Discouraging Experience... What do I do now?
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Man you guys are a great bunch... good advice all around. Thanks!
Amanda, yeah our hair looks similar, yours is looking good also.
peace
updated by @james6: 07/03/15 07:03:58AM
Forum Activity for @james6
Discouraging Experience... What do I do now?
Introduce Yourself
And should I wrap some hemp or beads on those loops or is it better to let the loops do there thing? It seems like leaving them alone will result in the dreads shrinking quite a bit with the current rate of looping I'm seeing!
Discouraging Experience... What do I do now?
Introduce Yourself
Thanks for the replies Shanxon and se! Its encouraging to hear that I should trust in the natural process. Here are a couple photos of my progress so far. You'll see how I've got a lot of crazy looping happening, but with really loose roots.
Do you think I should expect the overall length to shrink a lot? I started with my hair almost to my mid-back, and its an inch or two shorter now.
updated by @james6: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM
Discouraging Experience... What do I do now?
Introduce Yourself
So I've been helped by advice on this forum a lot, and I decided to join today and tell you guys about this terrible experience I had today.
First a little background. A few years ago I did backcombed dreads DHHQ style with all their products. After year I wasn't happy with the results and how my hair was always covered in wax, and the dreads didn't look at all natural. So I cut them off. I wasn't planning on dreading again until I found this site and some great advice on how to dread naturally without all the products and fuss that DHHQ teaches. So I decided to start em up about a month and a half ago, doing very light T&R just to get some sections going, then letting them do their thing naturally from there. The only maintenance I do is separating and baking soda washes. I feel like its going great and that after only a month I see them dreading up well, making lots of loops, etc.
Until today.... I took my wife to a salon to get her hair done, and while waiting one of the stylists starting talking to me about my dreads and telling me how I need to start palm rolling them more and applying products or else they will never tighten up. I tried to explain that I've been through that before and was only interested in doing them naturally this time. But she insisted they she could make them better if I let her start from the beginning with interlocking, rolling, and periodic retwisting they will come out better. Ugh.
I did really light T&R to start them off about 1.5 months ago, just enough to get the sections going, but not so much that they were dreaded at the roots, so what I have now are some dreads starting tighten up but only on the bottom half of the sections. The top half (middle of section up to the root) is still all loose hair. She said I'll end up with dreads just on the bottom hanging from plain undreaded hair on the top if I don't redo them. But I was under the impression that even the roots will tighten up and dread naturally with time.
What do you guys think? Could it be true that I didn't T&R tight enough and now I've just created half dread/half plain hair sections? Or should I continue letting them do their thing naturally and they'll tighten up at the roots too? My hair was really long when I started, about to the middle of my back, so maybe its too much hair length in each section to be able to tighten up naturally?
I'll try to get some photos up later to show you how it looks.
Thanks for your help.
updated by @james6: 02/14/15 06:38:20AM
The journey begins..
Member Journals and Timelines
NaturalWomyn, could you elaborate on this a bit? Did wearing your dreads in a ponytail ruin them in some permanent way? I ask because I have wear mine up in a wrapped ponytail a few days a week, but otherwise I leave them hanging free or in a very loose/low ponytail. Did wearing them like that make them deformed/curved such that they wouldn't lie down comfortably without a ponytail?
NaturalWomyn said:
i would just really be sure to wear them in a low ponytail and down/in a hat ANY other time that u can. My last set i wore in a higher tight ponytail ALL the time and they formed in a way that i couldn't wear them down comfortably(after a year and a half). It was weird and maybe it was just me, other people may be fine doing that. A low pony at your neck should be no problem though. <3
Jake Holland said:I'm also worried that I have to wear my hair up in a ponytail at work. Is this going to cause me any issues with my locks being in their infancy.
Cutting by force.
Life Issues Facing Dreads
Someone cutting your hair by force sounds terrible. The last time I cut my hair was 5 years ago when I cut off the dreads, and that was traumatic enough.
se...
soaringeagle said:
castration
castration with a chainsaw
a rusty chainsaw