Hi all Just wanted to get your advice on something. I have had dreads for 7 months now, finally they are starting to look better than they ever have. Stupidly, I was naive when I got them and used DreadheadHQ's shitty dreadlocks kit, using the backcombing method (after reading this forum I realised my mistake, now I use Dr Bronners ONLY and am going all natural. Thankfully there is almost no wax left now). Anyway, I got an unpleasant surprise earlier tonight when I saw that some of the elastic bands I used on the tips, were starting to become visible somehow - they started to peek out from the end of the dreads. They must have been "hidden" inside for all this time, but as you can imagine, they are now disintegrating and are VERY difficult to get out. Some of my tips (the ones at the back) are blunt, which is great. BUT - some of the tips are starting to break apart/split in the middle. Is this weird? It's not as if the whole dread is splitting, just the very tips. However, it is very annoying and it doesn't look like a good sign to me. It's almost as if the dreads are saying "eek, get the elastics out, QUICK!" Has anyone else experienced their tips splitting? What can I do about this? I think for now I will just leave them be, and remove any more elastics that make themselves visible - urgh. I now understand why no one recommends DreadheadHQ or Knotty Boy.
Tips unraveling? the ones that are blunt, i assume they're crochetted? (hairs pulled inside the dread) if so yeh it's normal. and even if they're not, unraveling is still normal...they do all kinds of crazy stunts when maturing. the elastic thing though...damn that's unfortunate, why did you leave elastics in for..7 fricken months, anyway? But yeh get them out as soon as you can...thats pretty much all i can think of heh. knottyboy and dhhq are evil, yes.
Nah, I'm not sure how to crochet - it looks complicated. The tips that are blunt just became that way on their own (not sure how, I guess some of them just do it themselves with time). Well I thought I got all the elastics off, when I took them off after about 3 months - still too long, I know. Like I said, had I known better, I never would've used them! I guess a lot of them must be swallowed up in the dread somewhere. Hopefully those ones will never become visible. If they weren't locking so well, I would definitely consider starting again. But they've come too far now. Ah well, I guess everyone's dreads have their own story attached to them, that's what makes everyone's dreads so unique. Thanks for the advice
Oh and by the way - there's a question on the DHHQ site that says "What happens to the elastics at the end of the dread?" And their answer is something along the lines of "They will either fall off by themselves or will get swallowed up in the dread. Neither of these will harm your dreads in the long run." Psssh, yeah right.
How could anything like a rubber band stuck in your dread be an "okay" thing? As a humorous aside, someone I know who dreaded with wax found pot stems in her hair when she took them out. Her boyfriend would throw them at her when she wasn't looking, and they'd just stick to her hair and get engulfed by her dreads. I hope the elastics aren't too detrimental to the rest of your dreading process. I'm not nearly as far a long as you, but my ends split at the bottom too. I either leave them alone, or rip the dread in half for two dreads (depending on how far the split goes). Good luck.
