Alright. I'm back. You may have previously seen me on this forum by the name of Cherice. I left the site in a rather pissy mood, but all's good now. 
I combed my last set out, making this current set my 4th. My very first set I attempted in 2004 and made them so waxy I couldn't take it, so those were combed out pretty fast. My second set was started shortly after that, but since I did them myself my sectioning was HORRIBLE. I had only 20 dreadlocks (read: very fat dreads with lots of bald spots) they were way too thick and I had no idea what I was doing. So those came out too.
Then in August of this year I had a crazy notion that I should dread my hair again. So armed with a comb and my boyfriend's patience, my third set was started! Of course, my boyfriend ignored all of my requests for thin to medium sized dreads and did what he want. Most of my sections were rectangle shaped and 2 months later when they started locking up I had oddly shaped mats in weird places. And since he just started grabbing random chunks of hair and started backcombing, (read again = no definite section lines to see what hair should go where) all of my dreads joined together at the roots and was such a pain to try to resection and get things in order so that set got combed out too.
Now that my job hunt is over, I'm no longer in an emotional funk and my life is pretty stable right now, I figured I'd start my 4th set. The process started on Dec 1st, and I backcombed and lightly crocheted them in so the knots wouldn't fall out. (Yeah, I know how this site feels about crochet. Spare me, please?)
Currently only half of my head is sectioned and "dreaded". I left the front and top loose so that just in case I ever needed to hide my dreads, I can pull all of my hair back in a ponytail and the dreads are barely noticeable. Clever, eh?
So just reintroducing myself. New name for a new dread set and a new start. This time I'm promising myself to stay on top of separating them and since all of my sectioning was done cleanly, keeping them away from each other shouldn't be too hard this time. I'm also promising to try to keep my dreads as clean as possible. My last set had locked together at the roots so much that reaching my scalp to keep it clean was pretty much impossible. When I combed that set out, my hair looked like I dipped it in cooking oil and left it there! It was really disgusting, actually. So hope you guys learn from my mistake too!
updated by @rockerbaby: 01/13/15 08:51:18PM
