at a frustrating point in the process

ok guys. im about a year in the natural road and my dreads are basically formed, tight, straightening out, and starting to grow
but now its time for the roots to knot up
uuuuugh i feel like every two seconds i have to make sure all the frizzys dont dread into the wrong place
some of my sections came out in flat horizonal strips of hair, so they look really odd at the root

my main problem is the fluffiness i guess. when i twist my dreads they tighten up at the root and look how i want them to, but they just untwist and explode into bass of friz

just wanted to vent, i guess. any suggestions?

 

Do you twist them when they're wet or dry?

Something I did for a while a few months back was to twist all the roots while my hair was damp after washing.

I went through them one dread at a time, and for each dread I made sure all the loose hairs that belonged with it were bunched against it, then gave the root a twist, about 180 degrees I guess, then kept hold of the dread in that position and did the next one, until I had a bunch too big to hold onto whilst still doing the twisting, at which point I put them into a hairband and started on another lot. Once they were all done I went over the roots with a hair dryer to dry them in that position, took the bands off and carried on drying. They'd come a little untwisted, but most of the loose hairs stayed in place and I think it helped a bit to guide them into the right dread and reduce some frizzies.


Then in the days until the next wash, whenever I was fiddling with them I'd just go through the roots, making sure they were held together and giving them a light twist (and yes I now feel bound to say: of course soaringeagle if you twist and twist far too hard and far too much, you'll twist your dreads right off and if you don't, like me, you won't, OBVIOUSLY! lol)

I still now just have a habit of moving my fingers around the bases of my dreads and kinda squeezing each root, feeling that it's separate from the next root. I never have had to rip them from one another, coz I guess they never get a chance to stray. So it's probably avoiding breakage now I think about it



Here's a pic from 6 months when I was doing the twisting thing a lot after every wash. Although it creates a twisted appearance to them, it keeps a lot of frizzies out of the way and seemed to help a bit with tightening the roots (not 100% though)

When the loose hairs that never knotted their way in got to about 3 or 4 inches long, I just used a needle to thread them into a dread - since I don't want to leave them to form even more dreads.

Was that any help or a load of waffle?! lol

 

i haven't had a waffle in years

 

I think I had a dream about massive waffles the other night....

 

i had the same thing mary, didn't worry about it really but i could see that if i kept twisting them then i would be doing it for ever and they would have a unnatural twist.. so i stopped...a few months latter they were fine and no twisting is necessary. just let them be, they will settle as they grow and tighten. Oh, and just so you know..its the twisting that's causing the "bass of friz" as you call it.

my advice, Let them be, patience is the key. <--lol, it rhymes, must be true.

oh, and stop twisting them..lol

peace.

 

I agree with ozzy. My roots and such go through different phases. I am currently 14 months a long and know what your talking about. I guess the only to do is just wait it out. I try to to think about it too much. I definitely wouldn't twist them.

 

1. you twist: ur not natural!!!11one!
2. you gotta crochet.

but srsly, idk. i had that stage at about 6-10 months. now my hair has calmed down and hardly eats itself at all (though i am two years farther into locking than you) plus, my frizzies are quite reasonable (by my standards).
if youre serious about going natural in a purist sense, then just wait it out. it will probably sort itself out (though you may be one of those people who always has a frizz halo, like my sweetie).
if youre only going natural b/c your hair knots so fast and the result looks awesome, then idk, do whatever you think would work. its youre hair after all, and you have every right to make it look how you want it too.

around 7 months, i had to rip some congos apart that were like halfway merged and that resulted in a ton of loose hair. i left it for a couple months, but it just kept going into the wrong dreads (in a matter of like a day lol) and causing problems, so i crocheted the worst of it into the correct locks. it did help, you cant see it, i dont regret it and my dreads are fine lol.

do you wear wool hats? could help.

 

Wax

 

C'mon now you're being silly

Constuction glue is clearly the better option

 

ahhhhhhhhh she said the w word! my eyes are bleeeeeeeding

thanks for the imput guys. thought im not sure whether to twist them or not...i think ill just keep doing what im (not)doing and just put a hat over the bass of frizz

 

How aggressively are you twisting them? If you are over twisting you could be breaking hairs or hindering locking by putting tension on the root. If you wanna get rid of the fluffiness and don't have the patience a small crochet hook is your friend.

 

In order to lock up new growth I just twist them a couple times and pin them to my head before I go to sleep and take them out when I wake up. It's not the quickest way to go about it but it works after a while.

 

you are always going to have some loose hair at the roots that's not dreaded. the more you try to lock it up, the more it won't (hence the frizz).

the more you leave it alone, the more it will lock up. once there's some knotting at least somewhere along a dread, it will finish locking up.