!! TAKING THE PLUNGE !!

I've decided to go ahead and dread my hair! I had planned to wait a year but this thing has caught me in its snares and I don't wanna get free of it! SOOOOO...I want EVERYBODY to give me advice--from your personal experiences--advice that I prolly won't find just by doing more net research--helpful hints and time/hair-saving tips that will enhance this journey for me. Tell me about things you wish you HAD done, things you wish you HADN'T done, and everything in between! AND WISH ME LUCK!!!

-Renee L M

updated by @renee-l-mullenax: 02/14/15 04:56:55AM

First off congrats I can tell you're excited at the very least about your impending journey. Just a quick sidebar before I get started I personally wouldn't consider it a "plunge" even though I don't think you intended for it to sound negative. Going through this journey is only positive. A lot of people choose not to attach any inner spirituality to the dreadlocks process but to each its own. I believe anything that you do to promote and sustain your own happiness is spiritual in some form or another. ANYWAYS if you have curly hair I highly, highly recommend the natural process. You basically throw away your comb and watch the loops and twists magically appear. Every day it looks different and you appreciate the time it takes to achieve the results you desire. However, it requires the most patience. So you're in for the long haul. The other two acceptable methods are TwistNRip or Backcombing if you happen to have hair that doesn't like to curl. Both of the tools for these methods can be found in the search forums if you look up those keywords. Tips on how/when to wash are also available there. Above all I would just say be PATIENT with yourself no matter what cause some days it's just flat out not gonna look the way you want it to. The end result you will appreciate though. Good luck!

Enjoy the process and don't worry to much. Things tend to work themselves out. LOL. Also, neglect is the funnest way to go! Time flies faster everyday.

First off, the less you do to it the better. In my experience constantly playing with it and looking in the mirror will slow down progress and make time go super slooow. I have thick curly hair so mine locked up quickly, but regardless patience is the key. Wash 2-3 times a week and when you wash just massage your scalp, don't put soap on your dreads. It will trickle down from your scalp and clean them just fine. Don't go to sleep with a wet head or you may get mold.Lots of people get dandruff when dreading. Get a spray bottle, put ten drops of peppermint oil and ten drops of teatree oil and fill it with water. Its cleansing soothing and gets rude of annoying itchies smells nice too.Beads are a great and fun way to keep your locs seperated and in my experience it helps knots form.In a few weeks you will have to start pulling your locs apart, its called seperating. If you don't seperate they will get way too big!I could write a novel but I wont. Don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions at all Welcome and happy dreading!!

if u want the most ouit of it go natural

just be sure to seperate

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

journeyman straight hair dreads just fine naturally no matter the hair type you should concider natural 1st and foremost

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

you're right, I just mentioned the other two in the event that impatience surfaces. natural is the best.

soaring eagle said:

journeyman straight hair dreads just fine naturally no matter the hair type you should concider natural 1st and foremost

I can't tell from your photo if your hair is thin or thick. My hair is very fine and thin. My dreads are med thick...but I wish that I had made sure that the dreads on top were a bit thinner than the dreads underneath. It would have made it a bit fuller. That is the only thing that I would have changed. ! Patience is the most important thing for beautiful healthy dreads. They don't happen over night. Enjoy them and love them and you will see the rewards.

My advise, do some research on the site. Any questions you have will be answered by the search function. Neglect is fun, Tazz is correct. The fun is in watching the changes as they happen. I'm 5 months in and loving it. So glad that I didn't use any of the other methods. Actually, I did TnR, but I took it out because I wanted to go natural. Set myself back 5 weeks in the process, but it was totally worth it.

@ Journeyman, I wasn't intending to sound negative--by "plunge" I meant like a leap of faith or like when the water is freezing so you just jump right in rather than trying to work your way in slowly. I decided to jump right in LOL. A word isn't negative until someone MAKES it negative ;p And For you & Soaringeagle, I feel like, as a woman, the neglect method is not an option. Society throughout the ages has pretty much hardwired women to maintain their hair to a certain degree of beauty..therefore I'll be using the TnR method. THANK YOU EVERYBODY FOR ALL OF YOUR ADVICE!!!