One year + questions

I've not been active here for quite some time because I haven't felt the need to really ask about anything, but now that it's been a year since the beggining of my journey I have some questions again.

First of all, the progress is indeed very slow, most of the people I interact with don't even notice that I'm aiming towards locks, or they just look at me as a guy with a super messy hair. Ok don't really care about others perception that much anymore so that's not really an issue.

I think that it will take at least another year for my hair to look "properly" dreaded and I'm fine with that, it's just really really slow. I'm using Vicki's shampoo, it cleans my hair great. It just seems that my hair gets a bit less dread-like after washing it. For example I was on vacation recently, swimming in the sea every day and my hair became much more like dreads in those 10 days, but after washing it seems like sections don't hold together as tight as before. Well I'm not talking about real dreads, but I only have perhaps 5 of those, everything else are just sections that hold together more or less tightly.

I don't feel like I should already switch to bars and I'm currently at my last bottle of shampoo (ordered 5 bottles last year). So yes I do feel like I'll need another 5 bottles probably in order to get most of my hair dreaded. I attached a couple photos, is my progress extra slow or not?

Another question: I have dandruff. It's not horrible, but it gets visible in the middle section of my head. My hair is also falling out, well this is again probably normal, I don't think I loose more than some normal ammount, but the thing is it gets stuck in dreads and what happens is I get those small white dots (hair roots) that stick out of my dreads lol. I always pull them out and it requires quite some force sometimes.

Third "issue": My hair gets very curly at the ends, so a couple dreads formed which look very strange. I get that big "ball" at the end of the dread where the hair section was very curly. It looks funny and not in a good way lol, the last pic represents this.

updated by @alienemotion: 01/22/20 09:33:16AM

Hi!

You are totally right, the journey takes quite a while, but at least you feel comfortably with the stage you are at right now!

I don't use Vickies shampoo because of the hight shipping costs to europe, but i think it's not a problem of the shampoo quality.

Do you wash with the bars or do you use the liquid shampoo, and how often do you wash your hair?

The balls you get at the ends are totally normal, i have them too at 20 month right now but they will get less noticeable the longer you're at it.

You can help your hair to lock by spraying seasalt dilluted in water at your head a few hours short before washing, because seasalt seems to

help in your process. And if your hair gets oily pretty quick, you might have to wash more often, because that also slows down the process.

Keep on doing what you are doing, i think you are doing just fine!

Greetings,

Frank

franks right but i'll add stop pulling those hairs out especially if it requires force..just leave them in they are fine

next when you wash use a small amount on the scalp and just massage the scalp then rinse don't work it into the ful length of the hair..and don't towel dry towel drying could be why washing erases progress

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Thanks to both! Well I'm still using liquid shampoo and I think I plan on using it for another year or so, at least untill my hair is mostly dreaded. I don't think swithing to bars sooner would be a good idea. I also think everything is fine, it just takes a very long time and of course I wasn't used to that before with "generic" hairstyles. You just went to the salon and "bam" you had a hairstyle you wanted in half an hour. But this is something entirely different, I understand it and I'm fine with it. I won't give up, if I managed to put up with my crazy hair for a year, I'll manage another year too.

I'm not towel drying, I'm only using fingertips on my scalp as suggested, however I'm working it into the whole area of the scalp, not just the top of my head. Otherwise my hair would probably remain a bit dirty after washing. I'm using a hair dryer for quite some time after washing because I can't just make a whole appartment wet waiting for my hair to dry all on itself.

About sea salt spray, I have it but I stopped using it because I haven't really noticed much difference and I find it kinda redundant. But perhaps I'll start using it again the same day or a couple hours before washing. I wash once a week and I think that's just ideal. Before I used to wash twice a week but that seemed to make my hair a bit more oily, even tho I don't think that I have a very oily hair or more than usual.

updated by @alienemotion: 08/24/17 08:39:00AM

yea id stick with the liquid..the rest i was just making sure you were doing it right... however puling out those hairs might be interfering with progress some so id definitely stop that

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

I quit using seasalt spray, too. I don't think it helped my progress a lot, maybe just a little bit. I'm fine with the time it takes longer to lock without using the spray... And i also wash twice a week and i think that is a good washing rhythm.

Maybe and perhaps also that I wear it up sometimes. Not a whole lot but yes sometimes I have to tie it when working or working out etc.