LOVE DREADIES
General Talk
awesome dude. keep up the positive attitude you have, you will go far. and i love that dread in the pic
Forum Activity for @jackal
separating and ripping hairs - over time how many strands actually go to the end of the dread?
Dread Maintenance
was pulling sections apart today and had to break some hairs that were connecting dreads at the roots. it seems i have to do that a lot more recently even after a year. anyway, ive been pondering this for quite a while and i finally decided to ask this on the site.
When you break hairs that connect dreads at roots, ripping the starts of congos, or just separating sections so they dont congo, you're breaking hairs and such. that led me to the question in the title, how many strands are actually going to the tips, and how much of the dread is just broken hair thats dreaded onto hair thats connected to the scalp? after a year (or 20) of separating sections, each hair you break creates a loose hair thats just staying in the dread because its knotted to connected hair.
any ideas/feedback? i'd love to hear some of your responses.
updated by @jackal: 01/13/15 09:02:31PM
dreads first birthday <3
General Talk
my timeline can be found here, and is updated with pics and whatnot:
http://www.dreadlockssite.com/forum/topics/12-months-backcombed-timeline
dreads first birthday <3
General Talk
first birthday for my dreadies. woooooooooooo. i finally made it to one year. it feels like its been so long, yet so short of a time. hopefully there will be many many more to come <3
I had to post this somewhere, and i figured the general forum was the best place to do it. I'll have my one year photos up on my timeline in the afternoon
updated by @jackal: 01/13/15 09:02:03PM
Items that have meaning to you in your dreadlocks.
Dread Accessories
i have a bead that my friend's mom gave me as a gift about a year ago. its red clay with a lobster burned onto it and it looks very old. it means a lot to me and ive kept it in most of the year
ripping issues
Help! Save My Dreads
lol. se will yell at me, but i did the scissors thing too. and a knife! lol. but anyway, once dreads start maturing its a nono, but i think if theyre still relatively new and easy to separate without breaking hairs it should be alright.
ripping issues
Help! Save My Dreads
yah i would listen to SE and stop unless its nessicary. i ripped most of mine in half and i was very fortunate to still have intact dreads, but during my ripping i saw just how bad it can be for them. though i only had like 13 dreads to start off with, it was nessicary for me to avoid mold issues and such with drying
You know what really grinds my gears?
Dreading Methods
i had the same problem when mine were starting out. i figured out what the problem was though. the water pressure was too high and it was undoing progress by blasting the new knots out.
i was not able to change the shower head, and my shower only had a control for hot or cold, pure hot or pure cold was the lowest pressure, and the mid ranges were like a firehose.
I resolved this by putting a pair of pantyhose over my head. it still lets a ton of water through, but the fabric acts as a pressure dispersant, and it didnt undo my knots. SE says it doesnt work though, but in my experience it was a miracle. i did it again when i was dealing with big chunks of loose hair that wouldnt dread, and the loose hair dreaded up really fast when i did that.
i'd pour my baking soda mixture all over my head and soak it, then put the dry panty hose over my head, wash the rest of my body and do whatever i could to take up approx 10 mins, then rinse my hair out really good with the panty hoes on until i felt it was sufficently clean. id massage it with my nails and fingertips slightly (not hard) to help the scalp and stuff without having to have my fingers pull out knots.
also, try mixing water and sea salt in a spray bottle and spray it all over your hair after you pat (not rub or squeeze) your hair with a towel and dry it off a little. then just let it air dry. the mixture should be strong enough to leave salt on whatever it sprays on. it will form knots really fast. if you use ACV, cut out the acv for a little bit as it conditions and relaxes hair.
Just some stuff to try that worked like a charm for me and some other people i suggested it to.
edit: max, i just noticed you said you use bronners. try cutting out the bronners and going to 1/2 cup of baking soda in a gallon jug of water, mix well, and pour over your head. it leaves your hair squeaky clean and readily grabbing on to each other. combined with the sea salt spray, you should see an explosion of knotting.
8 Months In
Dread Maintenance
theyre starting to look really good. check out my timeline and you can see that mine looked very similar, now theyre looking like the standard picture of dreadlocks and are almost mature. im about to post some 1 year pics in a couple of days.but yah, just keep hangin in there, they'll mature really good. its true that the congo will make it look a lot messier and less uniform but it probably wont matter once everything is mature, all dreads look good when mature no matter how messy they are in the formation.I agree with what amanda said, in a few months they'll look like an entirely different set of dreads
Dread Newbie! Freaking the f**k out!
Help! Save My Dreads
mine looked a lot like that when we got them backcombed. thick, puffy, ugly, etc. what i noticed is i could palm roll and while palm rolling, pull the dread outwords with my palm as i roll and it would slowly get longer and a little thinner. backcomb always looks ugly and thick at first but they relax and get thinner and longer over a week or 2. with that method though you can speed it up a little bit.