new to dreads- questions about orphan hairs, ends, and maintenance- and a big thank you!
Introduce Yourself
So I've had long straight hair for a long time- some short periods with short hair, before and after some experiments with bleaching and dying (red, blue, purple!) but most of my life, long hair. It's been lots of maintenance as far as combing out the rats, once it gets past my shoulder blades it's brush twice a day and I don't dare go outside on a windy day with it unbraided unless it's been hennaed, or it'll be rat city. Driving wit hthe windows down? Forget it! With it tangling so easy I thought it might dread up fairly quickly with little interference, but after a month of finger combing only, I had strands but no dreads. I wash my hair with baking soda and sometimes an ACV rinse, but the main thing is I do it in the bathtub, not the shower, cause I have a chlorine filter for the bath but not the shower. So full immersion 2-3 times a week? Maybe too frequent for them to form properly, but right now I'm pregnant and I have to have my baths! So I started to get a little antsy about the locks forming because of baby coming in a couple months- I was really wanting to go to a more maintenance free hairstyle immediately, and not have to cut. I was worried about it ratting up in the back because I couldn't take time to separate it out often enough- and honestly, I'm impatient! And I knew I didn't want big dreads, so after a month of finger combing I sectioned it out as much as possible along those natural lines and ended up with about 80 locks. I backcombed these with a plastic comb, which took about a week doing a few each day. No pain except in my arms- it's hard to reach the back of your head!A little help from my 10 year old in sectioning the back, but I still ended up with some orphan hairs back there. Will they eventually work in? I'm seeing "put a bead on it" in some threads- what kind of bead, just push it on till it stays on? Would wrapping with thread work, or would that just get drawn into the lock as well? How about wool, I've got some wool yarn. Has anyone tried treating their locks with lanolin? I know it sounds like wax right? But it doesn't spoil, and it seems like a lot of the advantage of wool might be coming from the lanolin? Google did not reveal if anyone has so far!My other questions is about habits and maintenance. I've been amazed- I've had the locks all in place 8 days now- how much less time I need to spend in the bathroom. I didn't realize how much time I spent on my hair even with just finger combing and putting it up! I love being able to tie a few locks together or put a scrunchy in and being ready to go. But I'm finding that with the orphan hairs, that I'm worried about them bringing the locked hair together, I guess congoing is the term? So do I need to stop combing through the back to separate things, will that tear up the forming dreads, and do the bead thing? I'm finding that it's a habit I've formed to comb- so I'm gonna have to be really conscious to stop it!I also saw some negative feedback on using needles to weave in- I do have an appropriate size yarn needle and had used it at the beginning to weave in a few orphan hairs I found in the front- I really don't see how using a needle is anymore damaging than putting your hair up with bobby pins- as it isn't sharp and you aren't ripping through the strands of hair, the needle is smooth- even smoother than hairpins- so it goes between the strands? anyway, that had mixed results, one is fine, the other I pulled out as it was coming out by itself after a couple times wetting my head. We live close to the ocean so I've washed it twice- once after wetting down with seawater- and been in the ocean twice in 8 days. I hadn't planned on washing for at least a week, but after the first time I was in the ocean my scalp was pulling really tight, and I felt like I really needed to rinse out the salt and put a little ACV/water and lavender oil on- that soothed it right up!So, the ends- they seem like they are unravelling a bit, is it better to not mess with them? I had initially intended to crochet the ends up neat, but the combination of time spent and information was such that only a couple were done, I had knotted the ends by hand on the rest as I went along but after reading the info on crochet and seeing what happened to the ends when they got wet I went ahead and untied all of them. They are two to three inches long in places.I was so relieved to read the FAQ about palmrolling not being necessary, WOOT! Even less time on maintenance! Thank you so much for the time saver! And SO glad to have already found anti-wax info on youtube- many thanks to all who are putting the word out there about wax!Also loving the threads about releasing perfectionism! Thank you for any responses~Alisonwife to Patrickcrunchymama to 6(and a new sprout coming in November 2010!)~Santa Cruz, California
updated by @crunchymama: 02/14/15 05:42:38AM
