Forum Activity for @kristalynn

Considering dreads...

Introduce Yourself

Yeah I mean I think your lifestyle dictates the method also. I mean I apparently didn't do enough research and even though I did them myself I back-combed and used wax (which was a mistake). But I also did them over a period of two months, not all at once. Umm but they looked pretty "dready" pretty quickly. If I were to do it again I'd twist-n-rip and just let em do their thing man. You're in high school so I mean you're not gonna be doing much too soon haha no offense. Go with a chill method, and be sure to thank your dad for approving of the dreads, my parents would in no way have let me get mine in high school

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

I had palm-rolled up until a couple weeks ago...

yea i got some organic conditioner with peppermint oil, olive oil, aloe, and other such hair yumminess. I will test it out on one first before going with all of em but i think it'll help. keep yah posted

updated by @kristalynn: 07/22/15 11:21:33AM

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

nah man i don't even know how it works

haha all i crochet is yarn

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

Ok, I'll keep going with some deep cleaning... maybe I just touch them too much? I find myself playing with them ALL the time. My friend makes fun of me for it, could that be a cause?

Also maybe I'll deep condition the one I halved to see if it loosens up or whatever. I guess just time will tell. If there's one thing I'm learning from this whole process; its patience haha

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

Funny thing: I was bored so I took a knife and sliced a dread done the middle (one that had a particularly rock-hard bulb at the tip) and there is no visible residue inside *see photog*. It also dosen't feel sticky or gooey or nasty at all, in fact it looks and feels the same as the outside. So now I'm completely stumped as to why they are so hard...

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

cool man thanks. I'm on a low budget being in college and all... I think I'm gonna try a recipe I saw involving baking soda, tea tree oil and lemon juice. How do you feel about that? I'll probably end up ordering the wax remover stuff though at some point. And yea totally not gonna trust anything from DreadHeadHQ, although I might leave a bad review.

I'll try to keep yah posted

The journey of wax removal

dread wax and dread kits recovery

Right, so last year at the end of May I took the first step on the journey to dreadlocks. I researched for a couple weeks, and unfortunately only found JohnnyClean and DreadHeadHQ and other such NONSENSE. So I got suckered into buying wax and worked, a few at a time, over the next couple months. I stopped using the wax about 3 months in... too little too late. My dreads have been shrinking up and actually knotting up quite a bit since then, however a large amount of them are super hard and stiff (see photogs). I've been alternately washing with BS/ACV and naturalish shampoos (burt's bees, etc.) even before I started dreading, and I feel like it helped get some of the initial wax out. There are no residual signs of wax on the outside, in fact they're very dry and look seemingly healthy.

I've been researching wax removal recently, and tried to find De-Solv-It at both Walmart and Wegmans to no avail. Instead I grabbed Method Dish Soap, which is biodegradable and has a very short list of ingredients. Took an extremely hot shower and used about a third of the bottle and scrubbed until my hands were sore and my fingers raisin-y. It smelled nice and the outsides of my dreads were *literally* squeaky clean, however some of them seemed to have gotten even harder on the inside and shrunk up even more! I'm super frustrated and trying not to consider cutting them off because I've put so much effort and energy into their lives and am quite attatched.

Please help if anyone's got any good suggestions.

*note: the photos are from before I washed with the dish soap... pretty much the same after though

updated by @kristalynn: 02/14/15 02:05:57PM

veggie vegan omni ital? whats your diet and hows it relate to your dreadiness (if at all)

Dreads and Diets

What a great discussion topic!

Personally I'm not a vegetarian or anything. I eat 'standard' food. I do try to skip some of the more processed foods, recently I've become very grossed out with how obsessed America is with sugar (its in everything!) and am trying to avoid the bulk of it, like eating natural peanut butter opposed to regular, it just tastes soooo much better anyway.

I did do a Daniel's Diet for 3 weeks last year. That's basically vegan, no meat or animal products, bread made without yeast, no sugar or caffeine or alcohol. It was really tough to maintain that diet, especially since I'm in college and only have a mini-fridge, but it did feel refreshing. When I transitioned back to normal food my stomach had a rough time with meat for a while, even chicken, but eventually got over it. I think the things I missed most were chocolate, coffee, and cheese.

Now that I'm thinking about it though I'm tempted to go back to it. It was hard but did teach me some self-discipline and restraint, and definitely gave me a de-tox.

Not entirely sure how this ties into my dreads. People do often assume I'm a veghead because of stereotypes. I don't know, I do feel more empowered to make life changes like that because of my dreads I guess. yep.