Blogs
I know roots are supposed to be loose, and dreads are supposed to get loopy and 'messy'. Especially in the first 6 months.
My question is this... are the loops on my roots (right next to my scalp) a good thing? thanks!
I was doing really well tracking my progress, then life came up! :P
Things have been going wonderful here, but very busy! Trying to spend a lot of time outdoors and enjoy the weather before it changes! :D
Today marks the 52nd day of not brushing for me! :D
Lots of little knotty things happening underneath my hair! I don't really do anything to my hair, no palm rolling, I don't even section my hair.
I do brush my bangs, but only because I have to be able to get my hair out of my face by pinning them back and braiding them etc. The rest of my hair is free to do whatever. I may let my bangs dread up after they are longer, but at this point I can't really even tuck them behind my ears. :P
Will try to get some pictures up today! I will also be trying to blog and post pictures more frequently again! I basically wanted to touch base with this community and let everyone know that I am still here and going strong! <3 Lots of love to everyone!
What do dreads look like that have string or wool thread or yarn stuck in them? Does anyone have any advise or pictures they can share? Thanks!
I started off with putting in sections.
July 1st, 2014
Canada Day <3
Everything was pretty much put in and my wrists hurt.
July 12th 2014
Crazy Head.
July 20th, 2014
Dreads are holding in, so far so good. Decided to put in some elastics to hold in the knots of matted hair and also did some crochet some dreads. The back of my head won't hold anything so i have to wait till it grows to put in some dreads. <3
That is basically about it for now.
Hope you have a blessed day.
Here is a photo of my hair at 2.5 months of neglect. The underside (mainly loose hairs, not such defined curls) are beginning to knot, but the top still hasn't (I understand I am early on in the journey). I have been separating the natural curls, for example: 2 will start curling together (this happens with many) & then I carefully separate them to an individual curl. Do you think this is hindering progress? Should I let them curl together? My concern has always been that they will end up too big. Thanks to anyone and everyone for their input..
Can one of you Dread Gurus please answer a question? I have these dread balls at the end of my hair. The diameter of the hair shaft is very small in diameter. About the size of a ball point pen refill. Here is my question...Will they dread up or is the hair shaft too small to dread up?
Around June of last year I cut off my first set.
I did this in mourning for a dear friend of mine, a fellow dreadie who died of cancer. The dreads were in good enough condition that they were able to be made into a custom human hair wig by a friend of mine and donated to a little girl who wanted dreads but had lost her hair to chemo.
I spent a year growing my natural hair out.
Once it was a little past my shoulders, I started the second set last week. I have been off shampoo since my first set so my hair was already prepped. I did some TnR and have been leaving it alone. Sleeping in a wool tam.
That's it.
I am about three days into this new set and they are all coming undone and starting to section themselves off again. I love this part of the process. The new profile pic was taken the night I did the TnR so my second set of dreads has a birthday of 7/9/14.
I know the only reason my dreads were healthy enough to donate was because of this site and the advice I received here. I missed you guts!
wow time flies! I thought they were only like 5 weeks or something..they're starting to get tighter, looking at beginning photos i can definitely see a difference. i'm only washing my hair once a week or so. I have mad loose hair hopefully that gets sucked up soon. people are now able to notice from far away that i have dreads!
Oh, the beautiful agony of waiting! I'm in that 'tween stage. Some have formed, some sections are still loose, starting and then loosening themselves at will. I've been so tempted to just take the sections that have yet to start knotting and use the TnR method to just have a more 'finished' look. I did put two in just to see, then wound up taking one back out because I felt I wasn't being true to my path if I started doing that to all of the still-loose sections. TnR dreads look really cool, I think, but I really want this to be a journey of letting my hair just be natural. If that means I have loose sections, then I have loose sections.
I keep reminding myself that while it feels like I've been on this journey for a while already (and it is a GOOD feeling), I have only really been at it for six and a half months. I have, at a minimum, six to twelve months before everything really gets to looking 'together'. Even then, I'm sure that my fine textured hair will still have stragglers. and if it still has loose sections beyond that point, so be it. I might have to back off of the separating a little and just let some of them be a little thicker dreads than I originally wanted and trust that nature knows best. 
On the separation front, I know they say not to do much to your hair when its wet because it is weighed down and stretched by the water, but I've found that it's easier for me to do the bulk of my separating while in the shower. I bend forward and let my hair come forward, which allows me to see the sections. Then I just take my time and pull them apart as they appear, usually doing this step in warm to cool water, then finishing with a cold water final rinse. Seems to be working pretty well.