salon dread guide (if you must go that route)

we all know most salon dreads are a scam, but one of our own loctitions just pointed out that lumping all salon dreads into that category is harmful to the small number that do use conscientious methods

so it inspired me to create this guide of what to look for and avoid when choosing a salon to help you dread.

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so, lets start with

what to avoid

1. first and most important question to ask is what products (wax's gels etc, weve even heard of glues and latex) are used, if they tell you they use waxes gels dread perms or anything at all say no thanks and hang up.
2. maintanance recomendations, if they recomend any of the following..walk away.. using elastic bands for weeks or months.. using wax gels or any products except soap or maybe sea salt sprays if they recommend scheduling several more touch up/retightening visits (a true sign of the salon dread scam, which involveds doing an intentionaly bad job then schedulling months and months of repeat business which can cost you over $1000) and lastly if they tell you to refrain from washing your dreads for long periods of time..some salons go as far as to recomend no water touch your hair for 6 months to a year...if they say that..laugh before you run
3. do they specialize in synthetic dreads and concider "natural dreads" to be any dreads that arent plastic? if so your best off to avoid them, they are in the bussiness of making temporary dreads to wear to a party but not to keep for life

second thing to concider is the methods they use these have been covered pretty well in other threads so i'll just give a short summery of common options and include some advanhtages and drawbacks backcombing this is a fairly common method used by people who do theyre own dreads at home, it doesnt require the skill of a professional loctition and can be done by yourself or with the help of a freind, advantage is it gets dreadlike clumps of hair knotted togetherin 1 day typicaly so kick starts progress, disadvantagews they tend to stick straight out like sideshow bob a few days, and the agressive backwards combing can be pretty dammaging twist n rip another methiod thats popular but many have trouble figuring out how to do it right, so a experienced locker can be a help..if your totaly unable to do it yourself.. advantages, the dreads look neater thyen backcombed from the start the dammage is far less and they dont generaly stich out weird.. its quick and easy once you figure out the technique crochetting this methods highly debated on the plus side it creates very neat tight dreads right away that can look mature faster, but the tradeoff is they require constant retouching with crochet to maintain an even look and its done by shoving a metal hook through the dread weakening the dread over time twisting and variations generaly used on african type hair with great results, its so simple you could do it yourself without even thinking, they tend to add gells and crap that should be avoided, and recvomend retwisting too often many require 1 twisting only some may need a couple retwists the 1st few weeks but once they hold shape theres no reason to retwist.. there have been stories of dreads over twisted (obsessivly maybe) that were twisted right off

what to look for

1. your best bet is a small time operation that does dreads more of as a favor secondary to theyre normal jobs. but still you should interview themn and be really sure they are going to only do what you want them to
2. price, unless your hairs very long and crazy getting dreads done shouldnt cost more then rent for the month (far less in fact) if your able, its best to negotiate a fair price per hour..with a cap so you dont get surprised..if you have less then a foot of hair and they quote 500-700 dollars ..leave you can always pay a freing 50-70 to help you with the parts you cant do yourself
3. if theyre "salon" is theyre living room chances are better you got a good one as long as all the above check out ok, however, if they do work in a salon setting make sure they listen to what you want them to do..instead of just telling you what they want to do to you.
4. if anything they say doesnt sound right.. research it here before committing

finaly i'll sumerize by saying that in most cases your better off avoiding salon dreads as 90% make a total mess of things and i cant believe im suggesting this route for anyone, but, if you must have a professional look from the start and have alot of money and do your research it is possible to find that 1 in a hundred loctition that does a decent job and will give satisfactory results (i would not ever go only on the recomendation of others without doing this research too)

if your willing and able i highly recomend going natural. or if not doing them yourself with the help of friends and leave the salon dreads as an option only if all otheres wont work for you.

1 last concideration.. its unfortunate but when you tell others how you started yours you may face the fashion dread salon dread lable discrimination factor (hmm that sentence sounded weird)
this might be acceptible to you if conciderations of professional image outweigh it..


in a city the size of philly with possibly hundreds of loctitions i can only think of 1 i would refer people to..but i dont know every one here, there maybe as many as 3-5 out of a few hundred or so

whatever you do, if they are unwilling to do what you want them to do..or if they try telling you it wont work without products or certain tecxhniques dont let them tough you they dont know what theyre talking about


remember the easiest way to dread is always ..forget you even have hair..it will dread on its own

 

I say know their methods and see pics of/ talk to past customers.

 

pics are not always enough, knowing theyre methods is crucial though
and talking to past customers can be misleading too..
odviosly they will only let you talk to satisfied customers who dont realize how screwed they were ..look at the wax thing, literaly thousands of waxy headed people put up thousands of sites praising wax...because they dont know better..


with letting others do anything to your dreads you must know exactly what they want to do...and make sure what they want to do is the same as what you want them to do

you also must know what it is you want too so you have to be well informed yourself

 

I mean you should know methods and look at past customers. And clearly if you're talking to a past customer you know what their dreads look like...

 

looks can be deceiving from looks these look like fairly ok dreads

but they were found by searching for "fake dread hats)
\they are fake dreads attached to a hat
the point isdreads can look right to the untrained eye but still have major problems caused by improper methods
the dude who hade a salon glue his dreads together then fold over the ends and sew them so they blunted from a distance they could look like pictyure perfect dreads but they werre just hair glued into a round mess
going by looks alone can lead to disapointment

thousands thionk that guy from dreadheadhq's drewads look good enough that they flock to his salons and his products

but if you look not only at how thety look but the fact that they are sticky and too stiff to move you realize theyre not good dreads at all...
so do not be fooled by a portfoliuo of too perfect looking dreads...especialy if they mostly all look very simular

 

okay not trying to discount your thread or anything I'm just saying imo the process is simpler

but then again I am a very concise person.

 

the thread was mostly because there are many who warn over and over about how salon dreads are mjistakes.. and although that is pretty much true in most cases, there are legit rerwasons to choose that path.. and there are a very small number oif salons that may do a 1/2 decent job
i didnt want to claimn that every single one is oure evil
but dsidnt want to discount the dangers of choosing the wrong one either
so research into the whole process should be thourough so you have no regrets later

 

Good thread but I don't think salons deliberately do a bad job on dreads, I just think that's the way they've been trained to do it. I think that salons don't understand the process of dreadlocks. I really do think that they are just misinformed and therefore give misinformed advice. I've had friends who've had dreads done in salons, where they specialise in caucasian dreads, and asked the salon not to use wax etc etc and the salon agreed and didn't try to force it they just used water mist instead. The photos that DDHQ etc have on their sites makes people want to have such tidy dreads that they'll keep forking out. I think that if the wax issue was made more public, less salons would use it. That's just my opinion on UK salons anyway.

 

well you maybe right about some salons..like i posted before 1 formjner salon hairdressor turned nurse told me that no salon could do 1/2 as good a job as nature and most made a mess out of it even knowing that she was screwing up peoples heads she had to to keep her job because the bosses insisted they do dreads as long as they were paid for it no matter how bad they came out

but

if you look on dreadheadhwq and knottyboy which we alkl know are sca,mers themselves they warn about the salon dread scam
which is pretty much what mommajojo and probably you yourself got sucked into (seroiusly could any hairdresser really think latex was the right way to make dreads? thats not misinformed thats got to be deliberate sabatouge or incredible stupidity) the salonh dread scam is just designed to keep yopu a slave to salons.. dreads free you from the requirement of cutrting and styling every 2 months
so in order to keep you a steady customer they do a deliberateky bad job then insist on you needing repeat visits every 2 weeks for maintanance and tightening..
week after week goes by and you spend a tojn of money only to grow more and more disgusted with the rtesults then finaly you decide dreades are gross and not for you (because your told not to wash for montrhs and use sticky wax that makes you feel gross) then what do you do but go back to a salon to get the dreads removed and your theyre slave again for life

thats the basics of the salon dread scam. but if you dont fall for the whole scam, at least they charge you every cent they can before you reject theyre harmfdul methods
if your luckt enough to have dreads that survive you'll at least have paid close to 1000 for the mistake

luckily alot do wise up after the 1st few tightening appointments and dont go all the way through to removing the dreads

i wouldnt go so far as saying that 80% of all salons intentionaly try to scam you, but the scam has become pretty much common practice so now many salons just think thats the way to do things and they just dont care that theyre messing up heads because theyre getting paid

 

Your such a treasure SE- you rock :cheers2:
I appreciate your advice, your ability to still respect the methods even if you yourself are more inclined to go the "organic" or "au natural" neglect method. I love how you still respect the reasons why people would choose the salon route, and your still providing groovy advice to keep these people safe from the BS scam salons out there..

Right On! Love for ya man.

 

lol