Allison's dready timeline :)

Ok, so it's been about 2 weeks. On the 7th (I think, maybe 8th) I backcombed and waxed in 4 dreads on the underside of my hair. 2 days later I washed those out and tnr'd four thin dreads on the underside of my hair. The rest of this is organic, with a few sea salt spritzes and a baking soda/ACV wash and a wash with a horrible dreadlock shampoo (while I am waiting to get my shampoo from Buck County.) Bad move. This shampoo left my hair with nasty residue, hence the baking soda wash. My shampoo should be getting here tomorrow or the beginning of next week, so hopefully I won't have to use very many baking soda washes (as I am pretty sure if I used the baking soda as my only means of washing, I would have to do lots of messing around with the ratios. I had to rinse 3 times to get my hair to not feel like literal straw and I could also feel baking soda on my hands whenever I would touch my dry hair) Hopefully the next post won't be a novel, as I will have my shampoo and just be able to simply wash and leave my hair alone. Anyway, so onto the pics. These were taken maybe 1 hour ago.

OH, here is a before picture. Wish I had a better one, but you can see my hair is naturally wavy, though in this pic I was using some kind of product as well to glue the waves in lol.

Anyway, the past 2 weeks have been very up and down as far as loving/being frustrated with it. Frustrated mostly because of the way I initially started them and with the washing mishap, which I know now had to happen so I could see this for what it is. Gotta learn everything the hard way apparently lol. It's ok though,learning things the hard way (which I have to do most of the time) usually makes the knowledge stay with me better, I have found. Sure does make life interesting (read: pain in the ass lol) though sometimes. Anyway, I am enjoying the ride and just remembering to let it flow.

Thanks to you all who look at this! Sorry for the weirdly rotated and blurry pics.

Allison

updated by @maliba-live85: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

So glad you figured out about the wax early in your journey! Your hair will have many crazy days ahead. Over time and with patience your dreads will slowly form, grow and become a part of you. Dreads are amazing.....you are gonna love it!

looks like they are progressing well but what was the horible shampoo

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

Thanks!! It was the knotty boy dread shampoo that was in the kit that I stupidly bought at first. I got Vicki's soap yesterday!! Went ahead and washed with it this morning to get any crap out and it feels so much better! Now I am going to start washing my hair 1-2x per week.

soaring eagle said:

looks like they are progressing well but what was the horible shampoo

Not at all! I am pretty sure I did do it wrong I used the BS in a container with water, but would be willing to bet that I used too much and didn't dissolve it completely. Thought I did lol. So I poured it on and rinsed it out for the while under the water. Then I followed by putting some ACV in water and poured that on my head and rinsed that out for a while as well. I did get Vicki's shampoo in the mail, along with WAX B GONE to get any remaining wax residue that may or may not have decided to hang around, and used both this morning and it is awesome!! I feel a lot better that now it will be truly low maintenance because I have everything I need shampoo-wise and my hair is finally rid of wax and buildup. Now I am not worrying about what buildup could be in my hair from all my mistakes and I can just do nothing!! Except wash and separate and occasionally spritz some sea salt on there. But I will try another BS wash and try to do it right once a month OH, while I am thinking about it, is it ok to get my hair wet everyday? When I wake up I like to spritz my hair with plain water when I have to go out (not run it under the sink or anything) so it as it dries my hair looks thicker and better. Before I started dreading I did that too,more got it a lot wetter. I have not noticed any problems or losing knots or anything. I just spray the water on it and let it air dry. I know when they get more mature I will need to not do this because they will take so long to dry but when my dreads are more mature, I don't think I will need to do this. Anyway thank you so much for replying!!

If you don't mind my asking; How exactly did you do the Baking Soda rinse? It sounds as though you may have done it incorrectly if you could actually feel any BS. It is supposed to go into a pitcher or container of some sort with the water and mixed before pouring on your head. The BS should have completely dissolved so there would be no way to actually feel it. The straw feeling you mention is often what happens if you don't follow thorough with the second part of that wash using the Apple Cider Vinegar rinse. When done correctly you won't even see any BS in the water and you surely should not be feeling it on your hands. Did you do BS and ACV at the same time? I guess it doesn't matter if you're going to use Vicki's stuff because it's awesome but It is nice to do the occasional deep clean with the BS/ACV.