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Hello Everyone-- I was wondering if someone could tell me if coconut oil (the real stuff--in the Dr. Bronner's jar) is good for dreadlocks? I have mature locks (3+ years) and read somewhere that coconut oil is good if locks are mature. My regular routine consists of washing with diluted Dr. Bronners and air dryonce a week--nothing more.

<On a side note...I surf and love the way my hair feels when I come out of water. I rinse with freshwater but generally don't wash everytime I surf because I surf 2x or 3x/week. So I wash on weekends>.

Ok, so getting back to coconut oil-- is it good/bad? If it is good, how and when do you apply? My dreads are dry and I need to put some kind of moisture into them.....but don't want to harm them or put something in them that will result in "gunk." Thanks!!!!

Hey, I bought some Amazing Ploymer art dread beads to adorn my dreads with yesterday, each one made is unique and they are really farly priced unlike othersI have seen.

They arrived today (fast huh?) and look and feel great! I highly reccommend checking out the shop The seller is amazing and really approachable.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SupremilyJewellery

Peace,

Alexander xxx

The mind is a funny tool, so powerful yet fragile at the same time. Complex as it may seem, all we do starts with a single thought that expands into this amazing idea put in play. Efforts, narrow paths, PATIENCE, steady rythm, remembering to breathe, seeing, feeling, thinking, knowing, hoping, praying, living, laughing, being... Full of life and what it all entails... LIFE is such a wonderful thing :o)

At the first time i started last year around march. I was not dreading for the right reasons. I realize it is a lifestyle and not a hairstyle now. I have embraced this and am now living it out. This forum is amazing and helped me realize that. I have been going all natural now for about a month and a half with two twist and rip dreads.(the hair would always get in my face i only did this to keep it out of the way.) and i can already see progress. When i tried backcombing all it did was make me selfconsciousand feeling inadequate. I know now that natural should be the way everyone does it because of the amazinggratificationyou get when you see your hair doing what it wants and now what you try to force it to do. The journey is different this time. It has only brought me joy, Waking up to find another tiny little knot is probably the greatest feeling in the world. I know they will grow up big and strong one day in their own time and who am I to force that? Thank you eagle and the others who take the time to run this site so well. It is amazing and has helped me in my life.

It's been a week since I started my dreadlock journey. I feel so happy right now. My hair is dreading really fast. I have a couple of sections that are dreaded at the ends but all the roots are still undreaded. There's something happening at the roots also, they are starting to twist.

Here's some examples of my sections that are dreading:

I'm just so amazed that my hair started dreading so fast. It was a couple of days that it started to tangle like crazy. I bought some wooden beads today for my baby dreads. :D

Where did piss poor come from ? We older people need to learn something new every day... Just to keep the grey matter tuned up. Where did "Piss Poor" come from? Interesting History. They used to use urine to tan animal skins, so families used to all pee in a pot. And then once it was full it was taken and sold to the tannery... if you had to do this to survive you were "Piss Poor". But worse than that were the really poor folk who couldn't even afford to buy a pot... They "didn't have a pot to piss in" and were the lowest of the low. The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature Isn't just how you like it, think about how things used to be. Here are some facts about the 1500's Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, And they still smelled pretty good by June. However, since they were starting to smell, Brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor. Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married. Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, Then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it. Hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the Bath water!" Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof. Hence the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs." There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt. Hence the saying, "Dirt poor." The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery In the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until, when you opened the door, It would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entrance-way. Hence: a thresh hold. (Getting quite an education, aren't you?) In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables And did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers In the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme: Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old . Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man could, "bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests And would all sit around and chew the fat. Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or the upper crust. Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom; of holding a wake. England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a bone-house, and reuse the grave.. When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the graveyard shift) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be, saved by the bell or was "considered a dead ringer. And that's the truth. Now, whoever said History was boring!!!

I have been a long-time admirer of dreadlocks. I don't know that I paid much attention to them in regards to myself, but I certainly took notice. My hair was chemically relaxed when I was 9 or ten years old. My hair was long and full and incredibly thick. I was too young to really have much of an opinion about my hair since I wasn't doing it myself, but I always felt prettiest when I wore my hair styled curly.

I thought about getting dreadlocks before I even thought about getting rid of the chemical. There was a girl at the college I went to that I admired so much. She seemed very strong and sure of herself, and she had beautiful locs that she would wear every kind of way. Dreadlocks became a sort of symbol of strength and confidence for me.

Fast forward a couple years and I just decided to stop getting relaxers. I didn't like going to the salon, I didn't really have money for it, and I didn't understand why I kept burning my hair straight when it was naturally curly and I liked my hair curly. So after about 2 months or so of no relaxers I got impatient to see my own hair and cut it all down to the new growth. I loved it!

There were a few setbacks and resets between then and now, but I have finally come back to letting my hair lock. I did want help with the sectioning and I just do not have the patience to do my whole head, so I went to the salon one last time to get comb coils. I got the whole spiel about tying my hair up in a satin scarf at night, not washing or really messing with it for FOUR weeks when I was supposed to come back to the salon for "maintenance". I thanked the stylist, paid my $100, left her a tip, and sped to work. I was disappointed with the results because they were so close to my head and the aloe vera gel she used made my hair really crunchy feeling. But I knew eventually that would go away.

I came back to this site after lurking around for a while and finally joined. I read and read, and decided that I was not going to go back to the salon, I was not going to sleep with a satin scarf on (it only made my coils stick out in weird directions from being tied up all night, and I was not going to retwist (though it's really hard for me to keep my hands out of my head; i just gently finger my coils).

I am already feeling better about my journey. My coils have gotten fuzzy (I was looking forward to it) and some of my ends are already puffing and budding. I wish I could fast forward the length, but I know I have many many years ahead to watch them develop and grow. It feels so good to just let go and let be.

Hey all.

I've had a lot of fun talking about all things dread-like here over the past few months. Definitely learned more about caring for dreadlocks here than I have from any other website, or even from any of the hairdressers I spoke with before resorting to the Internet. It seems like hairdressers -- and people in general, really -- are vvvvery misinformed when it comes to this particular hairstyle (and I know it's more than a hairstyle for most people here, myself included, but I'm referring to it as this right now for simplicity's sake). Last summer, I actually tried to make an appointment at a salon to get my hair partially dreaded, kinda like how it is now, actually, except the dreads would have been or the TnR variety. She flat-out REFUSED to do my hair because, in her opinion, "it wouldn't look right." Guess it was a blessing in disguise, in hindsight. I kept my $250 and decided to go natural shortly after. As of today, I'm nearly half a year into my journey, my hair is partially dreaded, and I think it looks just fine thankyouverymuch! I talked to a few other folk in the hair/beauty department after my decision to go natural, and it was all a waste of breath. It's just funny how no one seems to know what real dreadlocks are today. And kind of sad, too.

OKAY, now for the actual point of this post. I do enjoy all the hair chat; however, I like talking about other things as well! Dreading definitely isn't my only interest, and I'm sure your lives don't revolve around it, either. Where do you go to talk about everything else? Is there a certain group or thread? Let me know! I'm at a very lonely point in my life right now, so I always enjoy a good conversation...