i wld like to share my dread journey.

i have tried everything, almost and am here to say that none of the methods or products were good for my dreads.

a friend backcombed my hair. not having any experience with this she back combed way too tight (from about 14" to 4") so what looked like dreads did not match the regrowth of that particular dread. so when the hair grew i had a fat dread on skinny regrowth. more on dealing with the breakages later by crotchet method ===== aaarrrgghhh

i believed hype about wax and knotty boy has a good website when u r researching these things. and the only shop in canberra where i live was an african hair salon and they only had knotty boy shampoo bar, conditioning spray and some other african hair conditioner. so i waxed dreads....over 2 years later the wax still works its way out of the dread and u can see white fluffy muck.. quite revolting,. i usually have to dismantle dread and remove wax. i have ordered some of this new wax off product and am going to try that to see how it works....

now as the dreads grew, as i said, the roots were thin compared to original backcombed portion, so i rubbed roots and palm rolled like mad. used loc peppa etc... i didnt think this helped much at all. so stopped using it.

then read about crotchet method of threading dread back thru root. i thought this might help make the dread tighter so i switched methods for 6 months and dread crotcheted. this is a radically different texture and look from normal dreads. like braiding...and dread got weak at the points where i changed method. the roots are tight with this method but it is bad bad bad. so now i have a section of dreads, the ones that survived...that is totally different from the rest of the dread.

then the word crotchet got me, and i read all the posts about repairing dreads with crotchet hook. i had so many thinned spots to fix. well the crotchet method i used is like felting. in and out in and out. from above weak spot and pull up...it thickens up thin part but breaks hairs and ultimately weakens spot even more.

these days i try not to do anything much to them. i still repair breaking parts with crotchet hook only cos i dont want to lose dreads. i may cut them off short and let the natural growth rule. havent decided yet