Henna Dye Recipe

This is the recipe used for the Henna dye pictured above.

Into your dye pot put:

1. 1 cup of salt;


2. Now add 2 gallons of water;


3. Stir in about a tablespoon of water softener, if you have hard water;


4. The Henna comes in power form, so before adding it to the water, put about 1/2 cup of power into a small bowl and dissolve it in hot water;


5. Now add the Henna paste to your dye pot;


6. Bring the dye pot to a boil;


7. Add your cane or reed;


8. Simmer to the desired darkness.

Now this picture above is of honeysuckle, the dark brown died with the Cutch in the preceding recipe, the light color is the Henna. As you can see there is a very light look to it and a slight brown which doesn't show up good in the photo.

I originally tried to dye some reed in this Henna and got absolutely no color change on the reed. The reed was just as white after dyeing as it was when I originally put it in the dye pot but it looked really water logged, so I would not use this for reed again. I did not have any cane to try in it, but judging from the honeysuckle it might do better on cane.