People may have noticed me moaning about my fucking scalp lately, it's been dry as a bone and kinda macro dandruffey (I didn't think crusty was a terribly nice description) so while I was out today I brought myself some peppermint oil as it's pretty much the primary active ingredient in anything lush has ever made for your scalp, so I'm assuming it has magic scalp mending properties. I should probably point out that lush's current scalp fixer is in the form of a bar, to be applied directly to the scalp, and thus not terribly practicable. Hence the decision to buy peppermint oil. Once I got home I decided to have a good separate of my dreads, and started a fingertip inspection of them. I rip them quite regularly, but sometimes you get a few more intimate connections that just won't rip, because of the angle or the size or proximity to your scalp, whatever. So I got my sister to go over them with a pair of scissors. About 10 minutes later she had finished cutting out some fucking huge congoing session going on tight to my scalp that I was largely unaware of (people have described it as like "tree roots" when we've discussed such things before), now my head feels 1000 times better. I think this is the about 3rd time I've had to do this done this in 2 1/2 years. Now the reasons I'm posting all this is because: 1- In hindsight this was probably causing 90% of what was wrong with my scalp 2- Traction alopecia (going bald due to constant pulling on your scalp) is a concern with long term dread heads, and having you scalp contorted for months at a time due to poor separating can't possibly help. This may only be an issue for people with big dreads, I don't know (I know other people have described this sort of thing before) and I know we have a bit of a forum taboo over separating with scissors (which can probably be traced back to the days of S.E.) but I am now full on advocating a thorough inspection and remedial separation with scissors every couple of months. tl;dr: Separating with scissors is good.
Glad your scalp feels better How did the peppermint oil work? I find that my scalp gets itchy or irritated when I haven't had a good ripping sesh in a while. Scissors are awesome for the little buggers that won't budge. I think we need a scissor+ripping revolution. Snip responsibly
I've always cut with scissors. Everyone freaks the fuck out about it "oooh you're cutting through the root and eventually you're druids will fall off" Bullshit. Scissors > ripping
Totally agree. I've been saying this for ages, some people seem to freak out when the words scissors and dreads come together. If you can't get through by ripping, then your dreads are mature enough to handle scissors without any problem, unless you're an idiot and can't cut straight. I've got nothing against congos or beaver tails (I like the idea of them), but it makes things a lot harder to get water through to the scalp to clean it properly.
yes! i don't think there's anything wrong with using scissors. i don't need to yet- some of my dreads are congoing but i'm fine with it because it's not at all uncomfortable, and it's mostly the mini dreads which are starting to get it on together.
i just was telling my friend who is fighting his huge marley in the back of his head to go for the scissors! seriously, you dont want your dreads to cause you that much discomfort. plus it helps you deal with them better so you dont resort to the razor in the end. keep the dreads happy with a little scissor love!
For the record pepermint oil is pretty dam cool, it feels good and it smells good. MY scalp is still dry but it's no as bad, I think it's too early to attribute magical healing properties to it, maybe after another week.
