Forum Activity for @jodi

Natural birth control...

Alternative Lifestyles and Subcultures

well done for quitting those horrible chemicals, have you looked into Fertility Awareness Method? Its about charting your cycle and understanding when you are at your most and least fertile and taking precautions/ abstaining as needed. There is a good website and book where you can chart your temperature changes and come to understand your ownbody's rhythm and signs- including mood changes etc- much more natural and helpful than popping pills-

http://www.tcoyf.com/

hope its a help,

all the best

x

lumpy ends and persistently blunting tips

Dread Maintenance

Thanks for all your support, it is good to know that this happens to other people too. Its easy to see pics of peoples hair a few months in and it looks amazing and just get really disheartened when i look in the mirror. In response to Laura - my hair was at my mid back,- and just seems to dread by forming a ball on the end and rolling itself up!

I don't even feel like I have dreads yet as my hair is still pretty loose at the roots with just the ends knotted up, over and over again on themselves, I get sad as I haven't really enjoyed them yet, its a struggle to get it looking halfway decent and I still don't know how I will look 'with dreads' and yet its 1 and half years in. Ah well, I have a young son so absolutely no time to sit and take them out which is perhaps a blessing, I will just have to learn more patience! And Faith! Thank you for responding, it does help to share experiences, and like Barrellady said, in a few years I won't care what the ends are like so much anyway. Much love x

lumpy ends and persistently blunting tips

Dread Maintenance

Thanks Christina, it seems like this happens to quite a few people I wonder if its a hair-type thing, mine is very fine and wavy. I don't have time to take my dreads out ( which I feel like doing every now and then) so I guess I'm just going to have to hope they will work out. This whole journey has been a test in patience and letting go, my hair has been a crazy mess for so long I'm just longing for the day I finally feel like i have dreads and not just ugly hair. Will try for those pics soon. All the best x

lumpy ends and persistently blunting tips

Dread Maintenance

Hello,

My set of natural/ neglect dreads are now 18 months, they have shrunk from the middle of my back to some about 3 inches long, and with some hair still undreaded. I will try to take some photos to show how crazy it is at the mo.

What is really getting me down is how the ends have turned out. It feels like there is about 12 inches of hair dreaded in the bottom inch of the dread while the rest is skinny with only a few lumps and bumps. I really wanted loose ends but they persistently fold over on themselves creating bit fat lumps with blunted ends. I have unravelled several ends and put beads on but they still manage to blunt again. Its not so much the blunting that bothers me if thats what they want to do, but the fact that they fold over and over to create big lumps on the ends.

Has anyone else experienced this or have any suggetions what I can do, or does it somehow all work out in the end? I try to have faith that they will all work out eventually but its so hard having a' bad hair day' for 1 1/2 years, now I have this crazy lumpy mullet going on. I will try to take some pics so you can see what I mean.

Thanks for any suggestions

updated by @jodi: 01/13/15 09:55:55PM

'mouldy lumps' concern- do I unravel the ends?

Help! Save My Dreads

I had a look at karma janes dreads and they look really beautiful, she did natural/neglect method though, mine are T&R and I wonder if this can stop the proper dreading process the knots seem to be stopping them pulling up towards the roots and concentrating all the maturing to the ends. Is it possible that T&R can cause the massive shrinkage and lumpy ends that several people have found happening. I've read quite a few posts about this happening and people cutting the lumps off in the end, and T&R is a common method.

Could method more than hair type influence the way different hair dreads?

It would be interesting to know as I'm sure more people would go with natural/ neglect if these kinds of problems were due to T&R.

'mouldy lumps' concern- do I unravel the ends?

Help! Save My Dreads

i keep ripping them apart and get to them before they can join too much these may be better photos but really are they ok? will they even out if i leave them? all them length is knotted into the very end, its hard to know how they will turn into normal looking dreads x

'mouldy lumps' concern- do I unravel the ends?

Help! Save My Dreads

I'm struggling to attatch photos but here it goes:

'mouldy lumps' concern- do I unravel the ends?

Help! Save My Dreads

Hello,
After the reassurance from my last post, that the 'shrinkage, lumps and balls' were a normal part of the dreading process, I relaxed and trusted that all would be well.
However, i came across Sissemor's posts:
http://www.dreadlockssite.com/forum/topics/my-tnr-timeline-update-at-8?page=2&commentId=3754945%3AComment%3A666813&xg_browser=iphone&x=1

and

http://www.dreadlockssite.com/forum/topics/lumps-and-mold

and this rang some alarm bells as her journey looks EXACTLY like mine so far. The loss of length which is gathering in the very ends of the section, forming hard lumps which seem to be stopping any movemt further upward and end blunting themselves which leads to them not draining off water properly.

I am nearly 5 months pregnant and mould inside the lumps is a big concern for health reasons, also, if I can rescue the ends by unravelling the lumps now to prevent future problems it would be good as if I wait more months to see what happens I will not have the time to unravel plus it will be more difficult and I REALLY don't want to chop the lumps off like Sissemor as I've already lost 3/4 of the length (all gone into the ends of my dreads)

You can see from the pics, just about, how rough they are looking but I could be patient with this if I thought they would even out along the length in the end- I do not want bottom-heavy dreads- and pull up ok. But Sisemor's case shows that they can just get stuck as lumps possible because of T&R knots, and this prevents the dread forming normally- and doing the usual zigzags and bumps that it needs to dread.

So my questions are-

are these dreads abnormally forming - ie going to be a hard (mouldy?) matted lump on a string of undreaded hair? Or does anyone have any experience if this type of formation in the long run? - do they even out? do the roots dread?

Should I start the long task now of unravelling the end and undoing the T&R knots to allow movement up the length? Would adding beads to the bottom if I did do this help the same thing from happening again?

Should I just cut some of the loops at the end to free them and allow water to drain off and stop mould being a promblem?

Should I wait longer to see if the lumps pull up - or is this making life more diffcult in the future?

Please can someone give some sound advice as I know no one with dreads to ask and need to act now if I'm going to at all- when the baby is here I won't have the time to spend on them.

Thanks very much

J X

updated by @jodi: 01/13/15 09:07:37PM

shrinkage,lumps, balls, tails and loose roots!

Dread Maintenance

Had a look at your pics and its really similar to whats happening for me, yours are looking great though they really suit you. I think i just need to have more faith. Thanks

fancyAmanda said:

It sounds like your hair is doing exactly what mine is doing. I sometimes just take a quick glance at the back of my head in the mirror and I have to laugh out loud at how ridiculous it looks. But something about it is very fascinating to me, and I'm quite confident that they will look badass in another few months. Try to be more confident in your hair to do what is right for itself

shrinkage,lumps, balls, tails and loose roots!

Dread Maintenance

WOW thanks everyone, its good to know I'm not alone in this, its easy to get disheartened, especially when you are a bit of a control freak like me, its hard sometimes to let go and trust that they will be ok. It will be interesting to compare pics a few months down the line and see what happens next. Thanks x