I started my dreads three weeks ago by twisting and ripping the first day and haven't touched them since. I wash them twice a week with dread fusion soap bar and have salt sprayed them two or thee time. I'm just worried that they're not locking up well and that they don't look right. Any advice or ideas would be much appreciated.
Well my dear, they look perfectly fine for 3 week old dreads. The T&R that you did are not dreads at all, they are the blueprints of where you wanted your sections to be. The frizziness is normal and will be there for perhaps a months, different for other people. Your sections will loosen, maybe completely fall out, and this needs to happen so that your hair can go on its journey on becoming a dread. Those sections will loop, zig zag and shrink, becoming dreads. I am over a year into my journey and do not have mature dreads yet.
Those sections will turn into the thickness of where the section meets the scalp. (Recommended scalp section is 1 inch or under....unless you want fat boys). So to get to that thickness, they have a lot of action to do.
Believe it or not, but doing T&R actually sets you back a step because they do need to loosen first, with neglect/free form method they are already loose.
Just wash & separate any sections trying to join together. That is all you have to do now. You don't need to worry about how they look, you don't need to worry if your don't look like someone else s at the same timeline, you don't need to worry when it all falls out.....you don't need to worry at all...just sit back and enjoy the ride. That is the great thing about growing dreads, enjoying the amazing process along the way. Take weekly pictures and you will see the changes each week.
Peace
What Barrellady said. Locks, on average, take about a year to mature. So 3 weeks is still the infant stage. They will come together in time. You just need to let them happen. But they look great for 3 weeks and having been through washes
I'm just so glad I found this site! It's so nice to know that there are others out there kind enough to help and advise. Many thanks.
You're welcome Sarah. Look at my page and you can see my T&R dreads just over the year mark. And also use the search bar near the top of the page and type in "3 week timeline" or "1 month timeline"..etc. You can check out the process of other peoples journey. But remember, we are all different. People with curly hair usually dread so quickly, so don't let other peoples progress make you judge your own. Yours will be wicked one day. Relaxing and enjoying the journey IS part of the journey...have fun...Peace
Sarah Gogarty said:
Thankyou for the encouragement! I was getting quite disheartened and considering combing them out and starting from scratch. I will also stop looking at all the random timelines and constantly comparing my hair to others.
I'll just relax and enjoy my journey
I'm just so glad I found this site! It's so nice to know that there are others out there kind enough to help and advise. Many thanks.
I thought the same thing with mine. Mine were started a year ago with the twist and rip method. My first pictures you cant even tell I started dreads, it just looked like I had messy hair. If i could do it over again, I would have done backcombing. Thats just MY personal opinion. I found that the twist and rip caused a lot of loops and kinks...but i've grown to love them. Where as the backcombing seem to be more rounded. Yours are looking beautiful.
