Thinking of starting over

Hey Myschyf, I just wanted to let you know, from someone who backcombed, they'll probably end up looking the same way. When I did mine, they were all nice and even. Then, probably from pulling my hair back for work, I ended up with knobby ends and weird half dreaded wispy ends. To be perfectly honest, I hate them. Even after almost 2 years! I'm keeping them that way, because I know eventually I will need to trim my hair a bit and they add character and individuality. It's a long, hard, frustrating road. I regret backcombing my hair, I really wish I would have let them free form. BUT what is done is done and for the most part I adore my dreads. I have thinner hair and a lot of thin dreadies. Over time, those knobby ends will kind of shrink, loose hair will get caught in them, and they'll smooth out. You won't be able to FEEL it, but when you look at what you think is a big old gnarly bumpy mess, it's actually nice and smooth and not so bad looking after all. I really do not recommend brushing out your natural dreads to switch to backcombed, it's just not worth it emotionally and physically. I've combed some of mine out when they were just 4 months old, it took hours and my shoulders hurt for days.

I'll tell ya something too, that I just thought of. I'm kinda not diggin my dreads right now. I'm in a bit of an effed up emotional place at the moment and I just don't like my hair much, even tho I love it if that makes much sense. Anyway, I get complimented daily on my dreads. I feel they look like absolute shit, but others love them. I'm not one to really care what others think of my right now, but it does help me get thru the day a bit when one of my customers says something 'Lookit you rockin those dreads, I LOVE it!' then go on their way. There ARE people out there thinking the same thing about your dreads, unfortunately all you're hearing is the shitheads saying yours don't look right. Those people can suck it!

updated by @mons: 07/22/15 11:56:59AM

Thanks Mons, that made me smile. And I'm trying not to let it bother me, but I'm not the best at that.And Kelly, I have the karma! It smells wonderful, but I guess I don't know how to use it, cause whenever I do it just makes my hair feel like I put hair gel in it. Is that what it's supposed to do? Cause I would think that would hinder dreading rather than help, it's kinda why I only use it when I want my hair to look less fly away and frizzy.

Save them I've been in the same situation and I aswell started out with short and thin hair but it will get better!

However I did something that might be seen as forbidden: I untangled the tips. I simply took a really small crochethook and untangled hair for hair and now I have wispy ends. For me, it was for the better - the blunted ends took really long to dry and during wintertime here I didn't want to go around with damp hair all day long.

However if you wish to do this be very careful . Only untangle the tips, not the dreads themselves that have grown out. I've kept every single dread and none have been tampered with except the tips. Your hair still looks pretty short so if you really, really can't stand the ends you might want to wait a while for the dreads to grow out abit more. I'd only advice this for anyone that is feeling that it's either this or remove them completely.

Myschyf said:

Thanks Mons, that made me smile. And I'm trying not to let it bother me, but I'm not the best at that.
And Kelly, I have the karma! It smells wonderful, but I guess I don't know how to use it, cause whenever I do it just makes my hair feel like I put hair gel in it. Is that what it's supposed to do? Cause I would think that would hinder dreading rather than help, it's kinda why I only use it when I want my hair to look less fly away and frizzy.

I made a quick comparison from my own journey, the right one is 6 months and left is from 15 months, don't really have good pictures of my journey so these is kinda what I found to give you an idea of how it can end up with thin hair and thin dreads:

updated by @snilla: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

I'm at 19 months now, and I still have a bunch of loose hair. I get asked a lot if I combed out my dreads. :P People are used to instadreads. I also have the medallions. Only just in the last few months have some of my dreads matured. Today a friend picked one out and said, "now that is a legit dread!". I guess my point is that it takes time, and some longer than others. Just like the bumps and loops, the medallions will get sucked in eventually. You can combine dreads, comb out the tips, wrap them, or wear bandanas if you're wanting to disguise or change them.