kraytheili asked: Hello! To start this blog is amazingly informative and I love it :) Secondly, I've been researching/thinking about getting dreadlocks for about a year now, but I decided I'll hold off until I finish college, but my only issue is that I have VERY greasy/oily hair and face, and if I don't shower everyday it becomes a crazy hog pit. Is there any good way to mask how nasty my hair is getting while I try to go through the phase of getting my hair adjusted to less washing? It's such a vicious cycle!
Excessive washing ironically causes even more oil- even on people with naturally oily skin (myself included)!
Pulling your hair back in a ponytail or headband can hide it a bit (hats will make it worse in between washings). Otherwise, not really… but it can be less obvious if you adjust even slower.
For example. If you shower every morning now, start washing your hair every other morning. Do this for a few weeks, instead of just one. When your scalp is well adjusted to that, move on to every two days for a few weeks, so on & so forth. The great thing here is that you aren’t in a rush to get started! By the time you’re ready to start your dreads, your scalp should be adjusted nicely.
Also, if you have bangs…they’re going to get greasy faster. Because you touch them with your hands, & they touch your face, there’s no real way to keep them from getting oily. If you have to, continue washing your bangs as needed. I still wash mine every day or two! & of course, wash your face daily.
Otherwise, keep in mind the reasons you wash your hair less with dreads. Your dreads need to dry completely in between each wash, & your scalp needs to adjust to be less greasy (since the oils will keep it from knotting well). Can you dry out your hair 100% each time, even if it takes you sitting with a blowdryer for two hours? Then it isn’t really that big of a deal if your hair gets wet more often because you’re washing it. Catch my drift?
poetic-lunacy asked: I will be starting a mini dreadventure tonight with a single dread in my hair. I have very thick curly hair and cannot allow myself to go all the way.... Do you have any advice for shampooing/conditioning and brushing around the dread? I normally only use conditioner, but I know the maintenance will need to be different for that section of hair.
The main thing is to make sure if dries after you wash your hair.
If you can easily dry it completely through after each wash, great! If not (especially as it tightens), tie it off in a baggie or the like to keep it dry while you wash the rest of your hair. Only include the dread in the wash around once a week (& then dry it, of course). Regardless of which way you do it, make sure you don’t use conditioner on the dread (obviously, this will cause problems when you’re trying to form knots).
As for brushing, just hold the dread out of the way. Honestly…that’s it!
babyfatface asked: So, recently my dreads haven’t been satisfying me the way they used to, and I feel as if I need a change. I want to dye them, but i’m scared to because i’m unfamiliar with the process and my hair was difficult to dye even before it was dreaded (it never took or held color to well) I want to bleach a few of my dreads white, but I don’t want them to come out a copper brass color (the way my undreaded hair would always turn out before toner) because I don’t think toner could be good for dreads? any
Your dreads are only as strong as the hairs they are made of, so you do have to watch out for using damaging chemicals. It isn’t that you can’t use them, just that you need to be careful!
With loose hair that is damaged badly, you may see additional hairs break off & catch in your brush, but it might not be too noticeable overall. With excessive damage to dreads where several hairs break, the dread itself can become very weak & even break off entirely.
Bleaching to white is going to cause a lot of damage. Period. End of story.
It will likely take multiple bleach processes, & you won’t get “white” without toner to remove the yellow/orange tones. It just doesn’t work that way. Toner isn’t any more dangerous for dreads than it is for loose hair, same as bleach. It’s just damaging to hair in general.
Again, that doesn’t mean you can’t do it. You just need to judge the condition of your hair & decide whether or not your hair can handle it. If you don’t have much experience with heavy processes like that, try finding an alternative salon, or a friend with good experience. It’s definitely a risky deal if you don’t know what you’re doing!
languageofmydreams asked: Alright, so I want to put in a few, maybe 4 or 5 dreads on the underneath of my hair. Like you're making a half up little ponytail, and the hair that's left underneath; that's the part I want to dread. I'm thinking of doing the twist and rip method, but I'm not 100% sure yet. If you could give me some tips on starting them and maintaining them, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, love! :)
Best advice is to skip T&R entirely. It shreds your hair & leaves you with odd, braided-looking dreads with TONS of frizzies sticking out sideways (from the broken hairs). It also falls out for many people.
I would recommend backcombing, then leave them more or less alone. You will need to separate them from your loose hair regularly (probably daily- dreads love sucking in loose hair). You also have to make sure your dreads are drying out completely in between washings. This often isn’t too hard when there’s only a few, but if you have difficulty with it, tie them off in a baggie or the like when you wash the rest of your head to keep them dry. Another option is to put a shower cap on your whole head while you bathe, then wash just your loose hair upside-down in the sink or tub afterwards.
Anonymous asked: hi! I want to dread my hair and I've been researching for months. But I'm kind of afraid because of all the cultural appropriation stuff going on on tumblr right now. I'm followed by a lot of people who are into telling people off for their racial wrongdoings and i'm just... i don't want to upset people ): please answer, I really need advice...
I’m going to write up a very extensive article about cultural appropriation in general soon.
It isn’t that it doesn’t exist, because it most certainly does. But it’s become a fad topic lately, with the problems being that tons of uneducated, pretentious twits are misusing the word entirely & lumping EVERYTHING under cultural appropriation without any knowledge of cultures to begin with…often while they are guilty of it themselves, for real. More on that later.
What is relevant now is that DREADLOCKS DO NOT BELONG TO ANY ONE RACE, CULTURE, OR RELIGION. They cannot be appropriated because knotted hair BELONGS TO EVERYONE WITH HAIR. They have existed in cultures & peoples all over the world for ages & ages. Sometimes they are spiritual, sometimes they are fashionable, sometimes they are just because it is the natural state of all hair & they didn’t have combs. What happens when you don’t brush your hair? Oh, that’s right. It fucking knots.
More comprehensive posts here.
xzczxc asked: HEY! great blog. I've had my dreads for about 3 months! anyways when i go to sleep, my dreads look good. when i wake up, they don't any way to prevent this? Ive heard of wrapping my hair up in a silk scarf type thing?
Not really, no. More importantly, you don’t want to! Many of your knots form while you’re sleeping, & your hair is rubbing against the pillows. Yes, you may be a little extra chaotic some mornings, but that’s part of the package, & it settles down.
Sleeping with a silk scarf, or stockings, or the other silly things you sometimes hear mentioned to put on your head don’t do you any good. For one thing, there’s nothing quite like a suffocation/strangulation hazard while you sleep, sheesh. For another, they’re taking away all that great hair-on-pillow action that’s making your hair lock up nice & tight!
missmelanieelizabeth asked: My hair is on the thin side. In the sense I have hair and it lays flat to my head. I use to crimp my hair everyday, since jr. high, for a certain look. I really want to do dreads, my thing is, I don't want to have a bunch of dreads and having it look terrible because of the thinness. I also want to know if it would be possible to take loose (non tracked) human hair and put them in when starting my dreads to give it extra hair and length.
Dreads will thicken somewhat as they tighten up (hairs don’t fall out when you shed), but if you have thin hair…you have thin hair. Dreads are definitely a bulkier look than loose hair, but you won’t magically have tons of volume- there’s only as much hair there as you have.
You can’t just stuff loose hair into them, either. You won’t be able to use fake hair to bulk up your own. However, after your dreads are started & have matured a bit (often a few months minimum before they are tight enough for this) you can add extensions for more length.
Anonymous asked: Do you know where I can find sea salt and tea tree oil? I've tried looking at health stores, but I've had no luck. Do I have to order them offline? Also, do you know anything about Lush shampoo bars? Thanks!
You can absolutely order them online, if you prefer.
Granulated sea salt can be found in almost any grocery store. Acme, Food Lion, Shoprite, Safeway, Raley’s, Whole Foods…whatever the larger one near you is, I would bet money they have it. Look next to the regular iodized table salt. Get sea salt meant for consumption- don’t use scented bath salts, they aren’t the same thing.
Tea tree oil can often be found in health/vitamin stores, large catch-all stores like Target (it’s in the vitamin isle, towards the bottom), & beauty supply shops. Check around any store selling vitamins or hair care products.
I don’t care for shampoo bars myself (super inconvenient), but I know some people use & love them. Lush in general just makes lovely soap. Just watch for things with bits & pieces inside, & lather the bar in your hands & then your head. Rubbing the bar directly on your dreads tends to squish chunks of soap down into them, & it’s very hard to rinse.
rafiki-town asked: I was told, by a guy who has had dreads for about 15 years, that if you wash your dreads during the first year, they won't lock up. Is this true?
I’ve washed my hair at least once a week for the past four years & three months (i.e., since I started my dreads). Does it look like my dreads locked up to you?
Dirty hair won’t lock as well, it takes longer because the hair is slippery & oily. Knots need friction to form well. More importantly, not washing your hair for a year is going to make you one nasty-smelling being.
You can do all sorts of shitty, outright stupid things to your hair, & given a long enough timeline, still end up with dreads. Sometimes they might even look okay (new growth doesn’t often suffer the same abuse as the hair originally started with).
The funny thing about being wrong is you can be wrong for a very, very long time. The length of time you’re wrong still doesn’t make you right.
People like that are the reason the rest of us get a bad reputation.
carnival-of-light asked: is there anything we should know about dreads and chlorine water?? ive heard some people say it helps lock their dreads since its drying which makes sense but i feel like it could also be bad for them if you dont wash it out? i looked through the questions and didnt see anything on this but i apologize if i missed it.
I think I forgot to tag that post, or at least link to that tag, so that’s my bad. Check this one out ♥
