I know people said that going natural will make your hair separate into the lock thickness and sections it wants to be in. I was wondering if I could do a decent but not fully done backcomb job and do my whole head without separating any hairs. Then just leave it be and have them separate themselves in sections. That way I get a little bit of backcombing and natural. I just want to give my hair a head start. Will that work? Any advice or suggestions? Thanks, let me know if I didnt make any sense.
Is anything ever a dichotomy, tyler? Dreads, like everything else in the universe can be separated into more categories than black or white, things fall into a grey area. The natural is what is natural to you, but to others may mean unnatural. Your dreads will always be what they are and are not, but if you want them to be a certain way you most certainly will not achieve natural locks. You cannot control dreadlocks. Control is an illusion, dreadlocks are about letting go of control. Backcombing is a way of putting knots in hair that isn't already knotted, but most people(including me when i had my first set of dreads) separate the hair into sections. Otherwise it would just be "teasing" the hair[sic?]. The method you describe as a "headstart" is really more of a running start, possibly "jumping the gun." Just put on a hat(wool) and start telling yourself your dreads are coming along nicely, because they are!!! YAY!!! Wash them with residue free shampoo(dr. bronners, or homemade shampoo) every once in a while and play(twirl,twist,twiddle,pinch,rub, etc) with the knots that start to form. remember tyler, patience is a virtue.
you could tease the hair a little, but to be honest, it probably wouldn't knot up all that much faster than if you just let it lock naturally. A lot of people who backcomb their dreads fairly tight have most of them come undone anyways. Like mmg said, patience is a virtue. Stick with it and you surely will reap the benefits in time.
If you want to back comb, I wouldn't recommend doing it to your entire head without making sections. Then you'd just have to separate it yourself, and that hurts like a bitch. If you back combed your entire head, I'd imagine you'd be setting yourself up for one enormous knot, and no dreads. That happened to me once, when I wasn't even trying to dread my hair. If I hadn't have diligently brushed out all the knots, my hair would have ended up in one huge nest of hair. Not dreads.
You can always go natural and rip the ones that are too big, or congo a pair (or more) that are two small. Therefore you can determine the thickness of them, but still leave them to do their thing.
