Forum Activity for @dread-stpauli

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Yeah i think that is hard for you, but i bet this will change! Your dreads will take longer to form, but you will look very unique! I bet your brother might become jealous about your natural dreads one day because his look like everybody elses! I notice that since the day my hair looks like "dreaded" and not only messy. A lot of people with dreads (mostly crotcheted ones) turn around their head after passing me, and i think they notice that mine look different than most people's dreads over here. That is very interesting!

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using cold water is really good! I use cold water for more than a year now and i don't have any issues with ichy skalp, dead or oily skin or buildup.

I start my wash with slightly warm water to wet my hair and then i turn on cold when rinsing carefully out the shampoo. I rinse kind of long (maybe 10 Minutes) to be sure that it got everything out.

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The skin on your head needs time to get used to a different washing rhythm and other products, so give it some time to get used to it. The dead skin

and oils should get better after some time.

The difference of 2 years

Member Journals and Timelines

thank you! today i was looking at some older pictures of my journey and i thought it would make sense to post them side by side. Everything went so quick!

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sorry i have never counted them, but it is normal that it starts somewhere while other parts seem to do nothing! I have started full natural and my hair has started where i have slept most on (back first and a little the sides later) I would not wash every day, try every 2nd and at the end of your wash rinse with really cold water. The water will close your pores and after some period of adjusting it should get way less oily. If you want, you can only rinse with cold water every 2nd day, without shampooing. That helped me a lot in the early stages. I have washed every 2 or 3 days.

The gunk could also be residue from the shampoo you use. It is best to use special shampoo for dreadlocks, or at least some natural, residue free soaps or shampoos.

The difference of 2 years

Member Journals and Timelines

just a quick impression about the progression of 2 years natural dreading. While i did start in january 2016 with pretty short hair, it took a while... The first picture is around 3 month with my hair just sectioning itself. It seemed for months that my hair wasn't growing at all, but they did, they just did'nt shrink . I guess between month 9 and 12 it was growing a lot more noticeable. After the first year a had a couple of mature dreads at the lower back of my had, but even the hair in front had sectiond completely and started dreading well. Just a few small lose strands in between forming dreads.

Most of my dreads, never counted how many i have, have started to combine somewhere around the tips and dreaded down towards the roots, only a few on the sides and back where i mostly sleep on have started to combine at the roots.

After 2 years nearly all of my dreads at my back have blunted tips, i guess its normal with curly hair and i will not comb anything blunted out The tips at the front take a lot longer to form, but i guess they will blunt too one day.

I will edit this post after a while with new pictures, feel free to post a response or ask any questions you want to know.

3rd month                                 27th months

another month has passed...

i guess they are a bit longer

17 month dreading (29 month overall)

reached 18 months at July 1st and took the first picture of my back!

updated by @dread-stpauli: 01/22/20 09:33:16AM

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If you wash your hair at least once a week you are fine! Nothing special about sleeping, no wool pillow or anything else is needed. I wrap my hair after a wash with a microfibre towel, because with a normal towel you might catch some lint in your dreads. No rubbing with the towel, just wrapping and after a while air drying.

I had a lot of hair falling out in the early stages too, that is normal. If i remember correctly it was almost the whole first year. After the sections got firmer the hair will not fall out any more and stays as a part of the dread. That is why dreads can get so long, because you don't lose hair at a certain point of the journey.

Like S.E. said, just continue washing and don't worry too much, everybodys hair can and will dread!

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Yeah, this chaos you describe sounds very familiar to me! I had some soft balls at the tips, too and most of my hair starts to combine at the tips and slowly dreads down towards the roots. The balls will disappear after a while, some will probably fall out, some will get flatter after some time and combine with the rest of the sectioned hair. Also every dread has almost its own length. You will have some really short ones (the skinnier sections) and some really long ones (the thicker sections). At least in my case...

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General Questions

Hi! My hair started dreading when it was 12-15cm long, so yours shout be right to start soon. I guess if someone goes the natural route there

will be a mixture of different sizes of dreads and also different forms like round or mostly flat. That is that special natural look, every dread is unique in size an look. So it is very normal to get thick and thin sections, mostly first there where you sleep on a lot.

You can leave the section alone till the hair starts to knot together, then you have to think about if the section is ok in size or if you want to separate it into 2 or more smaller sections. The less you (have to) separate the bigger the dreads should get, at least after time.

Don't separate too often and only when really needed, then you should get pretty close to the result you are looking for.

Best wishes!

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Thank you Soaring Eagle, you are a big inspiration!