Just got dreads a week ago. Help?

Got someone to backcomb them for me. My hair's pretty short and there are loads of loose hair, so they don't look an awful lot like dreads yet.

Any advice for what to do with them now?

I've not washed it since I got them done, how long should I wait until I do? I've ordered some Dr Bronners online (which hasn't arrived yet).

I've been palm rolling them a wee bit each morning as they seem to unravel slightly when I'm sleeping. Should I be palm rolling more or less? And is there anything I can do to stop them unravelling in my sleep? I move around a lot in bed, but I can't really help this...

I haven't used any wax or other products as I've read they're bad for your dreads, is this right?

Also, they are sticking up quite a lot, making me look a bit like Sonic the Hedgehog, is this just because they're new and short?

Lots of questions, I know, but I want to have great dreads and I feel like I'm a bit lost amongst all this contradicting advice.

I'm including a couple of photos. The first photo was taken just after they were finished and the following one is from now, a week on.

 

just keep playing with them. thats what i did. i backcombed once, ans that was it! check out mine
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/forumdisplay.php?f=48

 

Yay a Dundonian/Weegie! :-D There's a couple others here now from north of the border!

I don't have much advice I'm afraid. I wash mine all the time, but then I didn't backcomb so there was nothing to fall out. They say that backcombing falls out anyway after a while anyway - best you can do is give it time and play with it i reckon

 

Yeah, the SideShow Bob phase is common with backcombing. Don't be shocked if they start to really loosen and/or fall out for that too is pretty common. Depends on how tight the backcomb was, type of hair, length of hair, size of dread (quite a few variables, everyone is slightly different)

 

the backcombing will fall out. sometimes it falls out all the way, other times only a bit before it starts to lock by itself.

its easier to leave them alone after you back comb once. your hair will probably never fall out to the point where its not even in sections. palm rolling doesnt do much if you have the kind of hair that doesn't lock quickly. just keep pulling the sections apart, and dont start doing any heavy maintenance on them and you will be fine.

they will do weird things in your sleep, but nothing terrible. hair grows a certain way and is trained to stay in a certain direction. your sleeping probably isnt undoing them, just the movement of the hair trying to stick in a certain position.

wax is bad and the hair sticks up for a while after backcombing, it will settle down in a while when the hair isnt pulled tight against the scalp.

 

wear a wool hat at night ..doesnt gotta be all the time biut sometimes and it will help get em going
all ureally gotta do is give em time
use some sea salt sprays now antd then to help em along
and keep seperating em often it looks like u used pretty big sections when u backcombed and your hair being fairly short doesnt help either ..it just looks like theyd try to eat eachother if you dont keep ontop of it
and being that its short theres barely enough to really dread so the progress at 1st will be 2 steps forward 1 step back till theres lil more length to lock up
dont worry your a week in
in 2 months you'll be in better shape
and in 6 mionths you'll look amazing

 

aww,your so pretty <3

 

Thanks everyone!

Yeah, I wanted quite fat dreads for when they start growing, I didn't realise this'd make it harder for them to get started.

Guess I'm just gonna have to be patient.

Something else I've noticed... They seem to be getting shorter, is this normal? I'm worried that too much palm rolling is making the ends break off. My hair is heavily bleached, so likely to break fairly easily.

So when should I be abe to wash it again, if I wait another week, say, would that be about right?

 

wash whenever you feel dirty, or are dirty, lol.

bleached hair is bad for locks. you need to do all you can to make sure the new hair that grows comes in healthy. weak hair means weak locks. hair breaking isn't such a big deal, but the more hair that breaks inside of the lock, the weaker the lock will become. if its serious you could loose a lock.

so yeah, be super gentle with your hair. i wouldnt palm roll it.

locks shrink, but thats because the hair pulls into itself. my hair is a little more than half the length it was before i started to let it lock.

 

Aw, man, I've been getting all the wrong advice! Someone told me bleached hair was good for dreads as it knots easier and stuff. Does this mean I won't be able to bleach my roots when they grow in? I dont know if I can cope not being a blond! But I'd go dark for the sake of my dreads of course.

 

I've never had a problem with my dreads and bleach. Has anyone else here actually seen or experienced first hand a lock falling off from a bleach job? I'm gonna call myth on that. Unless you hair is completely freakn' fried to a crisp...like you dumped 5 boxes of blondissima on it in one night or something.

 

i wouldnt bleach em swnyumore and definately wouldnt palmroll at all
but in a way the dammage bleaching did will be both good and bad
good in that the dryness and dammage can help itt knot, so that is somewhat true, but bad in that the dreads will be weaker because of the dammage

i think thry'll look awersome darker with blond tips
and yea i agree withj lux your very pretty

id wash at least weekly
i would maybe sprits on lil aloe to help with the dammage
wear a wool hat most nights but be sureto seperate em in the morn
they;ll be crazy awhile and they'll shrink before they grow
because theyre already pretty thick id be pretty careful to keep em from congoing at least till theyre good n tight and settled in

 

bleached hair does lock easier, but you could get the same effect without permanently damaging your hair by using sea salt.

while i've never seen an entire lock fall off from a single bleach job, i'm sure it could happen with a thin set/thin hair, some over working and a bit of time.

i have a friend who repeatedly bleached then dyed and redyed her hair. she backcombed and waxed locks and every time she did palm rolling or any maintenance there would always be broken hairs in her hands and sometimes like little balls of broken hairs appeared on the end of the locks.

i had similar results with my first set, but less severe. they were dyed right before they were put in, backcombed super tight and worked on constantly. i suffered from the same thing, just less severe. prior to locks i would always get mohawks and dye my hair and use glue/hairspray/teasing. im sure my poor diet attributed to what i was experiencing as well.

like SE said, dont chemically bleach again and dont do maintenance.

 

i lost looooooads of dread ends cause of bleach. the hair was so so so brittle and dry, it just snapped off

 

What kind of bleach are you guys using? I've fried my hair like that in my straight hair days. But I think I did something silly like 2-3 bleachings within hours of each other.

Over a period of two weeks, starting on new years, I went through 3 boxes of blondissima and one box of dye and I've had no issues. Seven months prior I had done some bleaching as well, so it wasn't the first time the dreads had seen chemicals. A few AVC and DCC washes after and my dreads feel no different.

Perhaps the major difference is that my dreads are getting matured and have been well locked for awhile vs brand new babies that are getting palm rolled and played with and break? Perhaps the AVC soak I do the day after bleaching/dying really was the golden key that I'd thought it'd be (figuring that the acid would neutralize any ammonia residue). Or maybe I'm just one lucky SOB

 

I bleach and have no problems. I use Jeromes bleach. I get mine off ebay but I know superdrug sell it. Should have no problems continuing to bleach her roots. If they start getting dry put pure aloe vera on. I use the diluted aloe from Holland and Barratt.. But it tends to give bleach a brassy look over time, hence I'm no longer bleaching.

Just remember to rinse ALL the bleach out afterwards. I have a bath mid dye and then use the bath water to dunk my head in (saves water too) and I find that doing it that way halves rinsing time to 15 mins. But It all depends on thickness of dread.

 

mine was done at a hairdressers.. they put 9% peroxide on, and then 12% on the length cause it was orange =]

and then a week 1/2 after it was bleached, i backcombed.. so tbh i didnt help the brittleness or anything

 

:iagree:

 

there are some natural more natural ways to bleech hair coming out in some hairdressers I've heard. ommm, tony&guy have some new formula and I've heard of a seaweed treatment that bleaches hair.just shop around!you want the best dreads you can possibly have right?I personally wouldn't want to be re-doing my roots all the time, I prefer natural looking dreads anyway

 

I think I will let my natural hair colour grow in.. It's a sort of reddish mid-brown/dark-blond colour. The only thing is the awkward stage in between having a little bit of roots and enough for it to look like you haven't bothered re-doing you're roots before it gets to the point where just the ends are bleached.