thinking about going natural, some questions first (SE can you help?!)

so it took me all night the other night to comb out my hair after having them for a month. i didnt like the size. since then, i have been thinking about going the natural route, but first i have to ok it with work. i have been looking on the net at some natural time lines. i see that it varies with each person how fast the hair starts to lock up. also i have seen some that looks really great and other that are just, well scary. here are a few videos of some that i have found that shows different times of going natural. the 4 months i think i could get away with at work, but the 16 months one i think they would have a problem. the 2.5 year one is the reason why i am thinking about going this route.

what are some things that i can do if i go this route to help my hair lock up, keep it where i can go to work with it, keep it healthy, or any other things that can be helpful? below are some images of what my hair looks like today, i took them out sunday night, washed them sunday night with DHHQ shampoo, havent brushed it since, used some sea salt monday and today. will that help it lock better/faster the natural route or do i just wash it? also, how often should i wash it? thanks everyone

4 months
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLU_GakccOQ&feature=related

16 months
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpL3L_NYUxc

2.5 years
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZZIGQH01SE&feature=related

 

Your hair looks quite thin which might make neglect difficult, however it's curly which will make it alot easier.
Worth a try though, wearing a wooly hat speeds up the process

 

dude first of all thin hair dreads faster than thick hair, which is why thick asian hair dreads the hardest.
second, wearing wooly hats/tams/whatever does not necesarily guarantee you dread faster, and you may end up with bits of wool stuck in your dreads+hinder the locking process.

 

There's more hair there with thick hair, ergo more to knot, thin hair is more spaced out at the root so its difficult for it to group together.
Wooly hats rub the hair more causing more knots, it doesn't magically create dreads but it helps the process along a bit

 

ok boys, thin hair and thick hair wtf are we talking about? you can have fine hair and still have a lot of it, which would make it seem "thick". i have fine hair and lots of it, my hair is locking beautifully!

 

oh you meant thicker as in denser. thought you meant thicker hair strand. yeah denser hair definitely locks up faster.
tho about tams i still think they don't do much, i've read through these forums somewhere that they hinder the process more than they help.

 

Hmm, the wooly hat thing isn't somthing I've tried myself, but a friend of mine recommended it after he did it and got nice dreads, I just thought it to be quite logical.
But different hair types often get different results, neglect didn't work at all for me, I backcombed, took a very long time to mature too

 

mines well i dunno if each hairs thin or thick, odviolsy my beard hairs are 3 times as thick as the head hairs but i got a hell of alotta hair on my head and it dreaded very fast beard lil slower but still when it gets long enough it dreads easy

seasaltdefinately helps so do wool trams, as long as you arent constantly wearring it if i would use a tam to help dread id mix it up 1/2 the timer with 1/2 wiithout
like all things it can be overdone
id just wear it when ya wanna wear it but not feel like ya have to wear it if that makes sence..
timewise, hard to guess the hair seems slightly fine nbut not too, and is right about min lenhgth guess another inch or 2 will help alot but it should begin to dread as is
ya probly will se4e some decent progress in 2 months but hard to say how much
its already starting to look like it wants to..but that doesnt always mean you'll have dreads in weeks
just keep doin what your doin and see hoew it comes out u can clear it with work when they start to notice..lol

 

I have fine, thin, and not a lot of hair. Like thin in all aspects and it is locking up just fine I think, I think it may knot up faster because hair like mine tends to need a lot of brushing, normally, because of how easily knots form.

 

Good advice right there

sea salt helps alot, makes the hair more coarse and dries it out a bit.
A word of caution though, get sea salt from the SEA, aka, go swimming in the sea. Some people mix salt and water in a bottle and put it on their hair, that can dry the hair out too much and damage your scalp

 

thanks everyone.

SE: great advice about work lol i will see about wearing the tam at work then when not at work just let it be. since i only work 2 1/2 days there and the rest is at home, that way i wont over due wearing it

KnotNatural: i do plan on going to the beach at least every other weekend this summer but til then i am using sea salt that i bought from the store mixed with a little lemon juice and water

gretaoto: my hair knots up a lot if i dont comb it after a shower

i guess my only other question is, twisting the hair while watching tv, is that a bad thing or can it help?

 

Hehe you make me lol a bit but in a good way You seem to have very thorough thought processes

 

best of luck to ya man! give us an some pic updates when they start to change a lil

 

ok, i am going to try it! wish me luck, how often should i wash my hair? also where can i get a good price tam at? hope this works out well lol, kinda worried they might turn out like my cousins but i hope they wont, i hope that they will turn out more like the guys in the video of the 2.5 years. i will see how things work out this way for awhile. thanks for the advice everyone!

amybird: lol yeah, well i always wanted dreads. always was going to do it the DHHQ way but after one month, i really didnt like the size and well, its kinda hard to determine what size i want so i figure what the hell, if i let it happen natural, i will have different sizes and i cant go wrong with that. yeah my thought process is funny b/c of the digital animation work, have to stay about 3 steps ahead of yourself with it lol so i pretty much do it with everything.

 

Loving that guys dreads in the 2.5yr vid. Some nice congo's going on in the back. Hopefully mine will look something like that in 1.5 years.

Just wash when you feel you need it. A general guide is to wash roughly once a week, but different for everyone. Some people dont wash at all, and some people wash once every 2 days. Go with what feels best.
With the tams, I'd recommend chemigals website. I cant remember the address though. Maybe someone can repost it.

Good luck
p.s. what sorta work you do? Is it something to do with 3d design?

 

I think people think too much about their dreads.....dreads are knots....thats it....why should it take strenuous brain power? If you wanna go natural...then do it. Your dreads are going to do what they will do....theres nothing you can do the natural route to make them look like anything other then what theyre going to look like. Does that make sense? yes... sea salt may help them knot faster because it dries out your hair but too much will be irritating to your scalp and cause dandruff. If you combed your hair out after 1 month because you didnt like the shapes or something then the au naturale route isnt going to be any better....its just gonna take longer for the weird shapes to form! =]

 

white snow, thanks, i will see if i can find that web page. as for work, from home i do free lance 3d animation work. the job i have 2 1/2 days out of the week is a budget mang. for a homeless program trying to help people save money to get their own place within two years. thats the one i have to get the ok with. its a nonprofit thing so my boss has to meet with a lot of people and get grants to pay us, so i am not sure if she will be ok with it but tomorrow i am going to find out. hopefully she says all i have to do is where a tam at work

by the way, love your dreads

 

Haha my boyfriend did charity work with the homeless and he has crazy man dreads....everybody always thought he was one of the homeless guys and were always trying to feed him and corral him onto the homeless bus that takes them to the shelters and stuff....it was hillarious!

 

mandyland: i didnt comb my hair out after a month bc of the shapes or anything. i just did not like the size i had and i did not like the uniform look of them like i thought i would. it was my first try with dreads and i wanted to try the way that i seen worked for the people that i meet that had dreads that i liked. but i didnt like the uniform look on me. after seeing some time lines of the neglect way, i realized that i prefer that look better b/c you get a variety of sizes and the sections are not all the same. plus my cousin turned me off of trying the neglect way but after seeing others that had really great results i want to go that route.

 

Mandy makes a good point. If you combed your old dreads out because they weren't the exact size you were after I really think the natural route wouldn't be for you. Sure you can control the size somewhat by separating, but only so much.

Edit: You last post got in before me. I see you didnt like the uniform look. Good luck with the naturals.