separating natural locks

its been 4 months now and the back is finally starting to section off a bit more. i usually separate the sections daily because i'm so worried a huge dread will form in the back if i'm not paying attention. the problem i have is that i have a lot of loose hair everywhere from me pulling the sections apart. i worry i might be undoing any progress that might be happening. do you think i'm sectioning too much and too often? i wonder if maybe i should cut back a bit so things might start to progress. i'm trying to find some beads that are small enough to kind of hold the sections together but everything i've tried just slides right out of my hair.

ps - they seem to be sectioning really small. is that going to be a problem later?

any help would be greatly appreciated:)

updated by @heather: 02/14/15 07:18:37AM

i would wait and seperater weekly at most or less when sections seeem to be eatting eachother seoperate


--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

weekly? dang it. so i've probably been undoing some of the progress all along. the sections are only knotted at the ends so far. oh well. maybe now i'll see more knotting at 5 months.

soaringeagle said:

i would wait and seperater weekly at most or less when sections seeem to be eatting eachother seoperate

yea only reason to do it more often is if they dread so fast that they turn into 1 huge dread overnight

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

ugh. okay. that's definitely not going to happen to my hair. it's so soft that it's basically one step forward two steps back. i've kind of accepted that now.

soaringeagle said:

yea only reason to do it more often is if they dread so fast that they turn into 1 huge dread overnight

Heather my dear, i would honestly wait on seperating untill your babe-locs are actually dreading. When you can pull on a loc in one direction, and see that another loc is being pulled along with it, even though your not pulling on that one, that is when you should start seperating. They likely seem like small sections but that is likely because they haven't started eating each other yet. SE mentioned in a different post that a good time to seperate is after you shampoo, which isnt a bad idea. But judging from what you describe i would wait till actual dreads form.

I didnt start seperating untill one day i noticed that one of my baby congo's, about a inch and a half in width at the root, was slowly pulling another one like two inches away from it, forming a sort of webbed bridge between the two.

i'm constantly playing w/ my hair and seperating so I know it's not good, but i try to mainly only do it after showering...i actually decided 2 of my biggest needed seperated last night and they were so well formed i had to have my hubby help pull lol... just try to look at them you start seeing a couple bigger or combining at the roots then do something otherwise let em go...you can always seperate even after they start combining!

I do my best to only separate after a shower, when my hair has had a chance to dry a teeny bit. The hair is weaker when it's wet, so it makes it easier to separate (gently, of course!). I've also still got a lot of loose hair from separating. I've been taking some of it and doing a little t&r to keep things in order.

I'm a month and three weeks in, though. You're a lot farther along than me! :P

well, i do get that kind of webbing but it's not usually that much hair. when i separate it then it feels like i'm creating more loose hair. i have 7 backcombed sections in the front and i have to separate those daily because they try to eat all the loose hair around them. i just backcombed them a couple of weeks ago and they're already zigzaging. crazy.

Thundersquall said:

Heather my dear, i would honestly wait on seperating untill your babe-locs are actually dreading. When you can pull on a loc in one direction, and see that another loc is being pulled along with it, even though your not pulling on that one, that is when you should start seperating. They likely seem like small sections but that is likely because they haven't started eating each other yet. SE mentioned in a different post that a good time to seperate is after you shampoo, which isnt a bad idea. But judging from what you describe i would wait till actual dreads form.

I didnt start seperating untill one day i noticed that one of my baby congo's, about a inch and a half in width at the root, was slowly pulling another one like two inches away from it, forming a sort of webbed bridge between the two.

i was doing the separating after my showers too. i think i'm probably doing it too often since i have more loose hair than sectioned hair. t&r doesn't work in my hair. i did a couple in my hair a few months ago and they fell out in a matter of hours. stupid soft hair its all about the journey, right? lol:)

meg said:

I do my best to only separate after a shower, when my hair has had a chance to dry a teeny bit. The hair is weaker when it's wet, so it makes it easier to separate (gently, of course!). I've also still got a lot of loose hair from separating. I've been taking some of it and doing a little t&r to keep things in order.

I'm a month and three weeks in, though. You're a lot farther along than me! :P