I have one dread near the crown of my head, where there is the most loose hair at the moment, that is severely thinning at the root. There's not much hair holding it on anymore - i.e. at the undreaded part at the root. Pretty much just a few strands of hair attaching it to my head. Is there anything I can do to fix this? I am tempted to just pull as much of the undreaded hair out of the dread as possible (keeping as much length as possible) and just let the dread fall off and wait for a new one to form. However I'm hesitant to do this since I'm not sure if the gap will be noticeable or not.
Iv'e Had This Happen, I Suggest You Do What I Did, Just Forget You Ever Saw It, And Get On With Life.... Mother Nature Forms Natural Dreads, Mother Nature Knows What's Best.... Cheers Glen.
Forgot to mention, it's right over a spot where they've been pulling on my scalp kinda tight, and I've actually had a small scab form there on my scalp a few times. So I'm thinking removing it might actually help that issue. I'd hate to lose the dread though, since it is fairly long. But it seems like if I were to keep it, it would just get progressively thinner and thinner as it grew out anyway until it only had 1 strand of hair attaching it, and then it would eventually break off.
I agree. Dreads aren't perfect and are supposed to be a statement of being above vanity. Don't worry so much
Sounds like the root is too tight with your scalp irritation. I would probably pull those loose hairs out and let them be loose (at least until your scalp heals- as you are basically brushing it each time you run your fingers over your scalp there) .. and maybe try to ( or hope it will ) congo whats left of the dread to a nearby one?
If it wants to fall off... I would just let it fall off. Careful... different locs mean different things to different peoples.
yeah watch that pull and skin irritation. if it has to go, I am VERY sure no one besides someone staring down the top of your head for imperfection will ever notice.
I did end up doing what I said, threading the loose hair at the root out of the dread, resulting in the dread itself falling off once I was done. So I was able to salvage about 3 or 4 inches of undreaded root. Luckily, as far as I can tell there isn't a noticeable gap or bald spot where it was. Feels very strange having a severed dreadlock laying around though, actually kind of depressing. I'm still not sure what I'm gonna do with it, very tempted to start cutting it open to see what the inside looks like.
As it turns out, upon inspecting the inside of the lost dread, the inside is kind of gross. I can't really tell what it is, but there's some kind of crap inside it in places. Really hoping it's not mold, it's a light gray-ish green that almost looks like lint, but it's a little to sticky to just be that. Any ideas or advice? I've encountered this stuff before but never really worried about it since I had never directly looked at the core of my dreads before. Edit: more grey than anything else, but I'm somewhat color blind so I can't really tell.
The placement of it was strange though - most of the length of it was fine, but close to where the root was there's a cluster of the crap. I guess all I can really do is a deep cleanse and hope for the best, but it's definitely a bit disconcerting to see this.
That makes sense though, for it being sweat and lint more than mold. That sweat ,dandruff, lint and the like would be on the looser part closer to your scalp instead of inside the more formed, more washed further part of your dread
You can always sew dreads back on. When I had dreads I did this loads of times and it works fine. A friend of mine cut all her dreads off one day then cried all night about it. The next morning I sewed them back on for her. No one could tell the difference.
