Wax Vs. Non Wax Picsss?

Im new to this site , and i have been reading like all the threads and you all seem very friendly, so heres my question...
I need help, i want to get dreads very badly, and i wanna backcomb, and im stuck between useing and not useing wax... so please help out by posting pictures of your dreads, and say if they are waxed, or not waxed, and if wax say will your happy with them, and if they weren waxed, do you wish you did use wax?? Please post pictures so i can see the difference...
Thanks

 

I will post photos in a bit of them but I think you should also add whether you want bickering and arguing from people, or make a rule to stick to just pictures and personal experiences.

 

If you want to keep your dreads for a long time dont wax. It will fuck them up in the end

If you just want them for like a year or something and want them to look neat go ahead and wax.

Mine are unwaxed and grown through neglect/natural mathod. pictures iny my profile

And I would say use the twist and rip method over the backcombing. IMO it produces way better looking and tighter locks

 

Mine are t&r, no wax, i like how they look They're young but i believe they will just get even better as time goes on

 

Yeah they look awesome

 

I have very thick coarse hair. I used DHHQ wax. Wax, I will admit is completely unnecessary but was helpful for me. It helped keep the backcombed knots in place and controlled frizzies. I stopped waxing after about 6 months and have had absolutely no problems with them. They are 4 years old now.



Waxed (I would strongly advise against using rubberbands, a few got swallowed and I had to cut them out)

Shortly after not using wax anymore

Closer to the present

Now for the big question. Would I start with wax again... probably not, but not because it caused any damage or anything... At this point in my life I don't like spending money on unnecessary things but... if I still had wax, I would definitely use it before a formal situation to make my hair look a bit more presentable. Hope my information helps.

 

Your dreads look amazing brayingdonkey!

 

http://dreadlocktruth.com/community/index.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1745&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
This is a great little experiment going on over at dreadlocktruth.com. 2 freshly started dreads -1 waxed - 1 unwaxed. Complete with youtube vids.

 

I used wax too and it did end up causing problems for me. If you want to read the full history of my dreadlocking experience you can read it here.

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=350226&f=209

Anyway to the question of would I use wax again, no way would I. I do believe it can be pulled of successfully if used with extreme caution, but the risks of overdoing it are great imo.

If I was to start afresh then I would either go natural, twist+rip or backcomb, depending on what was going on in my life at that point.

I am aware that I have been extremely critical of wax in some of my previous posts, maybe too critical, probably due to the fact that it did end up causing me problems.

@ BD I'm interested when you waxed did you round off the tips with wax like they say to do in DDHQ, (the wax I used btw). I was just thinking that maybe that contributed to the problems in not allowing the water to run out of the dreads so well.

I'm questioning this because I would guess that I also probably used wax over about a period of about six months, and it was about 4 years later that I then started to get problems with it.

I would also like to say when I did cut those areas off, like I said in my thread above, there was wax build up still in the dreads in places, not everywhere by any means, nevertheless there was some still in there after all those years of washing. Maybe this is a sign of overuse which I'm not rulling out.

If you are considering using it then just be extremely careful, and don't use anything like the amount that DHHQ say. I actually looked at the site recently and pulled out the wax from my cupboard, weighed it out on the scales to see just how much it was, (yes I was that bored). Anyway that's just far too much imo.

I'll post a couple of comparative pics for you. Whatever you do, do your research first, and form your own opinions rather than particularly believing any one person. Good luck...:cheers2:

Ok this pic was directly after waxing.

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Next one was then maybe about after a year of no wax, maybe longer.

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And recently a little more than six years since I started out....

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No I didn't try to round out the ends using wax. I did rub them (afew a lot) but they were completely reluctant to lock up so I quit. I didn't use as much wax as the dreadheadhq site suggested, I only used that I could just barely feel it. A chunk of hair is about to fall off, (its damaged from using it to tie up my locks into a ponytail) and when it finally does, I'm going to dissect it to see what's inside. I'll post my results. Do be careful if you use wax. It's very easy to overuse.

 

Yes, I wish I'd taken pics and posted them when I dissected some of mine. I do vaguely remember I thought about it, but I remember thinking at the time it wouldn't show up well enough. This just goes to show that the build up wasn't that extreme, in terms of how it looked inside. It was the fact that they started to smell musty when they were wet was the real problem.

 

Here's a thread from a little while back:
http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=350218&highlight=more+waxy+stuff&f=209

There's a fair bit of waxy discussion there. It gets derailed at times but mostly comes back on track and is probably worth a look through to help you. Somewhere in it are several pics of my own dreads, which I started with wax, showing the transition from waxy to unwaxed.

In short, wax didn't ruin my dreads, but I used it in ignorance of the fact it was not actually necessary, and wouldn't use it again if I started over.

I'd encourage you to at least begin without wax, try all the alternatives to wax for solving the various issues for which people turn to wax, and then, if you really really believe it's truly the only answer for your dreads, try it in minimal amounts on a couple of dreads. If it appears to do what you want it to do, then go for it I guess, but make it the very last resort.

 

Ok here's where the pics are:

http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=350218&page=17

 

Me 2 weeks in and waxy


7 months..non- waxy, they are a mess, and I just really dont give a shit anymore...they are doing what ever they are gonna do...and if not...ahhh shit

 

I started with wax, but bees wax rather than the DH stuff, which is probably worse as it was in solid blocks and was ugh, anyway i think it was alright for a while as it kept them together when new, but then i picked and cut out all the wax after a few months, apart from in the tips as i liked how neat it made them, after maybe 8 months i cut the last of the tips and just let them all dread up by themselves. After i'd had the wax in a few months i stopped caring what they looked like and just let them sort themselves out, you get used to looking all knotty after that amount of time anyway

 

hey.. if you can be bothered, find 'Derrys Dready Thready' - its my current set of dreads, backcombed with no wax. i dont do any maintenance nor do i use any 'products'. theyre my best set

also try and find the thread 'My Old Dreads' - my last set of dreads. waxed to F and back. i caked it on cause i thought i was doung it right.. just gross. They were the worst set

 

thanks everyone for the help, i sitll dont know if i should use no wax, or just a tiny tiny tiny bit right after i backcomb:S , but i have a few more months to think about it, before i begin my jorney

 

dude how did your dreads go blonde, cos from what i saw in your first pic, your hair is not naturally blonde.

 

Lol, I can assure you my hair is blonde, quite blonde in fact. Maybe not as much as it was when I was a child, but still fairly blonde, and no, I have never bleached my hair ever. It's all natural bleaching over the years. Also I think it was probably the wax that made my hair look darker in that picture.

*Edit-To some extent it could as well have just been the light when taking the picture, but it's certainly bleached over the years.

 

1 of 4 posts...Started with wax & microbraiding...don't even go there on how f'n stupid this was please, thanks