Okay, I want to stop brushing my hair in January and apart from seperating, leave it to its own devices. I have curly hair that I think will start to knot easily...but I have some questions about seperating into sections: 1) When should I start seperating? 2) Once my hair's in sections, how often should I keep seperating it? i.e. Every day...week...when it looks like it needs it. 3) I want to wash my hair once a week (1-2 weeks is the frequency I wash it now) but am worried that any knots that form will somehow weaken when I wash them...Also do I have to seperate my hair after each wash (should I do this whilst wet or dry?) ? 4) Wearing a tam (or other hat) - each time I take my hair down will I have to seperate it? 5) Sleeping - do I have to wear a tam / have to seperate hair on waking? Thanks in advance for your advice.
this is easier than what you think it is, or at least what i think what you think it is. you will be able to tell yourself. stop combing your hair and within a week or two the hair will start to form into sections. you will see bigger sections, smaller sections and sections that are attached to another section at some spot. depending on what sizes you want and where you want them will determine what sections you will be ripping. personally, i would wait until my hair is dry before i start playing with it. dry hair isn't hard to work with, but i find wet hair is a bit too willing to separate for its own good. you will be able to figure this one out for yourself by testing what works best for you. whether you need to separate after wearing a tam would depend on how long you had the thing on and what locks have joined. there isn't set value or standard you can go by, you just need to check through the hair to see what locks are trying to join and what locks are staying as loose sections. dont worry, you will get familiar with each lock as they form. i sleep with a tam because it keep the locks raise and in a fixed position. they wont get flattened by the weight of my head, or squished together while in the tam, so i wont get unpredictable lock patterns. it helps things, i find, but it isn't a necessity should you object to wearing a tam at night. once again, separating will be a personal choice for you. if you go to sleep with certain locks in certain ways, you will more or less have the same conditions when you wake up, maybe in a more advanced stage. say you wake up with two locks joining that you don't want to joining. you're going to separate these, but you don't need to do it right after you wake up. they won't just form into a unbreakable super lock during the day so no worries. so most things about separating are about personal preference. you might want to wait until you have more of a lock to work with before you separate, you will know when its time. like i said before, this isnt a science and you will get familiar with your hair.
Hello! I don't know the answer to number 1 but number I do it monthly to two monthly. Basically my rule of thumb is if you lift up one dread and the nearest one lifts too then I separate. Number 3, Washing will not damage knotting. The only way you can damage by washing is if you use conditioners or shampoos with conditioners in them. You don't need to separate while washing or when wet. Just wash your scalp only as the soap will clean the dreads as it is rinsed out. Most people prefer Dr Bronners or making a baking soda solution. 4, you don't have to separate while wearing a tam. You will eventually learn when they need separating. And 5, It does help to wear a wool tam while sleeping and again, no need to separate. Relax and enjoy your dreaded journey
thanks Glacius and hellodreadhead - your advice makes a lot of sense to me. Glacius: "this is easier than what you think it is, or at least what i think what you think it is." Yep Glacius, you're right, I was was thinking it was much more complicated.
Also, I am a few months into natural dreads and it's worth noting that natural dreads will form from the ends towards the root, not from the roots down. So separating might not be super easy at first. I separate only when I notice that a dread has a massive root base and will turn into a ginormous dread.
It's interesting; when I had shorter hair and I wouldn't brush, my dreads seemed to start randomly. Half at the roots, half at the ends. I would say anything over shoulder length is going to dread up though, just because of the fact the ends rub each other more, and the weight of the hair keeps the top part straight.
I have to rip dreads apart a couple times a week. Some days are worse than others. If you wait too long to rip it will downright hurt when you do. I've many of these occasions, especially in the first 6 months as I really didn't know when to start ripping. You really just need to feel around everyday. My hair requires significantly less ripping then it did 6 months ago. A lot of the loose hairs have found their way into dreads and I know what to look for. Look for the roots growing together. It's like you have two dreads then at the root they merge into one knotted mess. You could either leave so they eventually combine, or rip them to keep them seperate. I have a mixture of both. A few dreads were so vigorous about combining I just couldn't keep up with the ripping and just let them do there own thing. A couple combined themselves to so well I can't rip them apart without ripping the entire thing out of scalp...this was a result of waiting entirely too long to rip. I'm happy with the results now, but it's taken a while for this congo made of 5 dreads to mature into its own. And of course others I have let combine just because I didn't like the smaller dreads where they were. And don't worry about the shower. I find that my locks tighten the most while I'm in the shower. At first, especially with short hair, the water might undue some knots. But in the end with longer hair I find it just helps things a long. Don't worry about sleeping with a hat on or anything. Your head will do plenty of rubbing when you sleep.
mine are 1 1/2 month old and at the beginning i didnt have to rip at all, but now its every day. my hair seems to want to have two massive dreads on the side of my head!
Hi thanks for your posts. What if my hair knots into a big ball in the middle of the strands - neither at the root nor tip? Should I rip that apart of leave it / wait for the rest to knot up?
I'd leave it. I think you may mean looping they'll go completely after the first year. Although, I'm getting to the one year mark and still have a lot
Hi hellodreadhead, I haven't started the dreading process / neglect yet (that'll start 1st Jan), I'm just trying to gather information at the moment, and was wondering if my hair knots into a matted ball (which is what it does if I leave it for a while without brushing and tie it back in a ponytail) - What should I do then? P.S. I don't intend to tie my hair back when I start dreading it...so maybe this won't be a problem.
Thanks Glacius [Just over 3 weeks until I stop brushing, I've bought a few hats, and only need shampoo now...Will post some pictures of my progress somewhere on here once it's underway.]
i've stopped combing since september but my hair is only 4.5 inches right now, so i guess it's too short for now
1. When I first started, I separated after every time I washed because a) that's mostly when the pre-dread clumps would form and b) I found it easier to separate when wet. That's basically how I grew dreads - washing then separating clumps, washing then separating clumps, and so on until I had dreads. 2. as needed. 3. Don't worry about the knots un-forming. If it happens, they'll eventually re-form and "take" Just be prepared to be patient. As I mentioned above, after washing was precisely when I separated. 4. you may... depending on how friendly your hair gets. I personally don't need to... but I have a habit of finger-combing my dreads to smooth em out, so that probably keeps em pretty separate. 5. I personally don't wear a tam at night. Again, if your hair is super-friendly you may have to separate when you wake. Keep in mind that with separating it also depends on how thick you want your dreads to get. If you want them to get huge you won't separate as much. For smaller dreads, separate more.
