Dreads coming undone.
Dread Maintenance
So I figured I'd make my own post about it, to get a better diagnostic. And I don't have enough time on my hands to sift through the plethora of posts.
I've been doing my s/o's hair since he wanted locs. He had them previously, and they looked good, but he said they weren't actually in as good as a condition as they looked. (Some broke off, they were actually quite dry, and a few kept trying to grow together) He didn't part his hair when he started them before, so I offered to do the parting and whatnot for him. I didn't know anything about dreads, and still don't know much, but I've been trying to research as much as I could to learn. But i'm pretty sure that where his are at.. well, it shouldn't be that way.
He has 'ethnic' hair, and his coils are pretty tight, so we went with the comb twist method. (which worked fine, save from taking me a week due to his hair being *SO* thick, and me working almost all day) But the problem is.. it's been about a month since I finished them, and they've been coming apart. Not just little fly away hairs, or the ends flying about, and not even just the roots being loose and fluffy, but rather sections of hair, whole strands, completely coming undone and separating from the twists. I keep twisting them back in but it's agitating because I have to keep fixing the parts every time.
We used the same stuff in his hair that he used last time, he said it was for dreads, so I didn't question it. As I used it it did feel like it was slippery and didn't seem to do much but I figured maybe after being in there for a day it would work out. Today I did some research to find out why it was coming apart and I realized that the wax I used is petrolium based. Had I known that, I wouldn't have used it to begin with. (I've used petrolium enough for other things to know it wouldn't work.) He also hasn't been washing it because when they get wet, they come apart, and they did the same thing last time. And also, many people who gave him tips when he did them the first time said not to wash them for a while. I've been questioning that as well because it's been causing dandruff and that's bound to just stay stuck in them, and because of natural oils. And so I researched that as well, and /not/ to my surprise, I found that he actually needs to wash them regularly. So today I bought DreadHeadHQ's dread soap and their wax. Going to get him to wash them properly, and then I'm going to put the wax in. Crossing my fingers that I don't have to redo them all due to the washing.. We don't use rubber bands because they're a pain to put on and even more of a pain to take off because they're small. (He has at least 100 separate dreads, I counted 70 before i did the top of his head.) What's the best way to wash them to avoid it? :/ Should I just put in the new wax before washing? They're nice when they're all together.. Some people said using nylon stockings but most of them I see come from sights like aliexpress, wholesales, or cheap ebay accounts and i've always had bad expriences with those places. I'm assuming they're talking about wig caps? Cause that seems like the only thing that you can really wash them through.
Is there anything else that might be causing them to come undone? I feel like it's the "wax" (Murray's beeswax) we used, but maybe it's something else.
I don't know about this stuff, I barely even do anything with my own hair. (I seriously just wash and brush it everyday.) Am I going in the right direction now??