My dreads suck!!!!!

So I've had them exactly a week today, and I decided to wash them. But now they are very very very loose and very itchy. In some spots I think there is a redish rash developing and it's driving me crazy. I'm thinking of just brushing them out, althought it's a real piss off after the long 9 hour process, plus I would love them if they would stay in! Any ideas? I think this might just be to much maintaining for me, for now.

 

Well I brushed them out and lost a shit load of hair WOW!!! I will definatly get them again once I get dread wax and after I see my relatives this christmas.

 

well, you shouldn't have washed them so soon anyway! When you do wash them, try to find a phosphate free shampoo, or one with little-no leave in ingredients (smells count too!), and don't condition them.

Firstly the itching, this drives me nuts too. Knotty boy have an amazing product out, I think its in a bar like a bar of soap, which completely kills any itching, I would recommend it to anyone, it's brilliant. Short term- take antiinflammatories and painkillers, I'm quite suprised its started being itchy so fast. Dreads usually get itchy from things left in your hair, not the dreads themselves or bugs (I was so freaked I had lice for a while, you hear all kinds of horror stories but it's not bugs ok!! Get your head checked if you're not sure), so I'm thinking it'll probably be your shampoo and conditioner (Never condition dreads). Make sure that when you wash your hair you don't use any product which will leave things in your hair, you know how your hair smells nice after washing it? The shampoo has left something in your hair, and it will make you itch! Things like 'stabilisers' and 'proteins' (hair ads talk so much crap) are all left in your hair and they do cause itching. There's more on shampoos below.

Another good short term solution for itching which I used is to dunk my head in cold water, or cover it in hot water in the shower. Swimming is great for stopping itching, but I noticed you're in canada don't get too cold!!

hmmmm what else.....I've mentioned further on that salt water is good for tightness of dreads, it is great, but if you get too much directly on your scalp your skin will tighten and you'll itch, so watch out for that. Salt water isn't too important at the start of the dread anyway.

Small red dots are normal, it's what happens when you itch a lot, I know it sucks, but try really hard not to itch! I shaved my dreads off because of the itching once and really regretted it (got em back now!), so keep trying, give it a shot The more you itch the more you harm your scalp, and it can get quite bad so keep trying the short term solutions

Umm..I'll suggest a few things, do as many as you can, its best to do them in the order I'm giving them to ya, if you miss a step it doesnt matter, but don't mix up the order- for example if you bleach your hair after waxing it the bleach falls off so there's no point.

First thing to do is get the looseness/gaps sorted. Your hair should look like someone has mashed it up and stuck it all back together pretty much,
-if there are bits in your dreads which you can poke a pencil/finger through, you need to fix them up.
OR
-If bits look like straight hair (ie the dreads have slipped and theres dread on either side but a gap of normal straight non dread)
then get a paperclip, unfold it so it's like a screwed up 'S' (so it WAS like 2 triangles on top of each other, you unfold it so it's shaped like a retarded S or a diamond with a line through the middle). Poke the longest triangle through the middle of the bit of the dread where there's a gap, it might take a bit of wiggling. Now, there's a gap in the triangle where the wire of the paperclip stops. Pay attention to this- make sure that there's always 2 sides of the triangle through the dread, I plug up the gap with my finger so I don't have to worry. On the other side of the dread there should be the end of the paperclip, grab the tip of the dread you're working on and push it through the end of the paperclip. A recap- now you should have half of the diamond (paperclip) on one side of your dread, the 2 sides of the triangle (the other half of the diamond) should be through the middle of the dread, and the tip of the triangle should be on the other side of the dread altogether with the tip of that dread through it. Now, grab the triangle which isn't going through the dread and pull it away from the dread so that the tip of the dread goes right through the gap in the dread. remove the paperclip entirely from your hair, and pull the tip of the dread right through until the dread has pretty much turned itself inside out. I call this 'turning'. Do this everywhere that there's a gap. I'll try to put a picture up, that probably sounds confusing About every 2 weeks you should turn the top of your dreads so that your new hair becomes dreaded, and you look tidier.

To tighten them in general, wash your hair in salt water (by wash I mean dunk your head in, swirl it round), as salty as you can get, swimming in the sea is the best thing for dreads. DON'T towel dry your hair afterwards. Give it a shake and air dry it, best to stick your head out the car window. Do this as often as you can, beach bums always have the best dreads!!

If you're into hair colour, bleach your hair, bleaching is as good as it gets for dreads. By bleaching I mean dying it blonde with peroxide, not slushing your head round in kitchen bleach. It sounds like you didn't get perming solution put in your dreads because they're coming loose- bleaching is the next best thing. Now that i've said that for g-ds sake do NOT get your hair permed unless its at a salon, by someone familiar with dreads (or, in my case, an ex hairdresser working from home), it's really dangerous. If you don't want your hair blonde, dye it after bleaching it but bleach it first.

Have you waxed them? Get beeswax, or what ive done lately is use shaping mud which isn't the best but will do. just put a bit of the wax on your palm, rub your palms together to get it all over both palms, and you basically rub your palms together while moving down the dread. The idea is to totally cover every part of the dread with a thin coat of wax and push stray hairs back into the dread. You should do this every 2 days for about the first 2 weeks you have your dreads, if they're loose it might be because of this.

It doesn't sound like you got your dreads done too well dude. For the first week mine were hurting..they should be so incredibly tight when theyre first done, the wax is only to keep stray hairs in place, not to hold them together. If you want to keep them I suggest you get a perm (its not making them curly!). You wrap each dread with a pipecleaner, whose role is to essentially hold it apart from other dreads and together (so it won't attach itself to other dreads), and then the hairdresser just applies perming solution as they normally would. However, if you're not sure about keeping them, if you try to take out your dreads afterward this leaves your hair a total mess and really damaged..

Anyway, I'll try to put a pic up showing what I mean with turning if you don't get it. Good luck!

 

fiiiiiine i took all that time and you posted before me

 

NO TO WAX!!!!!. www.knottylocks.tk .

 

castile soap rocks for my dreadies. After I was them they do get a lil loose, but they knot back together quick. Also, dont even complain about it taking 9 hours, mine took 13

 

Well first off my dreads were not done that well, because I did them completely myself and the teeth on my comb kept breaking off and it was the only comb I had ... second my hair is dead straight so it was extremely difficult to do this anyhow because they would not dread...Third next time I get them I will get my friends to help me out and I'll be sure to have plenty of combs and dread wax and proper natural shampoo. Fourth thank you so much for replying to this post I will make sure to keep it bookmarked so I will have the directions first hand!
Muchly appresiated!

 

question...

i woke up this morning... and a HUGE part of my hair in the back was all matted and knotty and shiznit... i normally dont brush my hair at all when i take a shower... ive always wanted dreads.. so i was like hell, might as well start em!

what im doing is:

sorta backcoming/twisting/rubbing them to form dreads...and i did that... so then i was like hmmmm... i need to shower and i forgot that i shouldnt wash my hair... i just drenched my hair in straight water... is that bad? i didnt use any shampoo or anything though, just water. basically im just gunna let em form, and if i feel need be, ill backcomb some of them...

what do you guys think?? is what im doing dumb?? i know my hair is gunna look hella wack for a while, but its cool, i really dont care... or do you think i should just forget this and get someone to backcomb for me?? Also, when should i start using some salt water?? how much salt should i put in??

thanks!

 

after I got my dreads done I did not was them for a week, then every day after that I just put a bag or a shower cap over them, and just washed them once a week

 

i second knottynikko's post: www.knottylocks.tk and wax is evil evil evil.for the love of murphy stay away from the wax. my hair is bone staight and superfine too and they dreaded just fine. washing them when they felt gross-dirty helped because they knotted and tightened up a bit. i've combed them out because of salondread waxshit hell made them look ugly but i'm putting them back in in the new year and this time i'm doing it right. try putting elastics at the tips to keep em from un-knotting. don't bleach your hair unless you want the colour. try braiding them after you have a shower and then leave them in to dry overnight to give it some kinkyness if you want before you backcomb. and peacelovebarefeet alot of people start their dreads that way so its all good.

 

be patient. dreads are not formed overnight. iv been letting my hair dread for over a year now and still have all kinds of loose hair. you have to learn to love the proccess, otherwise youll get sick of them real fast, because it does take a long time.


i would also recommend staying away from wax...not only is it real hard to get out but your more prone to mold.

 

you can wash your hair, in fact id recommend it if your caucasian, as our hair tends to get too greasy and essensially hinders the locking process. i wash my hair about once a week. the best dread shampoo iv come accross is dr. bronners. good luck and be patient

 

Haha...mine took 14.

 

Well.... its a shame u combed them out...... but you can always starts again..
You should have just let them go off and unraveled them self and then reravel themselves.. you see it just takes time and they just do there own thing.. next time u do it... just dont use any wax!.. its fine if u dread your hair your self... i did it and it took me 3 weeks! hahahaha i only did i a few day.. and i dreaded my friends hair that took 18hr of straight dread locking.. 80 dreads LONG dread straight hair.. but it was worth it... i had blisters on my hand.. annd you see if you just leave them to do there own thing... they will be fine! sooo just go on and forget about your hair and look at it in a few months down the road see what u will find there

 

http://www.howtodread.com/dreadlocks.html

I dunno how good that is; it's my brothers link.

I did my dreads with a friend, it took me 6 hours and my hair is waist length :& (mind you it's plastic)

I stopped using wax a while back, but I can't find anything that'll keep all the ends and stray bits in my dreads, they've gotta look really good and clean and not scruffy for work and the stuff I'm using at the moment sucks, so I dunno. I might have to start for want of something better.

I have the straightest, thinnest hair anyone could ever have, which sucks because I keep having bad dreams my dreads will unravel themselves. Other than that, it was great to dread/have as dreads (before I cut it off). Getting them wet can make them slip, so if I get them wet I shampoo them to make them tighter and basically make getting them wet worth it.

With salt water, get as much salt in the water as possible. You can do it whenever, as soon as you want, but if your dreads have just been done (if you just dreaded them), I'd say avoid actually swimming in the sea for a bit, cause the waves etc knock them round heaps and they can slip. I just have some salt water in a spray bottle and spray them when I remember.

 

close enough

 

AHHHHHH ALL THIS WAX talk and dread perm.. and negitive talk..... looks like u didnt get them done well talk.. u dont even need to "do" them to get them!!!! sorry i just hate bad advice. "not to put you down".. but Just re dreadlock your hair and let it be.. treat it like you would if u didnt have dreads live your normal life and they will be beautiful! NO PRODUCTS NO WAX an please dont go and spend money on a dread perm... salons are a place for "style" and for "looks" if you want dreads for this reason then u shouldnt have dreadlocks


oh and dread should not be tight as hell when u first get them done... they should be lose and fuzzy and ripped up and bla bla bla... so the hair can move around and naturally lock to itself and tangle and retangle its self... backcombing is a process to "speed" up entire process.. not to have dread like BAM! id suggest going to www.knottylocks.tk

Take a look at my veiw on .. New locks "having" to look "perfect" http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=37528&page=20&pp=10