crochet dreads recovery Need help and advise

Hey guy's,

Completely new to this forum/site and I absolutely love what I am seeing, in fact this is my first official thread apart from my introduction. Let me start with summarizing my dreadlock history.

OK so...I first got dreads in January 2013 and it is now November 2013 so I've had my dreads for roughly 11 months, at the time my hair was fairly short and my dreads were made by a retail business that specializes only in dreadlocks using the crochet hook and no wax or chemicals etc and because my hair was quite short I got synthetic extensions, the thought behind this was that extensions reduced the need for maintenance and the additional cost of extensions wasn't that significant in the overall cost. All this cost me a small fortune on the day and took about 6 or 7 hours and any further maintenance is $100 per hour. Luckily for me I met a woman who lives just around the corner from me who does dreads for a living and she only charges me $90 for a 3 hour session.

Anyway, recently (about 2 months ago) I decided to remove the synthetic extensions as my hair had grown and I really didn't like having them, although they looked real they felt fake, I'm sure you know what I mean. I had 65 extensions and 23 non extended dreads for a grand total of 88 dreads. Now I'm not sure how to explain my hair type exactly but it's kind of fine and I have a lot of hair, if my shoulder length hair wasn't dreaded then I would look like I just got back from 1975 if you know what I mean.

One of the problems seems to be that I get my dreads all neatened up with 3 hours of maintenance and then within a couple of weeks I get lots of flyaway hair and all my ends un-dread (no longer blunted) and I think I get more flyaway hair than normal, this may be because of my hair type - whatever that is - but it really starts to look like I've got dreads mixed in with normal hair and I'd really like to know how to improve this situation as it looks more and more messy as time goes on. ... Any Advice is Appreciated

I'm sad to say that I got that desperate that in the last 8 or 9 weeks I've WAXED my dreads twice, now I've been very reluctant to use wax at all and now I hate the shit!. The first time was and extremely light application didn't really faze me too much but it was a bit weird and of little benefit. The second time was about 5 days ago and was applied it a bit more liberally than the first time and I absolutely hated it, in fact within about 3 hours I was in the shower trying to wash it out...it was horrible and I really regret it. Anyway the next day I goggled anything and everything I could find about removing wax from dreads and so I went the ACV, basically run myself a hot bath, got a bottle of ACV and my wife pored half the bottle on my dreads undiluted which I let soak for 15 minutes and then massaged it out under the water and then applied the other half of the bottle waited another 15 minutes then I jumped straight out of the bath into the shower and washed my dreads twice with my dread soap. Initially I thought this was a bit of a wives tail but it seems to have been reasonably effective given how fresh the application of wax was.

So now that that's all over with I'm going to jump on dreadlockshampoo.com and order some "Wax B Gone" and since I have to pay postage to Australia I'll probably grab a few extra products and give them a go.

Even though my dreads are fairly formed I still experience this ridiculous amount of flyaway hair and I don't mean just a few bits and pieces or the usual fuzz I end up with full length un-dreaded hair which again gives me that half dreads half normal hair look...any advice is much appreciated as I would like to get away from having to get maintenance every 7 or 8 weeks but if I was to just leave it I think I would end up with no dreads, or at least that's how it seems.

Here is a pic from today somewhere below ...

Dreads at Work.jpg ,

Not the most flattering mug shot but a good indication of how my dreads are looking at this very moment and at this time I just want to let'em ride but I don't want to go backwards ...

Cheers

rustdust.

updated by @rustdust: 02/14/15 04:46:11AM

Hey Rustdust. Loose hair is normal to have. It's actually healthy. But you probably have so many because you have crocheted your dreads. The crotchet hook literally breaks the hair causing them to stick out. It's very damaging and you should not do that anymore. It can take a while to recover from it tho.

You can try a sea salt spray to try and suck in more of the loose hairs. Just mix some sea salt with water and spray on hair a few hours before a shower. I'm not sure the exact ratio but if you go searching on this site you are sure to find it. There's a search bar in the top left corner. You can learn more about crotchet hook and why they're bad here too. There's so much to learn from this site! I encourage you to learn as much as possible because they're are so many misconceptions about dreads/maintenance out there that so many people like you have made the mistake of using wax and crotchet hooks.

The best advice I can give is stop doing maintenance! Honestly it is a waste of money, time and it damages dreads! Hair will dread on its own, and even faster as a matter of fact. All you have to do is wash and separate when dreads want to combine.

Good luck on getting the wax out. Hope I could help ya. Peace

It has to come undone to dread after most installation methods. Crochet especially.

ypur causing the fluaways wioth the hook

stay away from salons! remove the wax let them recover from the abuse they did already

its goung to take a year maybe 2 years to recover'the tips are best left unblunted

you should never 'neaten them up"

1 single hook use delays progress by 6 months

every use breaks hairs creating the flu aways

your destroying them by letting salobs constantly work on them

wash

separate

nothing else those are the 2 things u should do to dreads absolutely nothing else

haw much money have u wasted on salons?

id suggest dopnating 1% to the site

but because the sites in des;erate need ill up that to 10% this way yopur 10% can save thopusands of people dfrom making that mistake again

never ever ever use a hook or any tools on dreads

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Thanks for the input guys, it's like in the last 48hrs I've had this dreadlock enlightenment , I was reading your beginners guide to dreads just before soaring eagle and now I find myself on a new path. As for donating I'm more than happy to chip in something to help keep the site up and running , won't be much but it will be monthly. So will the dread that I have now fall out compleatly ?

nah they just will be a lil extra frizzy for quite awhile

crochet recovery is a long slow process but luckily they do t look too bad off

and thnx it will help alot

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

No worries mate, you should have it by now.

OK so I have ordered the wax B gone, I think the ACV has really helped too so with a two pronged approach it should be good to go. I also got theDragons Blood, Spearmint Eucalyptus andNag Champa Shampoo Barsso I'm really looking forward to trying some new soaps.

Cancelled my next appointment with the Loctcian so I looking forward to a whole new experience of neglect and freedom

good

your on the right path now then

and yea got it thnx

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

This should be a featured article. Rustdust has explained exactly what SE has said would happen with crochet methods.

good idea

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1