Totally, dead straight hair. What do?

I use a little lemon juice between washings. It makes them feel really good. I only do 1-2 times a week. Then again I've only been dreaded for a week and a half so I've only done it twice so far If you do use it make sure you strain out all the pulp. I didn't do that the first time and had little bits of pulp on my hair xPSalt water is what really does the trick though. It dries out the hair and makes it knot faster. I spray my hair with salt water after I wash and it makes them tighten back up after loosening up in the shower. Chris Rimmer said:

soaringeagle said:

lem0onjuice i find makes em soft and it can lighten them in the sun i think what u meant was sea salt sea salt does help a bit some ppl add lemon juice to the sea salt but im not really sure why or if it really helps
u can experiment but sea salt is what ya want to get em knotty

I'd read somewhere that it helps the locks tighten, then again my memory works in retarded ways and might have confused lemon juice with citrus (found in many dread 'helper' products) versus salt water. If that makes sense... But yeah. How do you mean it tends to make them softer? Are we on about a smoother, less wirey kinda soft or a loose, likely-to-fall-apart kind of soft? I like having lighter hair anyway (half of why I like summertime =D) so that's a bonus. Also, for the salt I'm guessing the best way is to rinse the dreads in salty water?

Sorry for the deluge of questions, but I don't want another wasted attempt =D

updated by @opaulao: 07/03/15 08:03:27AM

Thanks again for all the info folks =D Wasn't quite expecting such a deluge of replies.I wasn't too keen on the wax from the beginning - even before reading here I doubted whether I wanted tacky gunge in my hair, which is why I'm trying it as naturally as I can this time. I'll probably have to t+r them in initially thanks to work, but apart from that I don't plan on maintainng them (aside from washing etc of course!) much, if at all.Gonna have to repost ASAP with the results =D

I had super straight hair (er I guess I still do). To put it in perspective: If I got a cowlick I would get excited. I backcombed mine and it took well to it. Backcomb it hard. I mean like 30 min/dread. The better and tighter it is backcombed the better the lock intergrity. I put tiny rubberbands on the ends (temporarily) to prevent my knots from sliding down. This helped especially for the first wash. The only speedbump I encountered was shrinkage!!! ahhhh!! My hair originally was 19in. Most of my dreads shrunk to 8 inches. Used a little sea salt and lemon juice rarely. It is fairly drying on the hair. Above all wash (for better knots) and avoid wax. Best of luck :D