process. Henna as a base provides all the requirements of hair dye and in addition, offers all its natural properties including hair conditioning while leaving the hair soft.

Henna dyes coats each hair shaft with a natural, semi-permanent protein called hennatannic acid. Heat causes the hennatannic acid to cling to the proteins found in the hair. Because henna coats and seals the hair shaft, it helps protect the hair from damaging effects of sun, salt, chlorine, wind and pollution in the environment. Rather than producing dramatic color changes, henna dye enhances and deepens existing color, because the color from henna is transparent, it cannot lighten dark hair; it will, however, add highlights to dark hair and can darken the color of lighter hair.