Aleppo soap & natural care
What plant does henna come from?
Henna comes from Lawsonia inermis, a flowering shrub grown across North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia. Its leaves contain lawsone, a natural dye molecule that stains keratin — the protein that makes up hair, skin and nails — a reddish-orange shade, which is the basis of every traditional henna product, from body-art paste to the hair-colour powders in our range.
From leaf to powder
Henna leaves are harvested, dried and ground into a fine powder — that powder is the raw henna product as it's traded and sold. On its own it's inert; it's mixed with a liquid, traditionally water or another mild acidic liquid, to form a paste that releases the dye and makes it ready to apply. El Captain's henna line, produced in Cairo, follows this same powder format across its shade range.
Lawsonia inermis has been cultivated across this same belt — North Africa, the Middle East and South Asia — for a very long time, and the plant shows up in more than one traditional use: as a hair-colour powder, in body-art paste for celebrations and weddings, and dyed into textiles historically. The hair-colouring use covered here is one branch of a much wider plant tradition.
How lawsone actually dyes
Lawsone binds to keratin protein and stains it from the outside in, rather than penetrating and permanently restructuring hair the way synthetic chemical dye does. That's why henna colour behaves differently over time — it tends to fade gradually as the stain wears and washes out, rather than growing out with the sharp line a chemical dye leaves at the root.
Henna powder vs henna oil
Our catalogue carries two separate formats of the same plant tradition, and they aren't interchangeable: henna powder, in three shades, for hair colouring, and a separate henna oil — a cosmetic carrier oil rather than a colouring product — for scalp and skin use. A customer asking generally for "henna" is worth a quick clarifying question about which format they actually want.
The two products come from the same plant but aren't produced the same way: the powder is simply dried, ground leaf, while the oil is a carrier oil infused with the plant rather than a pressed extract of it. A beauty-supply shelf stocking both should keep them visibly separate, since a customer reaching for a colouring product and a customer reaching for a scalp oil are looking for two different results from the same shrub.
Buying henna wholesale
Henna hair dye wholesale and henna powder wholesale in Canada cover the shade range, formulation and typical buyers for the powder line, while henna oil wholesale covers the separate oil product. Both formats are part of the wider personal-care range, quoted together on one inquiry.
Related questions
Is henna a chemical dye?
No — it's a plant-derived powder from Lawsonia inermis leaves. See our henna vs chemical hair dye comparison for how the two products actually differ at retail.
Does henna powder need to be mixed before use?
Yes — it's mixed with a liquid into a paste to release the dye, applied per the product's own instructions.
What's the difference between henna powder and henna oil in your range?
Powder is used to make a colouring paste for hair; oil is a separate cosmetic carrier oil for scalp and skin — two different products from the same plant tradition.