HandRubbing/Towel Rubbing Method

I am an advocate of this method as I am using it myself, who is this method for? Anybody really, works best on afro hair of course but anyone can use it. I very much advice this method over the others except maybe neglect for a highly active lifestyle.

I am a boxer who trains monday-friday every morning and evening, as a result of the high cardio nature of boxing training i sweat alot, the kind of sweat where it physically drips off me like water. 2x a day, everyday. I would never use any method where i am unable to wash my hair for any length of time due to this fact and my method allows me to wash my hair every morning after my first training session of the day without any dandruff or uncomfortable feeling. I have tried going 2-3 days without wash and it gave me dandruff and each head even with teatree or aloe hence why i use my current regimen.

I had my last cut in october 2013 and have been actively locking since february.BE GENTLE WHEN RUBBING! If it hurts your scalp its too harsh! it should feel very nice like a massage.

Advantages

Simple, cost effective and acts as a natural seperation process. hair will still join together but at a much lower rate than pure neglect. On Afro hair (and i think most textures) this method grows long, reasonably thin locks with some variation in individual dreads (some thicker,thinner, some flatter, more cylinderlike) but no huge contrasts.

Supports washing hair daily, nice for highly active people who sweat alot, regularly.

No product buildup (minimal or none used, I myself wash it with water or my black soap then after towel drying rub aloe vera after for moisture, weekend I wash with ACV/teatreeoil/lavender oil/water mix for personal enjoyment mostly)

Stimulates Hair growth? Rubs hair follicles on scalp which supposedly stimulates hair growth due to the massage. Not sure if its true as I have no way to draw comparison as I have never grown my hair before.

Disadvantages

Hair balls come out much quicker than pure neglect. Due to the rubbing action It pushes out the shed hair into little balls ontop of the dreads with time which you can then pull off by hand. Hair sheds daily but in pure neglect most of it stays in the dread, in rubbing id say abut 30-40% is pushed out into a physically hard ball of hair that seperates from your dread.Not all the hair is pushed out! There are still some inside as with any locking method

The rubbing causes shed hair to also fall off your head rather than neglect where alot stays inside, this gives the appearance that the dreads grow slower (possibly true, but not sure) as less hair to lock with.

Hair has less moisture as a result of the constant washing, I advice using aloe vera after every wash when hair is damp and rubbing it in.

I would advice most people to do neglect method if circumstances allow you to. But for the athlete or serious workout/active living person this is an alternative that allows your hair to feel as good as it should. When I find out how to post pictures I will post my hair journey.

EDOT: ADDED 3 quick snapshots of my hair journey! I have more pics I will post in 1 big post somewhere 1 day. haha

Thanks for Reading!

Franco

updated by @franco-ezebuenyi: 01/22/20 09:33:16AM

welcome but no method requires no washing you can neglect and wash dsaily

\but all the rubbing is causing severe dam age even gentle rubbing

thereason that your getting hair ballds falling off all the time is that you are literaly pulling 1/2 the hairs right out of the scalp

instead of sheding 100 hairs a day your pulling out 100000

if you do towel rub its ok but ity should be done only once to start..thats it never again

so right now simply stop

wash daily as u are now dont even towel dry simply shake em out and go

and stop all rubbuing entirely

as they dreead on thier own you will need to seperate often this is normal for any mothods

other then the rubbing your doing fine just keep washing seperate as needed and thats it..nothing else

in a month you will see the hair loss stops

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

I cant walk around with my hair dripping water all over the place. So I will have to towel it dry anyway, I didnt explain properly what I meant by rubbing. I dont mean the vigourous rubbing ive seen on youtube that looks like hair is being yanked off the head. im talking about a gentle circular motion rub that is like a massage. it truly feels great.

while hair sheds about 100 a day in locks this does not come out. you see maybe 20 odd, and the longer it is the less hair you see. rubbing causes you to see about 30 odd id say. and the phenomenon im talking about isnt hair loss. my hair is fine and growing thick. ill show my hair journey when i got time, probably this evening.

Pure neglect is almost impossible to wash every single day if your as active as I am as water will drip from hair for quite some time, best pure neglect method ive been able to do is about 2-3 days washing regime. as I said I tried it and it wasnt good enough, my head got dandruff and was itchy, and I had to take time out for hair to kind of dry. which was inconvenient in the extreme.

NOTE: When i say neglect I mean FREEFORM. Every method I think needs hair to be washed with some regularity. But by neglect I mean freeform locs. as in nature takes its course with the seperation, and you stop congo by popping with hand.

well thats justthe thing you can wash every day with freeform though if they are thick its not good to cayuse they do dry slowly

but

you shake them out and they dont drip

all the excesswatrer that would drips been shaken out the dreads are still damp yes and that dampness takes time to dry (sun or wind helps alot)

but with natural dreeading ive seen towel drying prevent dreading for months and months and once they stopped the towek drying it started to dread right away

if you want to continue the rubbing thats ok but you really should at least try to cut wayback to monthly or weekly at most and when yiu do you probably will nsee that it does better withoit touching them at all

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Added 3 snapshots of 4 month gaps to show noticeable difference in growth. Ill see about the cutting back of rubbing. as people do recommend some kind of massage daily for your head especially when growing hair, i incorporated it as my little method. Only time will tell I guess, if i get dissatisfied with the method I will vary it. As i go on I'll do what makes my scalp happy and hair happy, if for some reason the circular rubbing of the head starts to irritate the hair in some way (which is currently not the case, trust me i checked) ill change it. No pain, no pulling out of anything from scalp, its all painless, stressfree and pleasurable.

they look great

really the massaging of tyhe scalps really only needed to help recover from traction alopecia wich is epidemic ammongstthe african american community (you haveabsolutely no sign of ever having it whatsoever yours look very healthy ..despite the rubbing .. twuisting and interlocking are far far worse ofcourse since thwey go beyond pulling hairs out byu=ut damage the scalp so the hairs dont grow back) its that damageto the scalp that the nassaging helps repair by stimulating bloodflow to the scalp wich forces the damaged capililaries to resume functioning

otherwise the washing of the hairs enough massage to keep it growing

ive grown mine to way past the floor and washings all i do

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

I'm half debating washing out the two strand twists I did for initial separation to use this method until there is enough definition/formation to continue completely freeform

Well I do the massaging because it feels good, and this method is pretty much freeform because the hair decides what to do on its own, the rubbing only ensures most of your hair will be in a circular like growth pattern and will be cylinder-like in shape. These days because I want my hair to join up i hand rub alot less, and mostly just lightly rub with towel to dry my hair. Also seems my hair benefits from aloe use befor sleep rather than using aloe while hair is wet. as I wash my hair in the morning its dry by the evening

I'm giving this a go now, washing frequently without worrying about twists constantly coming undone will be a plus

Nice! Please do report your experiences on the matter, and remember changing hair wash pattern will take awhile for your body biology to catch up in terms of oil production.