Re: Ammonia replacment

Posted by Catherine Cartwright Jones on December 20, 1999 at 03:59:16:

In Reply to: Re: Ammonia replacment posted by CJ on December 20, 1999 at 02:56:14:

Lemon juice has a low ph. It is an acid....about ph5. Ammonia and
such are bases .... about ph9. Neutral is 7.5 I think.

Lemon juice releases the hennotannic acid from the vegetable matter
that is henna powder and makes it available to bind with collagen,
your skin cells. That's why lemon and lime juice are so useful.
Hennotannic acid is available to bind at ph 5.5 or so. So, mix lemon
juice with your henna powder, and there's your dye release.

Now, if you have hennotannic acid bound into your skin cells (your
henna stain) THEN you can oxidize that to the darker brown color just
by exposing it to air or being generally hot and sweatty, or doing
something with camphor; or percipitate it to black with a very high ph
something that will penetrate the skin a bit. Acid + Base =
percipitate . Ph 7 and 8 just aren't going to do much as
percipitates. They're not base enough.

There really aren't a lot of things that penetrate skin cells. Thank
goodness for that! Skin is our barrier against the world around us! I
don't know of anything else that works well to percipatate henna.
Plenty of heat and very fresh henna are really your best shot. If
only black will do, just go straight to Temptu. Certainly don't go
near PPD.

(Now, if you want to call something a mordant, the ammonia and the
camphor are mordants. They change the nature of the dye when it is
bound into the cells. Lemon juice acts to more efficiently to release
the dye and make it available to bind with the skin. Lemon juice is
NOT a mordant, neither is coffee or other stuff. Picky, picky, picky,
I know... did someone write a henna book without looking up the
proper terms to use for dying processes? I know I made that mistake
once, but Roy caught it and corrected me....about 2 years ago)

Follow-ups:

• Re: Ammonia replacment lisa 19:36:01 12/21/99 (2)
  • cool! Thanks! Catherine Cartwright Jones 20:02:23 12/21/99 (1)
    • Re: cool! Thanks! lisa 20:41:48 12/21/99 (0)