Forum Activity for @angel-frye

Shampoo? For starting dreadlocks?

Dread Maintenance

Good dreadies with clean scalp and happy dreads wash every 2-3 days max. So that's 2-3 times a week.

1 cup of water with 2 tablespoons of baking soda in a squeezie bottle(like the kind you'd find in a box of hair dye) is PERFECT for hair your length. No need to make more than that. Shoot it in your roots and then the rest of the length of your hair, let it sit for five minutes, rub your scalp with your fingers(if you want), and then rinse. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

For the ACV, some people do it while others don't. It DOES balance the ph of your scalp but it can also be too moisturizing for some people. Trial and error. I quit doing it after four months because it made my scalp feel kinda oily. But it's a trade off. I had to deal with drier hair. You have to do what feels best for you.

Generally speaking, it's 1 cup of water + 1/2 - 1 whole teaspoon of ACV. Do this after the baking soda is completely rinsed out of your hair. You just have to let the ACV rinse sit on your head for about thirty seconds before rinsing.

I advise adding any essential oils you want to your baking soda. Others say you should put it in your ACV and others say that a spray bottle works best.

Whatever you choose, use caution. You can use 3 drops of basil and feel a good cleansing tingle but use up to 10 drops of lavender and feel like you're in a spa. If you tried to do the same thing with basil you'd be screaming with a burned scalp. See? Every essential oil has their own attributes. Use caution. But have fun experimenting. I never would have thought to use basil in my hair but I had some in the closet and was running low on my lavender and hey! I learned of a new way to easy itchies! Basil is great for it. Interesting how that works out.

Have fun with it. Trial and error is how we all learn but you've come to a great resource, Back2Dreading.

Dyed Dreads- what I've learned

General Talk

I've dyed my locks twice now with temporary hair dye since I started locking up eleven months ago. Here's what I've learned about the process:

1) I look stupid as shit when I'm dying my hair and have a pile of locks bunched up on top of my head.

2) You just about always need someone to spot you if you're dying your dreadlocks. Why? Dreadlocks soak up a variable amount of liquid, depending on the actual lock and it's quirks. You're going to miss whole sections of a lock or a whole patch of your head if you're not super careful. It's hard to tell through the gloves if the hair is wet enough. If it's really lightly applied to a few locks that's ok. It ends up looking like a highlight or sunbleached or whatever. I did that the first time around and it actually looked kinda neat. It was an accident, but the results were interesting.

3) Buy an extra box. Just in case. Dreadlocks are spongy. I now use almost double the amount of dye I would if my hair wasn't locked but at this same length.

4) Be prepared to have Scalp Pain from hell if you've got some decent locking up going on near your scalp or are completely mature. Hair dyes dry the hair out. Oh and guess what happens when you dry the hair out all at once? SHRINKAGE! And that means pulling and twisting inside knotty hair.

5) And on that same note, if you aren't seeing any real progress in your locks and are getting really fed up and impatient--- dye your hair! Temporary dye is perfect for this purpose. Just don't use the conditioner they include, of course. The first time I dyed my locks two months ago I was perfectly happy with the progress I had been making so the crazy amount of tightening and locking up that happened the next few days after that startled me. Now I knew what to expect ... just not the need for scissors to separate! Well, now I know. (And knowing's half the battttt....shit. Ok, nerd moment overcame me there.)

6) Even just temporary dying of the hair can help big time with hiding those blindingly white root bulbs that poke out. Amazingly, the temp dye stays in the root A LOT longer than it stays in the hair shaft. Why I haven't a clue, but it does. So if you dye your hair really close to your natural color as it gradually washes out the next two months it'll stay in the white root bulbs and that means you can dye your hair far less often. If that was the only reason I had to dye my hair I'd say that I'd only have to do it maybe three times a year.

Here I used one box each of temp dye Natural Instincts 9N Dark Blonde and 13 Light Brown mixed together in one larger bottle. I'll be taking my 1st year dreadiversary pics in a few weeks so you can see what it looks like calmed down and washed out. It looks pretty dark here.

Anyway, I just wanted to share what I've learned. Maybe it'll help someone out.

~Peace and Love

updated by @angel-frye: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

Finally a Dreadhead!

Introduce Yourself

Then again, you've still got to deal with the people in your life who SWEAR that you allowed your hair to lock up just to SPITE them. Like they are the end all of happiness in your world. *sigh*

Really, I think that whatever makes a person happy is what they should do. We're all on a journey. Not one of us is spared from it. We are not truly individual, we are a massive human consciousness and if we can learn to respect that others are on their own little 'individual' journey then we can be much more patient and tolerant of everyone's eccentricities.

Cute little formal updo

General Talk

Thanks. And yeah, I don't think I'm going to be able to do this for but about a year or so. I'm trying to come up with some more variations for that reason.

Cute little formal updo

General Talk

There's a lot of pics here that I took to show it from different angles. My curly tips make it kinda funky. I saw something similar to this from another dreadie here, can't remember who, a while back. This is what I wound up with. Tell me what you think. Directions are below the pics.

Ok, so I took two locks, one from either side of my temples and tied them behind my head. Then I took two locks, directly under my ears and tied it back the same way. After that it was only one more step to take care of the bottom: I grabbed two locks which were about an inch and a half below the two I previous grabbed below my ears, and draping those down on the side of my neck to keep them separate, I just put together all the rest of the length of my hair into a pony tail shape at the base of my neck and then flipped it upward. I took the two locks that were hanging down separately on my neck and then tied them around the flipped up hair. So the lower part of my hair is basically sitting in a 'basket' kind of thing. The only thing holding it up off my neck is that one tie I did. The upper two have nothing to do with it.

I think I'm going to work with some pipe cleaners next and see if I can get it more stable. If I do manage to get it to work then i'll post pics here.

But I think the results are kinda awesome, what do you think?

My hair is now about two inches past my shoulders and this is the first time I really tried doing anything formal. Up until now it's been crammed into a scrunchie or a rough bun for going out. This looks more classy to me.

I've only got one bead in my hair, as you can see. It was coincidentally on the bottom lock I was using to tie it all up into the basket.

updated by @angel-frye: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

Wedding Dreads

General Talk

I know, Tara! Right? I wish more people would write directions.

updated by @angel-frye: 07/23/15 03:47:40AM

Wedding Dreads

General Talk

Screw them all. Ignore them. You are BEAUTIFUL! It's YOUR special day so you should look exactly like you WANT to look, whatever makes you feel like a princess. And I think you pulled off the princess look quite well, btw! Congrats!

Gunky Scalp?

Dread Maintenance

My point is that the 'no touch' method seems to be giving an awful lot of people the impression that disturbing their hair is a no-no when in fact the direct opposite is true. And then when people are given this impression they are miserable with gunk buildup in their hair and think that is their lot in life for as long as they want locks.

Gunky Scalp?

Dread Maintenance

Barrellady, some people NEED to rub the scalp. She's coming here complaining about gunky scalp and yes, she may be using the wrong ratio for baking soda, however, I used the correct ratios for it and still had a major issue until my scalp adjusted to it.

Emily, if you use the correct ratio of ingredients, leave it on for a while and then find that just rinsing it out isn't helping, then you do have other options. You don't have to be miserable. Rub the scalp as you rinse out. It'll clean more thoroughly and help you take care of some itchies, too. It'll also help you lock up faster.

I don't know why the 'no rub' method seems to be the only thing you suggest to people, Barrellady.

Get your fingers in there, Emily! See if it works for ya.

Also, you don't have to use five cups of water to 1/2 cup of baking soda. Unless you have hair down to your ass then that's not necessary. You can get a simple hair dye squeezie bottle that holds one cup of liquid(your standard small squeezie that comes in a box of dye) put two tablespoons of baking soda in it and then one cup of warm water. Shake it(let some of the fizz out) and then squirt it all over your wet scalp. Let it set for 5-10 minutes. Scrub all around in your scalp and then rinse thoroughly.

If you wanna add some EO's to the routine then add them to your baking soda. Certain ones can assist the cleaning process.

Gunky Scalp?

Dread Maintenance

Invest in some good EO's(essential oils) that'll help. Lavender, basil, lemon, orange, etc. Once every other day is a little extreme. The problem is that baking soda really dries the hair out so you have to watch how much damage you're doing. Once every two or three days is the average.

Once your locks are further along and seem to have some stable, steady progress then you can move onto using dreadlock shampoo bars with EO's in them. That will definitely help with the gunk.