¡Hola! I would just like to say that I love you SE!!!! And moving on.... I have been letting my dreads mature on their own, I did some backcombing and added a few rubberbands, but they're just doing their own thing for now. I'll be posting some pics soon. My questions pertain to dying them. (I know, not natural, but I'm not perfect....... .....yes I am.) Bleaching: should I leave it on as long as directed, or rinse sooner, as my hair is pretty dry? (I wash every day with residue-free shampoo, which is awesome, fyi.) Will bleaching and dye help dread slightly faster? Does temp. dye stay in dreads longer than undreaded? I know these are some pretty amateur dready questions, but if you don't ask, you'll never know. Thanks guys.......
Hello! Firstly, bleaching and dying will tighten your dreads up a bit. It takes a long long time to thoroughly rinse the bleach out (which you must do), so I think you should calculate that partly into the time you leave the bleach on for. I wouldn't leave it much longer than the instructions say. When I bleached mine recently, I used cider vinegar when rinsing, because I thought that would help neutralise the bleach and stop it working while I was getting it all out. It seemed to help. Oh, how long is your hair? Dreads soak up dye/bleach/everything like a sponge, so you need to make sure you have plenty of the dye to start with. If you are bleaching just to lighten your hair enough to dye (e.g. it's not so important to have it perfect blonde) then you don't need to leave it on for ages anyway. Sorry this answer has been disorganised. I can help you more if you need
I've got a dreadlocks blog. Here are my posts on bleaching and dying...maybe they will help a bit: http://dreadblog.amykristiansen.net/archives/875 http://dreadblog.amykristiansen.net/archives/370 http://dreadblog.amykristiansen.net/archives/413 Sorry about the external linking, I just really can't be bothered to type a lot right now!
I recently bleached & dyed my bangs and a few of my dreads. I left the bleach on for the recommended amount of time, and like amy, I rinsed with vinegar at the end. I have noticed that the semi-perm dye stays in my dreads longer than my loose hair/bangs. The colour comes out darker in my dreads too. I left the dye in for about 15 minutes longer than reccomended because I always need to do this to get a true colour with my hair type. The last time I dyed all of my dreads black with a semi-perm dye, I used 4 boxes and I still had some patchy spots.
Oh yeh...using veg-based dyes is not too risky...I left mine in for several hours. The colour seems to last a lot longer in my dreads. But I'm also using a better dye than I was before. If you wash your hair every day, then the dye will fade faster. I only wash mine once or twice a week.
Thanks everybody!!!! My hair's about 1 1/2' long, from my scalp, and I'm playing with some different color ideas. I like bright colors on the ends. Pics soon... Thanks again!
