Henna (Lawsonia inermis L.) leaves have been widely used as a natural plant colorant for hair dyeing and body art. However, the utilisation of henna dye extract in commercial colour cosmetics is compromised by its potential harmful effects to humans. This study demonstrates that spray-drying encapsulation using maltodextrin and gum arabic as biocompatible polymeric carriers can be used as a promising strategy to detoxify henna dye extract while maintaining its hair dyeing efficiency for cosmetics. Henna extract-loaded microcapsules with an average particle size of 4.1 μm were prepared with an excellent encapsulation efficiency (98.4