Hey everyone. It's been a bit over a month and a half since I started my process and life has been busy enough that I've yet to do an update, so I figured now was as good a time as ever!
The process of dreading my hair has been a huge journey for me, and one that I've found to be nothing other than incredibly rewarding. To begin, I cut my hair about four to five inches shorter than it had been because I was worried it would be too hard to manage. I started washing every other day with doctor bronner's every other day to get used to not washing quite as often, and soon after switched to the BS/ACV rinse as needed every 2 or so days. In the beginning the biggest problem I had was serious dandruff, which I have completely fixed with patience, time, a bit more rosemary oil in my BS rinse, and upping the amount of ACV I followed up with. Since then, I've never felt cleaner than when I do the BS/ACV rinse and almost wish I could get dirtier more often so I could do it all the time because it's so nice and relaxing.
I originally planned to make my first update around a month in, because at that point I was so excited about my journey. Almost exactly a month in was the first time someone stopped me to comment on my dreads and ask questions, which was very exciting for me. My "oldest" dreads at that point had been mostly flat, but were beginning to round out over time which was cool to watch as it happened. Every day I'd wake up and find a new patch of hair that was just starting to dread and catch stuff around it. I was also concerned about the way my hair was parting, so I started shifting the part every day based on how my hair was dreaded and now my usual part has become a bit less defined and the hair around it seems happier.
Since then, almost the entire back of my head has formed some pretty tight dreads. The right side of my head is also almost completely dreaded since that's the side I sleep on every night... haha. My left side is also starting to catch up with some interesting little buddies. I stopped separating my dreads for a while because I was worried that I might be hindering some of the younger guys, but now I need to separate almost every day to make sure the back isn't congoing into one huge dread. On the other hand, I've had a few of my pencil-thin dreads congoing into more full-looking dreads which has been cool to see.
ANYWAY, enough talking except to say that those of you who are just starting off KEEP GOING! Your hair will always exceed your expectations, and if it starts to bother you just sit back and enjoy the fact that it's out of your control... it will turn out for the better. I stopped expecting results right away and wishing that my hair would dread faster and found myself happy with how my hair acts and excited by how it changes from day to day.
Here's pictures for y'all:
How my hair looked before dreading (and cutting... never took a post-haircut picture unfortunately)
http://imgur.com/CeWw8 (This might be like a week in?)
One month in:
Today!
I might try and get some better pictures, or even a video soon if people are interested. Cheers and thank y'all for your time and help!
updated by @cam: 01/13/15 09:12:07PM