I am currently trying to grow dreads naturally. I have been using bronners every 2 days or so and my hair is about 4 inches long. I always at least get in the shower and wet my hair so its not sticking out all over. I have been doing this for about 2 months, will wetting my hair everyday slow down/prevent my hair from dreading?
If I have time to dry them (i.e, not before college xD) then I will usually wet them in the shower to keep them down a bit. I don't think it prevents mine locking, but I can't really say since I've not had them long. /doesn't help.
IMO washing your hair every 2 days is too often for any type of hair. I know washing my hair was one of the hardest things to let go. I wash every 5-14 days just depending on what I am doing, what my hair feels like, and how fast it gets dirty. When you wash your hair you strip all the natural oils from your hair. Your body will in turn start producing more oil to replace what has been stripped from your hair. It's a constant never ending cycle. I know with my hair, it does best with a minimum of 5 days and going all the 14 is just laziness but really doesn't hurt. Ideally every 7 for me it probably "best". As far as locking with wet hair all the time, I would say it's not necessarily slowing it down, but it's definitely not speeding it up. This is just what I would think, I could wrong. I really don't know.
mine gets wet every morniing and i take long showers. they are doing fine, but my hair loves to tangle. i couldn't see how water slows it down though. its not like the water untangles your hair, it just doesn't knot more while its wet. so if dry hair locks easiest, and wet hair doesn't lock, letting your hair get wet every morning shouldn't hinder the overall process (maybe like an hour a day, ha ha.) at least that;s my thinking, anyone have some actual facts about this?
hmmm.... i dont know if i agree with that. granted i havent had dreads before ( going to start them on new years, its my resolution=) ) but right now my hair is probably about 18 inches long, when i ever i shower and ponytail it and go to bed i wake up and it smells sorta musty and damp, but if i leave it down i wake up and its totally dry and fine ( and crazy tangly)
my hair tangles more with water, but the water in my city is fairly hard... i bet it is different if your water is softer.
The hair needs to not have too many oils in it to be able to lock better. You are totally correct about it producing more if the oils get stripped. I wash my hair everyday and I think it's the best thing to do to help it get locked up. But then again, my hair is naturally dry and it needs to feel clean and moisturized with light oils. Which helps it to dread along...The cleanliness, not the oils of course. But with dreads that aren't properly dried, yeah it can mildew if you put a tam on or keep beads on it for too long. To the OP, wet or not--it's gonna stick up all over and the frizzies mesh together and dread up eventually. OH yeah, it's kinda like folding up a wet shirt. It gets shrinky--great for dreads not for wool sweaters.
Once my hair adjusted to the new washing routine it didn't produce enough oil to hinder any sort of locking process. I think that helped my type of hair lock up faster. I guess it all depends on the type of hair your working with.
I have heard from an old rasta that wetting them helps them lock. Is it true? Who knows. While I don't wet/wash them everyday, I don't think water hurts them unless they are very very young. And even then, they're dreadlocks, what can hurt them??? Only de-tangling or cutting (of which, water does neither).
I plan to keep my daily regimen the same. Wash every 2-3 days. I'm trying to incorporate dreads into my day to day life, not hinder myself and their "need" for having just the right atmosphere. While it's true that washing your hair is stripping the oils that in turn is goign to cause your scalp to produce back what it's lost why not wash every 3 days opposed to ten? your head's gonna learn when to get oily again right? I'd rather have the cleaner 3 day dreads then the 2 weeks.
personally, i think washing every 2-3 days is the perfect length of time. that is when my head tells me to wash it. maybe it is different for other people.... but i have personally found that i feel fantastic if i was my hair regularly. dreads are not supposed to be dirty. that is a very sad misconception.
As time goes on, you need to wash less, and more frequent washing will do more to deter the the process. Dreads should be clean as a whistle, but they don't need soaps, detergents, or shampoos every day or even every other day. Unless you are doing some kind of hardcore physical training or work as an auto mechanic on oily trucks, your hair just doesn't need it, and by messing with your hair and scalp, you're effecting your locks.
same here my hair gets oily by the 3rd-4th day so i need to wash then the whole 1-week doesn't work for me
I personally think it's a common misconception that your hair is "dirty" after 5 days without washing. Sometimes I will go 2 weeks and it's not really that dirty. Still not dirty enough to hinder the locking process. If you can't make it to 5 days without excessive oil build up most likely your washing to much causing your hair to produce that much more oil.
Ok, so I've had to come back to this because I just made my dreads last night (washed them on Monday night) and they don't feel dirty at all! :blush5: I'm a very clean person and to be honest the hardest thing for me to overcome was the "dirty" misconception of dreads. And they are totally not at all! This has a been a very welcoming surprise to me and now I can totally understand how ya'll wash once a week or even once every two. I definitely don't plan to wash again until Sunday at earliest.
