very long hair

hi i'm new to this and i originally posted my question in introduce yourself, but i should have put it here or some where..anyway i have hair down to my knees and i want to lock it up.. I need tips on the dreaded sectioning and backcombing for this amount of hair..I want fluffy dreads so if you know some tricks to get extra volume in them then let me know..i can't wait until the sectioning and combing is done, and i will be doing it all on my own...it will be like a full time job..

 

haha, wow, sounds like a project!

 

wow
post a pic!

 

Yeah I don't see a lot of really long hair nowadays. In fact the longest hair I've seen in years was barely to this girls butt... PICS OR GTFO!

 

we have another annie anxiety with the same length hair
i strongly strongly suggest niot backcombing, the backcombing of that much hair will cause extreme pain and dammage and take..who knows how long, 6 hours each dread maybe?
weeks?

and why woulkd u, that much hair will dread in no time at all if u go natural
but id use extreme control because u will get puffier dreads then u ever hoped for unless u controll the process.
this is easy though
rip daily
just rip 1 section from another so they dont become a unidread.
or
semi pre section,and add a bunch of beads
that will get loops startfed that will become dreads in a coupweeks.

pain free (slight pain as that much hair will wanna congo like frazy if u arejnt careful early on, so u will have to rip alot to prevent that..or use beads to hold sections seperated.

i wahnjt u and annie anxierty to do a comparison thread no matter what methods u both choose.
but im telling ya in 2-3 weeks youd have dreads, they'll be tight and nice in 2-3 months
and each one will be truly unique and absolutly undamaged and healthy.

if u rip and twist it will be likl easier, stil. alotta pain alotta hours and u can get em started ?9u dont need to tho they will almost dread overnight)
but backcombing, each and every comb upwards dammages the hair, over and over and over ripping some out at the scalp, hour adfter hour on each dread yoiutr looking at alotta dammage
much more then twist n rip would do.
and its pointless entirely
section the hairm, put in beads to keep them apart and go to sleep
see if overnight they dont staert getting knotty (or even get totsly matted into real dreads)

ive seen hair thast lemgth become 3-4 massive dreawds overnight, still able to be combed out, but if left for 3 nights theyd be too far along to ever come out.

stop thinking the way those scam sites prograwmmed u ti think..that dreads need to be made,..they dont dreads make themselves.. and long long hair dreads atyt warp speed
so fast in fact that thats why u need to excersize controll to prevent over dreading into massive congos

if u look at my album u will see igot dreads past my toes, but they were started naturaly very short. few inches. and still the natural process didnt take long at all
tyour hair will dread so quickly they will go through the 1st 3 stages within a month..maybe 2
and they will turn out beautiful

 

I had hair halfway down my back and backcombing took about 12 hours over 2 days, so you can probably count on it taking at least that long. As far as tips and tricks goes they are pretty much going to do what they want anyway, best you can decide is if you want thick dreads or thin dreads.

I'm typing in IE and it has no inline spellchecker!!!! WTF, is this the middle ages or something.

 

if you backcomb, i think youll lose a helluva lot of lenth, so if you dont wanna lose the length, dont backcomb.. if you recruit a good friend or two, the backcombing shouldnt be an issue. spend a weekend doing it, but it will take a while, and itll all be a big ol' fuzzy sideshow bob kinda birds nest goin on. which i dig, i love mine, but some people (mom..) dont =]

id say go natural,, or cut your hair and then backcomb. =]

 

if you're going to backcomb, crochet or something similar, have someone who knows what they're doing do it for you.

 

that's impossible with hair down to your knees

 

Sorry to derail the thread. But anyone that still uses IE is stuck in the technological middle ages. Seriously do yourself and your computer a favor and switch to firefox. In fact anyone that still uses IE needs to switch to firefox. It's faster, more secure, much safer, complies to W3C standars, and it's just a great company to support. Sorry as a professional web developer, I get offended by the thought of people using IE. Unless your using .5% of the website that require IE, there are zero logical reasons for using it.

 

^^^lol my thoughts exactly, when I got my new computer I think I used IE once, to download firefox. I can't stand IE since I switched...

Back to topic, just pick whatever method you want to go with, not what everyone else tells you to do, just be aware if you do backcomb them your dreads won't stay "fluffy" forever. Good luck whatever you do.

 

yeaah but if you backcomb it all really tight and lose the length, itll be all fuzzy and short =]

 

do u have a couple dozen cheapo rings? nothing with anything to snahg hair, just simple bands
force em on some sections and wait a week
then decide wether u wanna backcomb or not

(ofcourse im 90% sure it'll be too late cause yopu'll already have painless dreads at this point)

when u brush your hair now, do u get a handfull of hair in the brush each time?
backcombings boyrt 10 timjnes as agressive
u might not get 10 handfulls of hair that come out cause your forcing it all into a rats nest, but tyou'll be breaking a ton of hairs

in short to medium length hairr the dammage can be not so noticable, they may do say 100 backwards combs per dread..
with your hair your probly looking at a couple thousand
each one adding to the dammage of any hair thats not already compacted.


twist and rip uses no sharp teeth, just yoiur hands.
so wont be as dammaging
if your not going natural, id recomend that rather then backcomb /(altghougfh i think it works best on thin to medium size dreads, never seen it done on thick ones)
if u choose natural however, thick is easy as can be.
simply dont rip em into thinner sections

just, if theyre really thick cleanning dryinfg can be an issue, so can pulling on the scalp (if huge) and may be more mold prone.

lets see some pics
and feel free to pm me for advice if ya want
i think you'll need lil special care to get started with that much hair, and i wanna make sure u get off to a greswt start

 

if she (it is a she right? never read the name..lol but with hair that long sorta assumed) backcombes really tightly, she'll loose alotta mass to to breakage, well not loose most will still get shoved into the dread, but the length loss can be significant, ..like from knees to just below the shoulderbladers.

ofcourse with nartural there will be length loss too probly not as drastic, or imediate.
the shrinkage will happen gradualy over months before entering a zero growth period of tightening then finaly re-growing
i think itr should maybe shrink slowly to waist level hover there a bit maybe shring lust a tad beyond that especialy since she wants really thick, then start to grow again.
its lil hard to guess thouigh

i cant wait too see some progress though

i think annie and her need to have a dreadoff competwetion
whatever methods they choose, or if they both go natural, try slight variations (beads vs just ripping) and see how the progress goes thru the 1st 3 months or so



and tam makers
someone make 3 huge tams (yea 1 for me too)
the right tam will help em out alot
(as long as they rip after wearring since theyre hair will wanna dread so damn fast 4 hiours in a tam could cause the dreaded (srry for the pun) unidread
but i bet by week 3 they'll be formed enough that they';l only hafta worry bout the roots

 

there is no reason at all that you can backcomb and i cant see it being too painful, just do it as tightly as you feel comfortable with. then you will have the look of dreads right away. it will take a long time though, get a few people to help if you decide to backcomb.
you can do patience method too, just stop doing anything and dreads will form. you will need to keep them separated in order for them to form nice separate locks.
id like to see the results of whichever method.

btw, you will lose length with either method. from what ive seen, neglect dreads (or loosely backcombed ones with no maintenence) shrink the most as the knots and loops form.

 

My backcombing didn't hurt... My scalp was only sore because of the elactic bands

But in my experience backcombing doesn't hurt, and mine took 12 hours, one whole day, straight, by myself.

I chose backcombing for personal, practical and aesthetic reasons. What ever you choose make sure it's your decision, go with what feels right to you

If you do go the backcombing route, get a couple of friends, it'll be a breeze!! My backcombing was a bit lonely!! I'd highly recommened employing some friends, offer them pizza

Looking forward to hearing how it goes ^^

 

umm your backcombing might not have hurt for 2 reasons..short hair..and you did it

if u had anhyone else doing it they wouldnt feel what u feel so will be tugging pulling cramming the hair down hard yanking it out at the rootes
odviosly when u do it yoirself u try to avoid pain, u can feel when its hurting so back off
plus..u have short haor.. 10 strokes a dread will get it sem\i done not like the hundreds or thousands of strokes to do 4 feet odf hair therrs a huge differnce between 4 inches and 4 feet.

with the length it will nearly dread overnight if u let it
the proimary difference she'll have besides ithe looks in the 1st few weeks would bne the overall look after either uniform even dreads or more organic ly blended sizes with lil more personality to each.

the natural process is unique in how it causes such unique dreads with such wide varieties of personalities.
the early weeks you see it happening before yoiur eyes but totaly unsure of how it will all turn out, day by day they change..its like raising babies vs adoption sure u can love both, teach em your ways and all, but only one is created from youir genetic material
u can make both part of your family, but only 1 will look like its a part of you
maybe thats not so clear
what im saying is
natural dreads form before tyour eyes out of the will of youir hair to dread, no forcing, they just come into the world a part of you.
as u watch them grow they change a ton, till they mature (even continuing to change slightly long after) they develop very unique personalities early that become who they are later in life.
they never try to be perfect, but insread settle on being amazing.
the process itself is purely enjoyasble
you never worry biyt omg my dreads are 3 days old and unraveling or help theyre frizzy or loopy or bent instead u just sit back and watch it happen trusting that day after day safter day they just get better and better.

its klinda loike a meditstion..just let go and trust
one day u open your eyes and are rewarded with a headful of dreads

 

why are you pushing her to use the neglect method?
its her hair and she deserves to hear recommendations of various methods so she can choose the best for her.
those with experience backcombing are giving a different perspective, why dont you just drop it.

 

uhm, it sounded from the post like they were only using IE because they were on some other computer they didn't normally use. right? because they were commenting on how it was strange that there was not spell check? :hat:

 

anyway, to the OP: if you want to control the size of your dreads, backcomb. just grab sections of the size dreads you want and start backcombing gently at the roots and work your way all the way down. or maybe you could just backcomb half the dread to section it off but not have to do so much work...

also, pay attention to the angle at which you comb the dread, because that will be the way the dread sticks out of your head. like, around your face you might want to do smaller dreads that you comb back from your face, so you can push them back and they're not falling in your face constantly.

that's a lot of hair, but i bet your dreads are going to rock.