Alright so a friend backcombed half my hair into baby dreads for me, but he had to go home ill so the other half of my hair is just neglect at the mo, waiting until someone else can bacomb it for me. Its been this way for about 3 months, but i am getting loads of loops in the bacombed lengths, what can I do ? I am inclined to just leave them to it... but i am getting a lot of pressure from family / friends who are fine with my dreads but hate the loops as they look really really messy. Also the base near the root gets matted, I have to rip / tear it to get them apart. I now you shouldn't use elastic bands as they can "melt" into the hair but what about mini bobbles ? just to help seperate the baby dreads so they don't matt together I don't want a beaver tail! I have weaned my hair off coniditioner and not used it at all this year, I wash my hair 2 to 3 times a wee using just a bog standard shampoo, either head and shoulders or alberto balsam etc.
Loops are a positive sign of progress. As the dreadlocks get older, they mature, this process involves the hairs compressing and the dreadlock tightening and shrinking. Unfortunately dreadlocks rarely shrink evenly, so you find one side tightens slightly faster than the other and that causes the looser side to balloon outward forming a lump, bump or loop. Now lumps and bumps will get flattened out a little overtime, the rest of the dreadlock will tighten up and the whole thing will get rolled around when you sleep on it etc. Loops are slightly different because they're just a balloon of loose hair. Loops will pretty much stay there. Because of the nature of how loops form they are only prevalent during the first year or so and that's because they only really form as the dreadlock is shrinking and maturing. After the first year the dreadlock will have done pretty much all the shrinking it's going to do and will from then on just lock up the new growth at a fairly constant rate and you'll rarely get loops forming from the new growth. With regards to dealing with the loops.... they can be trimmed off, which isn't exactly recommendable because ever cut you make severs a link between the tip and root of the dreadlock, but in practice cutting the hairs from a loop isn't too risky. Or they can be crocheted back into the dread, whereby a crochet hook will grab onto the looped hair and pull it inside of the dreadlock and this is the most common way of dealing with the problem. The down side of crocheting being that you stuff the dreadlock unnaturally tight which will make them permanently stiffer and less bendy. My advice would be to ignore them until the dreadlocks have matured and stopped shrinking. At which point you'll know how many loops there are to be dealt with and how you wish to proceed. The bases of young dreadlocks are going to get matted, well, the bases of all dreadlocks get matted to some extent, it just happens more so with younger dreadlocks because they're softer. It's to be expected that you'll have to pull the dreads apart and separate them semi-frequently. I wouldn't worry too much about it forming a beaver tail though as that would take months of not-ripping and even then it's unlikely that you'd get them all to matt together. They'll matt pretty slowly so it's not very difficult to keep on top of it. You don't need to rip all the way to the root if it's painful, just rip faster than it knots... and it knots reaaaally slowly. I personally wouldn't recommend washing your hair with normal shampoo. You won't be able to rinse it out thoroughly and so everytime you wash the dreads you'll be leaving behind more and more residue from the soap.
Well I would advise you to be cautious with the needle, as I said, the more hair you force into a dreadlock, the stiffer it will get and you can't un-crochet them, once they're crocheted, they're crocheted. Also refrain from tightening the roots if you want the roots to lock themselves. The roots need some breathing room to mature properly and if you tweak and work on them with a needle they can become too tight to mature. Soap recommendations are going to vary. Different soaps work for different people and some soaps are going to be easier to acquire in different locations. A popular choice is usually Dr Bronner's liquid shampoo as this can be purchased around the world, both online and in health food stores and pharmacies as well as some supermarkets. While not technically a residue free shampoo it tends to tick a lot of boxes for people due to it's all natural ingredients and ethical ideals. This soap will need diluting at least 1:10 soap to water because it's very strong and thick. If you don't dilute it enough you'll never spend long enough rinsing to get it all out properly. Other soaps are going to vary by location.
I use fabric hair elastics at the roots (i'm trying to congo dreads together) but!!! the loose hair around the roots will get caught up in them and theyre a bitch to remove, so use them, but change them regularly, otherwise you'll have to cut them out because the hair knots up around them I also root rip a lot more now that i have had to in the past, yeah i want congos but i also dont want a beaver tail! just grab dreads and pull them apart when/if necessary beads are also good to use at the roots to keep dread roots seperate
Ha I may invest in some wooden beads If I can find some small ones ! I have very thin hair, so have got very thin dreads, not much wider than pencils, If I wanted bigger dreads I was only going to have about 8 in total lol Hmmm wooden beads..... to Etsy I go ! Damn Smelly D, If ever your up yorkshire, Pizzas on me if you can help me neaten my dreads up, yours are awesome
if you want some beads let me know and i'll send some up to you. most of mine dont fit my hair anymore / i made a shittonne of fimo ones that i never wear. also pizza. pizza is the greatest, but im actually currently on a cheese detox
hey , you need to fix those loops before they become not nice to look at ,dare2 for dread locks will fix repair instantly
just lets ur dreadz do as they please. thats the whole beauty of it. the only maintainance that is required is that of seperating =)
my friends give me ridicule as well. i have loops and curls in my dreadz. i just dismiss wut they say. cuz i know its totally natural and beautiful, which is y dreadlocks r more than just a hair style. they represent total freedom and individuality. and if my friends want to ridicule me because of that, then shame on them. thats how i feel anyways =)
