glad you found your way, the right way. your dreads need time to recover and start to look healthy. but they should be fine. expect some messyness and lots of loose hairs! that's what you should hope for. get ready for some real dreading ^_^.
i cant see the pics, theres an error when i click on them?
i don't recommend this in hard water... at all. your hair will look like a wet soapy mop and pretty oily. still very hard to wash out anyways. it'll leave residue in your hair for a while. try the baking soda recipes on here or good non-residue shampoo like dreadlockshampoo.
great points LionofJudah!
ahh perception of what is perfection is in the eye of the beholder, no less!
shana, check out the photo gallery. there are some incredible natural sets. initially i wanted uniform dreads but you've gotta admit some of the natural sets look quite intriguing and beautiful in their own way! we all know people will judge dreadies in the street and have their own opinion on what looks good. how do you want to be seen? but above all, what do YOU want to see in the mirror? hopefully it defines YOU best, no matter what.
hence the affinity many natural dreadies have towards their locks -- it's them!! and likewise, there are also very smooth anime-like dreadies with that same connection among their dreads and the self. it's all about character! i wish ya much luck!!
Leave some loose hair to cover the scalp.. Otherwise it'll look funny and also it's also bad for the scalp if you're in the sun. Oh and people could see the oilyness or shedding skin. Loose hair in between will find their place anyway and by that time the roots will be loose enough to hide the scalp.
Yeah I agree with you completely. I have thin hair in large volume with varying waviness. Guess I was afraid of the front falling apart.
soaring eagle said:
u actualy backcombed to speed up the fromt so it would catch up to the v-back..in only 1 1/2 weeks?
u realize if u waited 2 or 3 weeks u probly coupkdnt tell the diference
if theres enough progress in a week to catch up to the rest wouldnt be more then a few days beghind
I split many large dreads in the back that had a mind of their own - instead i left it up to the smaller dreads to congo. The back of my head always has more texture, and the sections are forming very quick. Most of the backcombed sections in the front are sticking around. However a few did split and are continuing to do so. At this point I would consider my dreads neglect (with a starter method) to level the maturity between areas of hair that dread quicker than others... The backcombing method, as everyone had warned me, was just to help my hair keep sectioning. I did get lucky with a few sections on the top and front that seem to be in their natural sectioning. At this point I will not and cannot control any dreads - the ones that split into their own sections are knotting quick just like the back (which could not be controlled).
I rinse every day and in the past 4 days I've been using a blow drier to get my hair drier at the scalp til it's like 75% dry. And then lots of air from a fan and wind. Mostly because it started to smell funky and I'll likely use tea tree oil if it gets worse. I did a BS wash the other day and it seemed to kill some of that (what I'm assuming was mildew)
I messed up my wool tam during a wash following the creator's instructions. Oh well, I have to get another soon or at least wool to cover my pillow with. I put a homemade scarf from a t-shirt over my dreads on yesterday and it made them pretty flat but stuck some together, so by the time i woke up they were all fluffed up and many sections became defined. I move my head a lot in my sleep so I'm sure that helped.
Sup guys.
This is my third set and I'm planning on keeping them this time.
I did loose backcombing about a week ago, since then I've re-backcombed the tips of some ones I never finished, but otherwise I've still been rinsing my hair every day and used Sea Water once (1tsp per 2 cups of water -> 4 cups in a container /w 2 tsp of sea salt, microwaved for 3 minutes to dissolve, stir, freeze until icy cold).
I did wash once to help lock - they loosened a bit, mostly at the tips, but after waking up I noticed they were tighter and the tips were curlier which is a good sign. I washed with really diluted Prell shampoo (yeah I know, SLS...), and I'll be using baking soda every other wash for good measure.
No wax obviously - wax is a joke. I left a lot of loose hairs and I tried to vary the size of dreads from 1 1/2 inch to 3/4 inches to have equal amounts on both sides of my head. The top looks tighter because there are smaller sections, however the back is almost tighter but it just doesn't look like it.
I separated a really big dread (2 1/2 inches) on the back of my head and it was really tough to take apart. I have a lot of experience backcombing and the back is more textured so I'm sure that helped. Funniest thing - this dread looked the loosest of all of them.
I also left a lot of loose hair so it's extra messy in the most important stages. I've seen half of the sections fall apart and do their own thing, the other half stayed together mostly because I've intentionally backcombed the natural sections of my hair. The loose hair is helping a ton.
Good start I guess. Lemme know what ya think!
Air or sun drying is good even in moderate wind but I just lightly press down with a towel then use a hair dryer just staying far enough away so the heat doesn't damage it. I tilt my head to all sides and aim the hair dryer up onto my scalp. Once the scalp feels 50-75% dry I let the dreads air dry or place a fan 4-5 feet away or just go outside.
Reasons being: 1) the dreads tighten better if they air dry however 2) if there's any remaining bacteria on your scalp it will start to smell if your dreads don't dry in a reasonable timeframe and stay there til the next wash. For some reason drying just the scalp quicker stops that completely unless you sweat a lot in the next few days, and the dreads can still have time to go through the air drying process.. I still rinse lightly with water every other day or every day (hot/warm, then freezing cold like my washes) to loosen and tighten from getting wet then drying, and to get rid of salt from the sweat on my scalp so it doesn't get irritated and produce more oil then itch and smell.
Sure a rinse may not wash "out" bacteria on the scalp w/o your cleaning agent (baking soda for example), but you produce less oil/irritation in the long run and letting the bacteria sit there with that sweat at your skull without ventilation will be pretty grody. If you don't want to rinse and your scalp is sweaty, just shake your dreads to keep them from being flattened so you get some extra air, and preferably sit in front of a fan/wind to keep it dry occasionally.
And obviously if you did have a wet scalp for too long, the roots would get extra oily and keep the dreads flat against the scalp, holding in extra heat which leads to more sweating and they'll also soak up the oils/bacteria, thus making the problem even worse cause then the scalp DEFINITELY won't dry very quickly, THEN you'll have less progress dreading cause they're soaked in oil/possible stench til your next wash. And finally you'll need to do an extra thorough job the next wash to get all those oils out and get your scalp clean.
I know that was a little long of an explanation but I sweat a lot on my scalp and produce oil quicker than most and it's taken me a while to figure out what the problem was..
