chemical dye(semi-permanent) after henna

I'm blogging about this b'cos I searched and researched for info on this subject, and it was very sketchy indeed. I know from various henna sites that you can use henna after using chemical dyes,provided it's unadulterated henna. ( If the manufacturer does not list all ingredients, you're in trouble. Liquid hennas, in varying colours are more suspect and more likely to have metallic salts added to them to create different colours. If you know that you've used a 'mixed' henna, you'll need the metallic salts stripped from your hair before trying to dye your hair).What I wanted to know was, is the reverse also true??? Could I go from henna to chemical dye without DRAMA? I couldn't turn up a straightfoward answer. Perhaps I was not looking in the right places. Eventually I established some facts.

1.If you're using henna, it must be pure body quality henna from reputable company that you can trust.

2.If your henna previously used is dubious, best stay away from chemical dye b'cos you could be in for a hairy ride as the chemicals react with each other and your hair.

3.It is possible to go back to using a chemical dye after henna, but you should leave a gap of several weeks to reduce risk and give a the dye a good chance to 'take'.(henna works by coating hair strands, so it can affect the overall look of a chemical dye. After several washes, it will fade, but it takes ages to get henna completely out of your hair!)

4 Do a strand, or rather loc test to see how the dye is going to take and how the loc will behave - as well as a skin test!!!

5. I would suggest a semi-permanent dye rather than a permanent one.

6. Pray.

OK. I wanted to dye my hair again to give it some depth. I henna-ed back in sept with lush dark brown henna. I didn't fancy going through the procedure again - I mean it's a hop, step and jump to apply, then another to wash it all out. So I started eyeing chemical dyes, hence my research to see if it was possible. I used Garnier movida semi-permanent mahogany colour. Mary( daughter) is a pro so she did the colour.But we did the skin/loc test before proceeding. Even though the leaflet inside states, 'DO NOT USE IF YOU HAVE COLOURED WITH HENNA', she determined by the test loc (this is the loc I accidentally chopped off a few weeks ago)that it would be fine. However, she purchased only 1 box and y'all know locs require 2 or more boxes. So we did the front half of my hair. The back half may be done tomorrow if I've bought the dye. Take a look at the pics. Actually you can barely see the difference, since the top half lays on the bottom half. The dilema came when we got to the condish. In the end I used only a 1/4 of the amount and that very diluted and thankfully everything remained intact.