It's been quite awhile since I've been around because I'm a bum like that :-pBefore I get directly into the dreading part, I gotta mention that I found myself a Very Nice Boy. He doesn't mind my dreading process. He doesn't have dreads himself but that's ok.Now onto the meat n taters part:Almost a full year without combing my hair and you just -can't- tell. Friends have put some dreads in and they may stick around for a little while, but they fall out pretty easy. When -I- put a dread in, it falls out within a few days or less.When the dreads stick around longer than a few days, they're nice and tight but seem to start thinning out over time. I'm careful when washing with them. What am I missing here? Am I not careful enough? not washing often enough?I'm so very tempted to post to Craig's List for some help, to try to get someone to do my whole head all at once so I can try from there. I'd have to bribe them with food and art but I wonder if anybody would go for that...Still... I will not give in to the commercial route. No products for my hair.

So the other day (Sunday? Monday? Tuesday?) I hit my hair up with some baking soda and did a salt rinse. When my hair dried it was all feathery looking, really trippy.But anyway, later on that night, a friend (C) and a housemate (T) said "Hey, let's dread your hair!" and I was like, YAY, finally someone to help me! ^-^ Twist n rip party, yay!So they both got started and the hair was really cooperating. Knotty knotty hair. They only got a few dreads in (in the front) before they got distracted by booze and pot >.< And then they came down from that a bit, and C said he'd do my hair whilst watching Sin City but that didn't happen. The lights went out for the movie and he fell asleep. >.>I managed to get one or two in myself that night with my arms complaining the whole time. The next day I got a couple more, but spent most of my energy that day cleaning house house (read:scrubbing gray things until they were white again).Then I spent the next day being very depressed (I have issues) and slept a lot.Then the next day I was fighting my way out of the depression but got a couple more puny dreads in and tried to combine two because my starters were really scrawny. At least the ones that my friends did. The ones I did were fluffier so fatter.I just got out of the shower with another round of hair stuffs done. When its dry, I'll see about doing some more. I think my 2 scrawny ones I tried to join are still together ^-^I don't mind the partial dreadiness since I I almost always wear a headband to keep hair/flyaways out of my damn eyes so its not a big deal, but I am peeved that my friends started helping me out and then just got drunk and stoned. Grr.I'm wondering if I should try to put in some sort of beads now, or anything else.So yeah, that's whats up with my hair.

So I decided today to try out a baking soda wash on my (yet to be dreaded) hair. Dear gods. When you people say squeaky clean, you mean it in the most literal way.I just got out of the shower so my hair is still wet. But I'm curious to see the change in how it looks and feels when its dry. I've never been so excited about my hair before :-pSo what I did was look around the net and get an idea of what people use baking soda for and how much with water (or whatever else). So I figured I'd just wing it for my first attempt.Off to the pantry I went and found an empty jam jar with a handle and lid. This is maybe a cup or a little bit more. I grabbed the baking soda and dumped in maybe a Tablespoons worth or so. Then ran the tap to get some decently warm water, filled the jar, put the lid on and shook it up. This got me a cloudy enough looking mixture.Off to the shower I went!So I wet my hair, shook up the jar to distribute the Goods again, turned away from the shower, bent my head forward, letting my hair fall forward, then began dumping a bit at a time while gently massaging a bit with the other hand. (this is all detailed shit for people like me who need that extra inspiration to try new things!)Quickly enough, the squeaking started :-p my hand just didn't want to glide over my hair. It was so wild for some reason that I almost started laughing. :-pOh, and I had forgotten completely about how terrible the stuff tastes >..> unless I had a dog of course. Roomies do. Hmm.So yeah. I'm all excited.I think I'll try a baking soda body wash next. I don't think I'll need to do another baking soda wash on my hair if I were to start dreading in the next couple days because I let it sit in for quite awhile today.