Blowdrying- worth it! Good advice inside

I'm almost five months in with my locks now and since I have a nasty assed case of bronchitis and REALLY need to lay back down again and stay horizontal as much as possible, washing my hair has become a major pain in the ass for obvious reasons: drying time!! I don't want mildew in my hair or in my pillow.

I've got some gnarly knots now and my hair is starting to thicken. It used to take 1.5 hours to dry naturally. Now? 4-5. This is just not going to work with me being so sick. So, today I decided I'd try to blow dry. Here are my conclusions and best advice:

1. Unless you've got baby locks, don't bother with a diffuser. Go with a plain blow dryer. The push of the air actually helps calm your hair down a bit after washing. You don't have that 'ACK I've just shampooed, please excuse the mess for a day until I can sleep on it!' look. That's obnoxious to deal with when you've got places to go and things to do. If you've got baby locks- definitely go with a diffuser unless you don't mind looking like you've gone through a Wind Tunnel experiment or are purposely trying to create crazy knots in your hair.
2. Use the Low setting and Medium heat. You don't want to fry your hair.
3. Move that blow dyer around, don't concentrate on one area for too long. Common sense stuff with blow dryers but it bears repeating here since we have such dense hair clusters. It is tempting to aim it at one area until it's dry but don't.
4. Aim the blow dryer directly DOWN from the part of your hair toward the floor. Don't aim it up from the bottom or you'll get a dread-fro going on with all your fuzzies. Nappy, man. Just NAPPY! And that's not the goal here... unless it is. *shrug*
5. Blow dry in stints of only about 5 or 10 minutes and then let your hair rest for about 15 minutes to cool off. This will also let the moisture inside come to the surface so you're not just baking the surface and leaving dampness inside.

It takes a while to get dreadlocks really dry with a blow dryer but significantly less time than regular 'drip drying.' It is worth the effort. It took me four sessions with the blow dryer to get my shoulder length locks dry. On more mature hair it's going to take longer, no doubt, but yep it's still worth it.

My hair now looks like it's clean, smoother, and I didn't have to sleep on it to get it that way on my shampoo day. All in all, I'd have to say that I do recommend it if you need it from time to time. I don't think I'll do this every time I wash because I don't want heat damage but if you're in a bind with time and not wanting to look like a hot mess then a hair dryer can be dread-friendly.

I would have included pictures of: 1) before shampoo, 2) after(GAHH! HOLY HELL it was bad today! Ripping congos apart everywhere), 3) and then after blow drying, but as I said in the beginning I am really sick. My hair looks gorgeous now but I still look like the walking dead from being sick. I'll try to remember to take pics the next time I blow dry so you can see the difference. It is substantial. I feel presentable and not like a yarn ball that's been teased to hell and back.

Sleep does wonders for dreadlocks. But if you gotta blow dry then you gotta blow dry.

updated by @angel-frye: 01/13/15 09:22:55PM

God help me when I get sick, my dreads take 8-12 hours to dry :\ including using a hairdryer. I only use it for a few minutes though, so eh. I did have the crazy frizzy thing going on though, should've taken that advice sooner lol. Hope you feel better soon btw.

Hey, Tara. Thanks. Going to the doc tomorrow so he can chew my ass out for not coming in sooner. Suffering with a cough for two months now. I just hate antibiotics and my body can't take the steroids they try to shove at me. Anyway, with some rest my lungs will recover. My poor cats, though. Geez. They look at me like, "shut the fuck up you loud bitch!" They're tired of hearing it. lol

I cannot imagine dealing with damp hair for that many hours. That is NUTS! Hit that shit with a blow dryer, girl.

I hear that Shamwow's help, too. Somebody said that they sew two of them together and use them like a towel to press the water out. As my hair gets longer I may just have to do that. Pressing locks between regular cotton towels only does so much. Most of the time I press and press and press and then a few minutes later my hair is dripping again. Weird. So yeah, Shamwows may be another good resource for dreadies.

https://www.shamwow.com/

i should consider myself lucky because most wash days i can just sit in the sun for about an hour and my locks are dry. on rainy days though it take 10 - 12 hours to dry:/ my daughter has an old hair dryer that you stand on the counter and then you sit under the hood of it to dry. i might borrow that the next time the weather is crappy and see if that works.

hope you feel better. i'm sick right now too. coughing up a storm, rattling in my chest but i'm super stubborn when it comes to going to the doctors. its been a few years since i was sick last. i don't like antibiotics and i feel they are overprescribed. i feel like my body should be able to take care of most illnesses without harmful drugs. i really hope i don't have what you have.

Heather, that blow dryer sounds tempting. It most certainly save your arms from waving a hand-held blow dyer back and forth.

"i feel like my body should be able to take care of most illnesses without harmful drugs. i really hope i don't have what you have."

AGREED! And that's why I've held out for as long as I have. Superbugs and all that. But it's draining my brain energy now, never a good sign. If it's turned into pneumonia I will never hear the end of it. "You take better care of the kids than you do yourself... blah blah blah." Well, shiznick happens, ya know? I thought it was pollen allergies because of the really early Spring but I guess not.

Living in central Florida we're regularly dealing with 70%+ humidity so.... yeah, on stormy days it takes forever and a day for my hair to dry, too. Sitting in the sun in the summer may be the best way for me to dry it. Good idea. Sip some iced tea, sit by the pool with the kids... ahhh. Niiice!