Yea no problem 
the ingredients in knotty boy are super similar to dr. bronners anyway so it makes sense that it might be wayy too strong leaving a residue behind.
Mira said:
Thanks so much for this post! I was literally this close to buying a bar after a friend told me not using something of this sort would cause mildew. I had an inkling they were wrong anyhow haha :p
Okay so for a little background I've had my dreads for a little over a year and I've never had any problems with build up or anything. I've always used either a bs/acv rinse or dread head hq and I've ALWAYS had my dreads completely saturated in the shampoo or rinse. A few months ago (like 4 1/2 actually) I got some knotty boy shampoo because I wanted the benefits of the essential oils in it, it says on the site to only apply it to your scalp and massage it in so that's what I did. So I've been using it for over four months and I recently decided to comb out four of my dreads (I backcombed my dreads and I love them but I wanted to have the experience of having some dreads form completely naturally) and I found that in all four dreads I have build up ONLY at the base of my scalp for about an inch or so going up, but the rest of each dread was completely clean besides a few pieces of lint here and there. So that tells me it must be the shampoo, since then I have used a strong white Vinegar rinse with essential oils to try to clear some of it up, it seems like it might have worked but I can't be sure unless I comb another out. Anyway so what I've started doing is using knotty boy shampoo as if it were dr bronners and diluting it 18 to 1 and it feels like it's really been making a difference, before I could feel my scalp wasn't completely clean (btw I don't have hard water or anything and I am VERY thorough when washing shampoo out) like a thin film was being left and now that's completely gone. And I've bought my own essential oils so it's all good, anybody heard of the brand Aura Cacia? That's what I've been buying recently and I think it's pretty good.
Yeah the whole problem is cause you aren't fallowing up with a acv rinse I'm almost 100% sure
Yeah I definitely wouldn't say that's a residue free shampoo. That's great that it's working for you for now but keep an eye on it in the future, even by definition a fortifying shampoo is a shampoo with extra ingredients to help strengthen the hair. Maybe try doing some research on the ingredients just in case and find out what each one is meant to do and how easy it is to wash out. I've found that even the knotty boy supposed residue free shampoo has left a little residue in my hair so it might be a more pressing problem to dreadheads then people know.
Are they hella tight at the scalp or something?? If that's the problem just wait for them to grow out a little, or don't put them in a pony tail as tightly. Idk exactly I've never had that problem
It's my firmly held belief that if you want super neat cylindrical dreads you should palm roll them everyday. That's just from personal experience, I palmrolled a few of my dreads everyday and those are my tightest, neatest, most cylindrical dreads, but by no means are they my favorite, I really like them but I love the natural variances in all the rest of my dreads (I only palmrolled like 3 dreads everyday kind of as an experiment)
Yea that's WAYYY too much! :O but as for your other question it's all personal preference, I like to massage my scalp to get the full benefits of the essential oils I'm using
Yea they'll definitely thicken up alot. You might just have pretty thin hair though. I noticed the dreads on the right side of my head above my ears are way thinner and I have less of them then on the left side. Once they mature they'll look hella nice though
It seems like the people who say white people shouldn't have dreads more likely just hate white people, I mean this guy even seemed to acknowledge that dreads didn't start with black people. Really strange
