the backcombing is only cramming hair back its not really making any knots.. thats why all of us backcombers tend to freak out when it doesnt stay, the ends will all come loose i dont even have one that has stayed completely backcombed, it helps water run outta them easier so you gotta just look at it positively,i dont know exactly what to do about the balling up but i feel like if you let it go itll sort itself out with time, id be pretty stoked if i had some balling up haha i cant wait til i get loops and all that, but i can understand its frustrating as you want the round looking locks. i would let it ball up and just try to forget about it as hard as it is, if you let it go for a couple months itll be fun to watch how the balled up hair changes. you should definitely check out some peoples timelines on here to kind of get an idea of what to expect.
i didnt start getting loose and frizzy hair til more recently after washing, if you look at my pictures i have ones around two weeks and they look all tidy and tight but since then i have a lot more loose hair and frizziness after washing, they still feel tighter after washing but i think its just because they are completely clean and dry, after 2 or 3 days they feel loose and poofy once again haha. after you backcomb it honestly just goes downhill looks wise, youll look like a palm tree after backcombing your whole head for a couple weeks until they loosen and lay down better hahaha, but ive heard once you hit around 6 months and on thats the turning point to where they start really looking better. im just expecting them to start looking good after a year so if it happens sooner thatll be even better.
haha yeauh i had my buddy backcomb mine, i doubt he has ever even used a comb before but he did as good of a job as anyone so im sure your backcombing work is good enough! and yeauh im glad you dont want to go to a professional, theyre a complete waste of money haha.
im right there with you on that, i didnt want my hair looking like shit either, i think thats why there is the backcombing and tnr methods to give the effect and look of having locks when they arent really locks yet haha, its more of a comfortability thing. theres alot of articles on dreadlocks and jobs on this site and they mostly say that jobs cannot discriminate over dreads because you can claim they are for religious purpose, honestly i know that doesnt apply to me and im assuming it isnt for you either, plus if it were for religious reasons we would be going natural and not backcombing so we lose our argument there haha, an employer will most likely not care even if you have a whole head of locks as long as you keep them looking "tidy" which could be done by pulling them back or wearing a tam to cover them. you could also invest in some of the "magic locking gel" on dreadlockshampoo. com, ive heard it keeps your sections pretty clean and also smells great so that could be worth it.
saw your comment on the side bar thing and I thought id give my two cents because i had a similar question just a bit ago, the general consensus is that backcombing, no matter how tightly done, is gonna loosen up to some degree, if it doesnt just come undone completely, its definitely frustrating after spending hours of time backcombing just to have it fall out, and it makes you think you did something wrong or its not going to dread, but once it does loosen and/or fall out thats when the progress starts. i backcombed my hair a month ago and some have stayed fairly tight so far, some are half loose, and some have completely fallen out...i dont know yet from personal experience if theyll all lock up but i am very confident and have been reassured by others that they all will so im not worried at all. what anyone on this site will tell you is your hair is gonna dread if you wash it right(the baking soda and acv wash is great),separateif you dont want congos, and otherwise leave it alone.. backcombing or twist n rip is just a way to map out your sections and get your hairs in each sections going different directions then just straight, it essentially gives you a little kickstart, but it comes at the cost ofdamaging your hair a bit.
your hair is going to be messy, theres really no way around it, itll get frizzy and youll have loose hair no matter how tightly and perfectly you backcomb, washing, seperating, sleeping, wind, etc, will cause some loose hairs and frizzz haha its just gonna happen, especially in the beginning, ive learned you just have to learn to love it.
to address the "dreads are hard in the core" part of your question i think that is meant to be about mature locks, your baby locks will not be hard in the core until they start locking up and maturing. until then they will most likely be loose and gradually become "harder" or to use a better term "tighter" over time.
you didnt mention this but i thought id give you the information anyways, you may or may not be using rubberbands but as a backcomber i suspect you may use them (i did for a little), but a better alternative you could use would be putting beads on your baby locks, itll encourage knotting and beads can move more freely and wont get sucked into dreads like rubberbands can. if you arent using bands, beads are still a great way to keep your sections together if you are concerned about them falling all apart.
its hard to just let your hair do what it wants but you gotta just trust it and let your hair do its thing. time and patience are the key to kick ass dreads.
sorry to just jump in but ive been researching quite a bit and thought id share what ive learned to save you some time good luck on your dread journey!
dreads should be soft and fuzzy to the touch not hard and scatchy like brillo wich crochet dreads get to feel that way from all thr rough broken hairs
when you look at mine do they look excessivly fuzzy? no cause u dont see every loose hair unless your looking way too close
unfortunatly you did break a lot of hairs combatting the fuzziness so when your recoverin g they are going to be way way fuzzier
all the hairs u broke will pop out
fortunatly aloe will condition them loosening them so they can dread right and also tame the frixzz too aloe when applied shrinks as it dries so it pulls all those hairs in smoothing it down
takean aloe leaf (u can buy aloe in a bottle but make sure theres absolutely no other ingredients..just aloe nothing else) split the aloe leaf and either scrape out the gel or wipe the leaf along yoir dreads u can add the gel to a spray even or a rinse but applied directly will smooth the frizz best
please post a discussion on the damage u experienced with pics to help others avoid it
Welcome. Eagle said it already. So I don't really have to say it again, but Crocheting is actually worse than wax for locks. Wax can be washed out with a detergent and some serious scrubbing. The damage done by crocheting is permanent. It can heal itself a little by loosening itself and retangling, but once those hairs are ripped into pieces, they can't reattach themselves.
the backcombing is only cramming hair back its not really making any knots.. thats why all of us backcombers tend to freak out when it doesnt stay, the ends will all come loose i dont even have one that has stayed completely backcombed, it helps water run outta them easier so you gotta just look at it positively,i dont know exactly what to do about the balling up but i feel like if you let it go itll sort itself out with time, id be pretty stoked if i had some balling up haha i cant wait til i get loops and all that, but i can understand its frustrating as you want the round looking locks. i would let it ball up and just try to forget about it as hard as it is, if you let it go for a couple months itll be fun to watch how the balled up hair changes. you should definitely check out some peoples timelines on here to kind of get an idea of what to expect.
i didnt start getting loose and frizzy hair til more recently after washing, if you look at my pictures i have ones around two weeks and they look all tidy and tight but since then i have a lot more loose hair and frizziness after washing, they still feel tighter after washing but i think its just because they are completely clean and dry, after 2 or 3 days they feel loose and poofy once again haha. after you backcomb it honestly just goes downhill looks wise, youll look like a palm tree after backcombing your whole head for a couple weeks until they loosen and lay down better hahaha, but ive heard once you hit around 6 months and on thats the turning point to where they start really looking better. im just expecting them to start looking good after a year so if it happens sooner thatll be even better.
haha yeauh i had my buddy backcomb mine, i doubt he has ever even used a comb before but he did as good of a job as anyone so im sure your backcombing work is good enough! and yeauh im glad you dont want to go to a professional, theyre a complete waste of money haha.
im right there with you on that, i didnt want my hair looking like shit either, i think thats why there is the backcombing and tnr methods to give the effect and look of having locks when they arent really locks yet haha, its more of a comfortability thing. theres alot of articles on dreadlocks and jobs on this site and they mostly say that jobs cannot discriminate over dreads because you can claim they are for religious purpose, honestly i know that doesnt apply to me and im assuming it isnt for you either, plus if it were for religious reasons we would be going natural and not backcombing so we lose our argument there haha, an employer will most likely not care even if you have a whole head of locks as long as you keep them looking "tidy" which could be done by pulling them back or wearing a tam to cover them. you could also invest in some of the "magic locking gel" on dreadlockshampoo. com, ive heard it keeps your sections pretty clean and also smells great so that could be worth it.
no problem
glad i can help in some way!
saw your comment on the side bar thing and I thought id give my two cents because i had a similar question just a bit ago, the general consensus is that backcombing, no matter how tightly done, is gonna loosen up to some degree, if it doesnt just come undone completely, its definitely frustrating after spending hours of time backcombing just to have it fall out, and it makes you think you did something wrong or its not going to dread, but once it does loosen and/or fall out thats when the progress starts. i backcombed my hair a month ago and some have stayed fairly tight so far, some are half loose, and some have completely fallen out...i dont know yet from personal experience if theyll all lock up but i am very confident and have been reassured by others that they all will so im not worried at all. what anyone on this site will tell you is your hair is gonna dread if you wash it right(the baking soda and acv wash is great),separateif you dont want congos, and otherwise leave it alone.. backcombing or twist n rip is just a way to map out your sections and get your hairs in each sections going different directions then just straight, it essentially gives you a little kickstart, but it comes at the cost ofdamaging your hair a bit.
your hair is going to be messy, theres really no way around it, itll get frizzy and youll have loose hair no matter how tightly and perfectly you backcomb, washing, seperating, sleeping, wind, etc, will cause some loose hairs and frizzz haha its just gonna happen, especially in the beginning, ive learned you just have to learn to love it.
to address the "dreads are hard in the core" part of your question i think that is meant to be about mature locks, your baby locks will not be hard in the core until they start locking up and maturing. until then they will most likely be loose and gradually become "harder" or to use a better term "tighter" over time.
you didnt mention this but i thought id give you the information anyways, you may or may not be using rubberbands but as a backcomber i suspect you may use them (i did for a little), but a better alternative you could use would be putting beads on your baby locks, itll encourage knotting and beads can move more freely and wont get sucked into dreads like rubberbands can. if you arent using bands, beads are still a great way to keep your sections together if you are concerned about them falling all apart.
its hard to just let your hair do what it wants but you gotta just trust it and let your hair do its thing. time and patience are the key to kick ass dreads.
sorry to just jump in but ive been researching quite a bit and thought id share what ive learned to save you some time
good luck on your dread journey!
all u need to do to prevent big clumps is seperate
all that backcombings unesacary if it dreads so easilty if sections form too big split them if 2 sections try to combine seperate
you dont need to backcomb to dread uui hope u at least acvoided wax!
uu basicly chose an unesacary and fairly (but not extremely) damaging method because it dreads so easily on its own?
the absolute best way to dread is just let it dread..dont make them..allow them
if it knots easy why would u backcomb and damage the hair
leave the loose hairs alone ..cut them off? why? just leave em there
just stop combing let it dread itself
welcome how were u thinking of starting? read the dreaducation page 1st
Welcome and Happy Dreading.
you wont get fired if u have a hair or 2 loose
nobody will even notice
dreads should be soft and fuzzy to the touch not hard and scatchy like brillo wich crochet dreads get to feel that way from all thr rough broken hairs
when you look at mine do they look excessivly fuzzy? no cause u dont see every loose hair unless your looking way too close
unfortunatly you did break a lot of hairs combatting the fuzziness so when your recoverin g they are going to be way way fuzzier
all the hairs u broke will pop out
fortunatly aloe will condition them loosening them so they can dread right and also tame the frixzz too aloe when applied shrinks as it dries so it pulls all those hairs in smoothing it down
takean aloe leaf (u can buy aloe in a bottle but make sure theres absolutely no other ingredients..just aloe nothing else) split the aloe leaf and either scrape out the gel or wipe the leaf along yoir dreads u can add the gel to a spray even or a rinse but applied directly will smooth the frizz best
please post a discussion on the damage u experienced with pics to help others avoid it
Welcome. Eagle said it already. So I don't really have to say it again, but Crocheting is actually worse than wax for locks. Wax can be washed out with a detergent and some serious scrubbing. The damage done by crocheting is permanent. It can heal itself a little by loosening itself and retangling, but once those hairs are ripped into pieces, they can't reattach themselves.