Starting dreads Short vs Starting them long

i'm starting mine now, neglect but i've backcombed bits too. my hair's about 3inches...
how easy is it to combine thinner dreads later?? because from how it's going i'm going to have some proper thin ones heh

 

So right now my hair is about 10 inches or a bit more;below shoulder length... assuming my hair will grow at the rate of 1/2 an inch per month, my hair will be about 13 inches long by May of next year.

If I got dreadlocks at 13 inches long straight hair, about how much would my hair shrink up? I love having long hair, but I have been growing it for a little while now and don't necessarily want to lose that much length.

 

You really can't say. I have fairly thick locks my hair was halfway down my back and it shrunk just below my shoulders. Luxiebox, the mod she has dreads way thinner than mine but hers shrunk a lot more than mine. I think the width of the dread matters to the process but again, you can't really say. Take a look at Luxs timeline.

 

last time i dreaded my hair, it lost almost 1/2 its length initially... but my hair is quite textured, not sure if that affects things
and i don't know about the average "shrinkage", just how mine went
hope that's vaguely helpful?

 

I was actually blown away by how little mine shrunk when they were first "put in" using backcombing. I lost maybe an inch tops and my hair was like 12-14 inches.

Totally depends on your hair type, dreading technique, what you had for afternoon tea, etc.

 

Yeah I think afternoon tea is probably one of the most important contributing factors!

 

Alright thanks for the responses guys! As for my hair type, it's straight, but sometimes I think my hair is trying to dread itself! As in I wake up sometimes and knots just randomly appear and it's not because I'm trying to neglect my hair either! lol

I haven't really decided on what method I'm going to use just yet, but I'm definitely planning on using backcombing to start out with, then maybe utilizing A LITTLE bit of wax just to tighten it all up and reinforce them. Not too keen on the neglect method, I think it takes way too long and growing it with neglect looks like utter shit IMO.

 

uh oh

 

:lurk5:

 

arty:

 

that was a cop out from me, so here's a proper response. you're probably going to get flamed for mentioning the "w" word.

i've never used wax myself, but even without having the experience of using it myself, i would pretty firmly discourage anyone from using it. when i first started dreads i was told that i should just not wash my hair for ages, and backcomb. even just having a lot of natural oil in my hair seriously inhibited the dreading process. the best thing for locks is very clean dry hair.

having said that, if you really prefer the look of waxed dreads, and you are willing to continue using it to keep them looking that way, and you don't care about them feeling gross and taking lots of time to maintain then go for it.

just using wax for a little while doesn't really make sense to me. i know a few people on here have done that and are happy with the results, but it seems to me that you would start out with dreads that look 'good' and neat etc, but as soon as you stop using the wax, if you can get it out then your hair just goes back to where you would have been before using the wax. because the wax is gone and there's no actual knots or locking there- the wax has just been sticking all the loose hair together.

i also know a guy who went neglect and his dreads actually look really uniform and neat. and round and perfect. i don't really like the way they look, but that's just the way his hair dreaded naturally. almost looked like he waxed and 'maintained'.

so. whatever.

 

how did you guys section off your dreads,? and what would you recomend, a brick lay patern or just straight squares?

 

bricks unless you wanna look a damn fool.

 

try a series of hectagons in a spiral pattern starting from the crown and working your way around.

 

thats what I figured, cover more scalpage, my buddy didnt do bricks and they turned out nice but he has lots of hair

 

not exactly

 

.

 

care to elaborate?

 

The "damn foolishness" of your sections will depend on whether you do a brick or a tile pattern.
The amount of "scalpage" covered will depend on the size of your sections, regardless of shape or pattern.

 

Make concentric circle shaped sections for some coaxial dread madness

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