Herbs for Greying Hair?
Answered by: Conrad Richter
Question from: S. P. M.
Posted on: March 26, 2002

I have been suffering the grey hair problems. Kindly advise me to dye my hair in herbal way.

We are not aware of a herbal way to dye hair to cover up greying hair. There are many herbs used to dye fabrics (see the "Dye Plants" InfoSheet in the "Richters InfoCentre" area of our website at http://www.richters.com). But most colours in herbs need what is called a "mordant" to bind the colour to the fabric, and these mordants are probably not be safe to use for hair (and probably wouldn’t work anyway).

John Lust, in his "The Herb Book" (available from Richters), gives a recipe for darkening hair with a sage rinse. "Make an infusion of 1/3 cup sage leaves in 1 qt. [quart = 1 litre] water. Steep 2 hours; strain. Pour over hair and leave on for 1/2 hour, then rinse out." We have no experience with this treatment, but we would guess that it might need to be repeated a few times at least.

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