I personally don't like dawn for my hair either, it left my dreads feeling brittle.
Have you tried Dr. Bronners? I bought mine at a local grocery store in the organic/healthfoods section.
Just use baking soda and apple cider vinegar! Its very inexpensive.
Suave shampoo DOES have conditioners in it that will "keep your hair tangle free"
I have a friend who was taught that in order to dread you had to wear a tam for as long as possible.Then once your hair is one huge clump, you separate rip it apart into sections... that way you can decide how big you want the sections to be. Seems painful to me lol
I don't use more then 3 drops of each essential oil at a time... those little tiny bottles last me a few months.
Tea Tree Oil, Rosemary Oil and Patchouli Oil would be most beneficial in my opinion.
My neglect dreads vary in size, some are really thin and others are really thick.
The thickness of your dreads depends on how often you separate them.
Thank you for all the positive input!!
Actually my hair has shrunk, I know the pics don't demonstrate that very well but I have a picture (not on the computer) of me a few days before dreading and my hair is down to about the bottom of my rib cage. now the longest hairs are about 2-3 inches shorter. If you look at my month 1 pic... then back down to my month 5 pic, you can see how much has shrunk
I'm about 5 months along my dread journey.
I started out with TnR, I did 2 or 3 locs this way, didn't like the results (and it took a ton of work) so I searched the internet until I found this site... and since then I've been natural/neglect.
BEFORE:
My hair was a few inches longer then this when I started dreading, it's always been pretty healthy... I took prenatals throughout the last few years and I rarely used heat products on it.
MONTH 1:
Lots of progress!! Some have shrunk and knotted up a LOT but some in the front have yet to knot at all.
MONTH 2:
Sections are forming really well, lots and lots of knots.
MONTH 3:
Even more knots and tons of crazy loops and zig zags.
MONTH 4:
Sections are forming really well, I don't have to separate very often anymore. I started putting hemp threads and beads in around this time.
MONTH 5:
They're starting to look like dreads! Even though pics don't do it much justice... the sections are mostly formed. I don't have much loose hair anymore, but the front sections are still looking less formed then the back.
I
still have TONS of crazy loops and zig zags.
So this is where I'm at currently, more to come in a month or so 
Thanks for looking
I used dawn dish soap yesterday to wash my hair. I took a huge pitcher and filled it about halfway with a dish soap/water mix and I stuck the ends of my hair into the pitcher and let them soak for a few minutes. then I poured the entire thing over my head and let that sit for about 10 minutes and washed it out with hot hot water.
After I got out of the shower I noticed that my hair seemed more brittle and and the ends were wanting to fold up into my dreads.. so I took some scissors and trimmed the ends off all my dreads (not even an inch worth,) just trimmed off the super long frizzy split ends) and now it looks a lot healthier.
The dish soap wash seemed to get some of the lint out but there is still a little bit left in there so I will probably do it again tonight.... although the fact that it made my hair feel more brittle did worry me;
