Gentle, gradual removal and saying goodbye

I've had the itch to change my hair lately, not the mention the physical itch that's been plaguing my scalp for months now. After much thought, I decided it's time to comb my hair out.

To try and pick through it all in one shot seems like way more than I'm willing to take on, so I'm shampooing and conditioning with salon-quality products, then gently combing through just a few inches of hair while letting the conditioner sit. I figure it took almost 10 months to get me this knotted up, why try and reverse it all in just a few hours?

The cool thing about this is that I'm finding that I had a lot more progress than I had thought before trying to comb my hair out. I can't BELIEVE how thick and knotted some of my dreads have gotten -- I have some real, true dreadlocks in my hair and I wasn't even aware of how strong and locked they were. Awesome!

But I'm still going to try and comb them through, hopefully within a week I'll be back to straight hair. I enjoyed watching their progress, but for my hair type, I think that I would probably do things differently the next time.

I'll post some pictures of the progress soon. This new process is kind of exciting: I'm eager to see what my hair will look like as it gets combed through!

updated by @ash-t: 01/13/15 09:19:11PM

Sad face.

But good luck on your journey.

Thank you!

I'd still like to have them, but these ones had gotten so matted and uncomfortable at the roots. It's time to start over.

Whip Thehooper said:

Sad face.

But good luck on your journey.

Can I ask what you would do differently? I have super straight, fine, oily hair...

Hi Mama Jme! Sorry for the very delayed reply. I am now on my second set of dreads, nearly a year in, and what I did most differently was to leave them alone! I did wash two to three times per week for the first six months or so, which is how long it took for dreads to start forming. Now I can get by washing only once per week, sometimes twice if I have been swimming or super sweaty. I have done no sea salt sprays, and just put my first beads in my hair this week (I did a lot of beads with my first set, trying to keep my tnr sections; they always all fell out).

Letting my hair just do its thing was the best thing I did differently this time around. Instead of obsessing over whether dreads were forming and what my hair looked like, I let it go and it really has turned out so nicely. I am a very happy dreaddy!