A few beginner questions.

Hello wonderful people.

I have a few questions to ask you guys.

Before I ask my questions though, I want to make a couple of things clear.

Firstly, I know that I might seem a bit silly posting here when I am not doing my dreads completely naturally, however, after spending some time lurking around the site, I am confident that you are an open minded enough bunch to realize and accept that I have chosen to do things slightly differently than how you might.

Secondly, I actually would like to do natural dreads in many ways, but I am doubtful that they would ever actually happen, I have done what seem to be the 'rules' of natural dreads, 'wash and don't brush' for quite a few years now, in fact, at 18 years of age, I can't remember the last time I brushed, my hair. I was probably very young. Despite this, I have had no natural knotting or dreading occur AT ALL, and I have been growing my hair out for probably around 7 months now.

Due to this, I have chosen to do my dreads via a method that might be seen as, semi or partially natural. Basically, I am helping my hair start dreading, with very gentle backcombing and some twist and rip, emphasis goes on very gentle, I am really making sure I do as little as possible damage to my hair. After I have formed these baby dreads, I will leave them alone, Im not going to crochet them, put product in them, palm roll them, wax them or put bands on them. I am very comfortable with the idea of waiting months for my dreads to establish themselves their own way. I am more than happy to give my dreads all the time they need to sort themselves out. I just want to give them a bit of a helping start to life, thats all.

I do have some questions though.

Firstly, I have decided to......give birth to my dreads....I guess.....over a period of weeks, possibly months. What I mean by this is that I will add a dread here and there, as well as asking people who mean something to me to start off a dread for me. So my head will be partially dreaded for potentially quite some time. This means that 1. I will have loose hair next to dreads and 2. I will have dreads at different stages in their development near each other. So, what I want to ask is, will this be an issue? Will my already formed dreads eat up too much hair from around them? and will there be any conflicts between newer and older dreads?

When I first decided to one day get dreads (about 6 years ago I think) I was hellbent on the idea of having pristine, straight round uniformly sized tight dreads. Over the time building up to actually doing the deed however, my views have changed rapidly. I went from believing that I would pay $600 odd to get my dreads done professionally, to believing that I would do my dreads myself, making them very neat, all on the same day, to deciding to do them over a period of time...and finally deciding that I am happy to do them very slowly with little to no input after they are started off. These changes in views took place over probably about the last month. Although, I have finally loosened up and decided that perfect neat straight dreads really aren't that special, I do still want to achieve reasonable sectioning. When I say this, I don't mean I want perfect squares lined up, or criss crossed or anything, but I do want my dreads to fill my head, without empty patches or too much loose hair for my dreads to suck up in the future.

This brings forward another question that I hope someone can answer for me. Is it possible to achieve decent sectioning, without sitting down and sectioning my head all in one go? So, if I add a few here and there, is it still going to be possible to get reasonable good coverage?

I am sorry for such a huge post, but I just have so much that I want to explain and ask that I haven;t really been anle to get decent answers for before now.

Thankyou all very much for reading!

updated by @coen-cameron: 01/13/15 09:03:27PM

how longs your hair is it oily it will dread naturally if its long ebnough and dry enough and intention makes a difference too you may not have been washing properly or maybe ran finf=gers through it

so my suggestion is to adjust those factors as u do 1 here a nd there and do them slow enough that you get some natural dreads forming

and as far ass sectioning goes the more random the more it blends together

let it section itself

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Yeah, I am probably worrying too much haha. I will try not to in the future!

Thanks for the tips. it sounds like what I plan to do could work pretty well.

Any Soaring Eagle, I think you might be right, I was running my fingers through my hair a lot. I will make a point of not doing that when I wash it now. My hair is about shoulder length.

Yeah, I guess if I section it fairly randomly it will sort itself out and look less manufactured.

Thanks heaps guys.

Hey, just make sure you realize that each dread may not be the same as the next. Mine are just as different as could be. They will be fun for you... you can pick your favorite and decorate them your own way. I mean if your going to put knotts in your hair you might as well know that things may look and get a lil crazy up top. embrace it. its part of the journey, part of the fun.

when u wash scrub just the scalp ignore the hair or use the baking soda and dont evcen touch the head at all


--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

@Cinderelly, Yeah, I know that they are all going to be different. Thats part of the reason why I convinced myself not to get my dreads done at a salon, because I want a bit of individuality. I am excited about them being different! Thanks.

Thanks for the tips Soaring Eagle. Im still trying to decide how I want to wash my dreads. whether I use baking soda, residue free shampoo etc etc. I am a bit afraid of baking soda though because I have reasonably sensitive skin, its pretty prone to burning, drying out etc, so if I did accidentally get some on my scalp, it could turn nasty. I will probably end up using some sort of teetree shampoo or something I think.

Thanks again for the great replies people!