Forum Activity for @arrows-of-the-rainbow

Is the baking soda/vinegar combo really the best?

Dread Maintenance

It's not bad, the Baking Soda is just very basic and you need to balance it out with JUST a tsp of Apple Cider Vinegar (I used to use a couple TBS, not tps, and my progress stopped completely because the weight and conditioning that ACV provides).

I only use bs/acv these days; if I use a regular natural shampoo bar I get all sorts of lumps of dandruff; sometimes I can manage doing 2 bs/acv washes then a shampoo bar wash and repeat. The feeling bs/acv gives me after the wash is just an incredibly clean scalp. I also use tea tree, peppermint, and rosemary (5 drops/10 drops/10 drops respectively).

I think I've found my culprit

Dread Maintenance

yea I got an actual tbs measure so i'll use 1 tbs or less

I think I've found my culprit

Dread Maintenance

A month ago I posted a thread about how I didn't have any progress in locking since before May; the result was that I was probably having dreading that was going on that wasn't noticeable. well, its September npw and I just did a thorough check of my hair and definitely haven't had any progress in months (I'm at about 8 months now).

So I looked at the only cause since I only do bs/acv washes (occasional bucks county wash)- Apple Cider Vinegar. I've been doing 2-3 splashes since my gigantic ACV container has a flat cap.

I decided to measure that today, which came out to 4-6 TBS (= 1/4 to 1/3 cup). Since I'm just in my first year and have yet to develop baby dreads, I think the fact that I'm using too much ACV is conditioning my hair far too much. Could ACV be my culprit?

updated by @arrows-of-the-rainbow: 01/13/15 09:57:33PM

Dreading Progress

General Questions

Alright, thanks for all the responses. just wanted to make sure

Dreading Progress

General Questions

I'm officially 6 months down the neglect road. I'm loving it but I was wondering about the dreading process in general. I haven't seen any noticeable progress in the past 2 months, maybe even 3. Is it normal to have a lull in progress? or should I try to investigate why I haven't had much progress lately? My hair' pretty long, down to my shoulders I guess. Grows really fast too, maybe 8 or 9 inches a year.

I'm just wanna make sure since I tried neglect last year with much shorter hair and I had less but much knottier soon-to-be baby dreads in 1/2 the time (I also used hot water and my hair was frizzy as heck which probably contributed to the knottier dreads and not to mention much itchier scalp)

updated by @arrows-of-the-rainbow: 01/13/15 09:55:58PM

Smelly hair

General Questions

I would definitely try out rosemary, peppermint, & tea tree altogether. My hair smells amazing. Even 3 days after washing, it might not smell like the EO's any longer, but it smells great. It's an investment ($15-30) but these 3 oils are the most popular (lavender is too) for treating the scalp for many different conditions and their aroma together is sensational. (don't overdo oils though otherwise both your scalp & other people will be complaining. I do 10 drops of rose, 10 drops of pepper, & 5 drops of tea tree)

I also don't wash out the EO's, I put them in half a pitcher of cold-as-I-can-get water and rinse my hair right after shampooing with either BS/ACV or bars. BS/ACV gives me the best results, but if I don't have the EO's it's hell with itching and just doesn't smell as nice.

dandruff and itch

General Questions

With every wash, whether it's the bucks county bars or BS/ACV, I always follow a rinse of Rosemary, Peppermint, & Tea Tree Oil (I personally do 10 drops of rosemary & 10 drops of peppermint, only 5 or 6 drops of tea tree since it's so strong, to 1/2 a pitcher of cold-as-I-can-get water).

I used to have terrible itching, now it's pretty much nonexistent since I use these 3 oils AND I use COLD water. I only use warm water with BS then followed up with cold ACV).

Many people will just add the drops to the ACV rinse during BS/ACV, but I recommend doing it separately with cold water so that you can just leave the essential oils in your hair. (you can find the oils at essential trading post or mountain rose herbs, I'd buy in 1 oz quantities to save money, they last me about 6 months or 3 months for just 1/2 oz). Tea tree lasts me twice as long.

Also, you can bring a pitcher and enough BS & ACV if you want to do 1 wash while camping. A pitcher might seem to big to bring but I fill it with socks or other clothing in so that it doesn't end up taking room when camping. Otherwise, you could just go without for a week or make a spray of peppermint, rosemary, & tea tree in order to stop the itching without the need for a wash.

Alternative lifestyle findings

Alternative Lifestyles and Subcultures

thanks! Ended up with a B+ to my dismay but its all good, grades are just one person's opinion Compared to the other presentations,the class didn't seem to understand what my research was about, but I expected their reaction to be as it was anyhow.

Alternative lifestyle findings

Alternative Lifestyles and Subcultures

I did a huge research paper where I took a group of western culture participants (average Americans) and compared them to people who attend the rainbow family gatherings (only group of people I could think of to get people who display an alternative lifestyle or being), thanks to SE for the rbf people that I used for my survey/research.

Anyways, I promised SE I'd post the results. The paper was for a class I took in college last semester. Overall the paper went pretty well. The best part is the charts because they display a clear distinction between the ways of life between Western & Alternative cultures- almost every question of the survey I gave differed in answers between the two groups, which is pretty amazing. I only threw out 2 out of th 26 questions I gave.

Here's just the presentation I made for it, rather than the long 15 page paper: Western vs Alternative

updated by @arrows-of-the-rainbow: 01/13/15 09:54:32PM

TnR Question

Dreading Methods

thanks for the info, answered my question but I think you guys misunderstood. I'm not switching to TnR, I just wanted the info so I could make 1 or 2 tnr dreads to compare the differences to neglect. but now that you're telling me that tnr'ing just "blueprints" your dreads I probably won't do it. (I thought it was actually faster than neglect)