Right, so last year at the end of May I took the first step on the journey to dreadlocks. I researched for a couple weeks, and unfortunately only found JohnnyClean and DreadHeadHQ and other such NONSENSE. So I got suckered into buying wax and worked, a few at a time, over the next couple months. I stopped using the wax about 3 months in... too little too late. My dreads have been shrinking up and actually knotting up quite a bit since then, however a large amount of them are super hard and stiff (see photogs). I've been alternately washing with BS/ACV and naturalish shampoos (burt's bees, etc.) even before I started dreading, and I feel like it helped get some of the initial wax out. There are no residual signs of wax on the outside, in fact they're very dry and look seemingly healthy.
I've been researching wax removal recently, and tried to find De-Solv-It at both Walmart and Wegmans to no avail. Instead I grabbed Method Dish Soap, which is biodegradable and has a very short list of ingredients. Took an extremely hot shower and used about a third of the bottle and scrubbed until my hands were sore and my fingers raisin-y. It smelled nice and the outsides of my dreads were *literally* squeaky clean, however some of them seemed to have gotten even harder on the inside and shrunk up even more! I'm super frustrated and trying not to consider cutting them off because I've put so much effort and energy into their lives and am quite attatched.
Please help if anyone's got any good suggestions.
*note: the photos are from before I washed with the dish soap... pretty much the same after though
updated by @kristalynn: 02/14/15 02:05:57PM