Henna Morena's soul
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Henna Morena's soul

- 11/11/2019

Do you know how Henna Morena was born? Do you want to know more about who is behind this project? Cuerpo Mente magazine dedicated a beautiful article to us that we share with you today. Discover the beginning of this network of women working for more awareness, respect and freedom.

Henna Morena was the brainchild of Sandra Vivancos, a passionate traveller and nature lover. She discovered henna on one of her trips and decided to continue researching her passion, plants, and turn it into her profession. She has developed a hairdressing model based on her and traditional growth. 

"I get on the train with only a few minutes to go before it announces its departure and I look for my seat on the left side of the aisle. I do it instinctively: I usually choose this side of the carriage on my regular trips from Barcelona to Madrid since we opened our second shop on Calle Piamonte almost a year ago. 

I come across a dark-haired girl who looks at me with her dark eyes and her hair in a high ponytail. And I can't help thinking about what she wants to be like when she grows up. Does she want to be a blonde? 

Then, sitting down, I remember the principles of Henna Morena.

LEARNING FROM OTHER WOMEN AND NATURE

I am a hairdresser. My mother is a hairdresser. My brother is a hairdresser. I started my professional life dedicated to the hairdressing I had been taught, using the techniques I had seen from the best stylists. However, I was a vegetarian and had never used hair dyes or treated my hair with chemicals, so why do it to my clients?

That's when I decided to research and create a chemical-free hair cosmetics brand. And I started to travel.

INDIAN WOMEN TAKE CARE OF THEIR HAIR IN A NATURAL WAY

Women in India taught me the value of rituals and plants that have been used since ancient times to care for hair. I began to understand that in nature lay the answers I longed for: Indian women cared for their hair in a respectful, chemical-free way. The result was shiny, healthy hair. That's how I discovered neutral henna, Cassia Obovata, and first cold-pressed oils.

DISCOVERING PURE HENNA IN MOROCCO

My next trip took me to Morocco. Arab culture had always attracted me and the Moroccan women, when I met them, reminded me a lot of my grandmother, of Malaga. 

I discovered the culture of pure henna, the Lawsonia inermes. I learnt about the crops, its benefits beyond the colour, and the tradition of applying it between mothers and daughters or between friends. And I realised that this was what I was looking for: to use plants to make my hair healthy and, at the same time, to respect my beauty, not to change it. 

We are nature, that is Sandra Vivancos' philosophy and slogan. And we must give back to the earth what it gives us: she learnt this on her travels in India and Morocco. 

In her centres, stylists specialised in phytotherapy advise both women and men on how to apply plants and other hair products at home. Innovation and improvement is her guiding principle.

HENNA MORENA'S PROJECT

After years of expanding my knowledge of phytotherapy, I decided to create an honest, plant-based line of hair cosmetics, based on the wisdom of millions of women and thousands of generations. This is how the Henna Morena project was born. 

Henna is like giving your hair a plate of lentils: it gives it strength, vitality, energy and maximum shine. In the West it has been trivialised because it is linked to the hippie girls of the 1970s. But they usually did it on blonde hair, with mixtures of dubious provenance, which gave them a striking, but not neat, appearance. 

In Lawsonia inermis, the henna plant, more than 70 phenolic compounds with high antioxidant capacity have been isolated. It is very rich in mineral salts (10%), such as iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, copper and magnesium, all of which are important for hair health and vitality. We create updated formulas based on organic, biodynamic or wild ingredients. 

We have also developed a line of infusions, based on the principles of phytotherapy, which, together with botanical oils of first pressure, multiply the results of henna. We protect the proteins that make up the hair (keratin), and the hair is silky, shiny and deeply hydrated. 

Our treatments take time, but we don't want to waste it. I am a mother, I have children, I am an entrepreneur, I manage teams. I know how valuable time is, that's why I choose something that I 

AFRICAN WOMEN'S SHEA

Three years ago we started a pilot henna cultivation in Burkina Faso, where we already work with a women's cooperative that supplies us with 100% pure organic shea. Shea means butter tree. It is a tree from the African savannah with fleshy fruits that are very rich in fats, with up to 70% oleic acid. 

It is used in local cuisine, but also in skin and hair care for its moisturising properties. 

In Africa it is a sacred tree and 300,000 women in Burkina Faso live from its fruits, mainly for local sale. But 1,300 of them are part of a cooperative that exports it to the West, and specifically to Henna Morena. 

They are the main protagonists in this value chain: they collect a fruit that they then work until it becomes something similar to a chocolate bar, which is what they sell to Henna Morena and from which we make our preparations. 

We want to give back to the women of other cultures the wisdom they have given us, supporting their projects and giving them value. Because they are also Henna Morena".

Article is from Cuerpo Mente magazine. 

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