The Stages of Backcombing

I've been wanting to dread up my hair for a while now, and now I have my sister's friend (who's good with hair) offering to help me!

I'm just a little confused on the whole cycle of it.
I don't plan on using wax, since most people say it's bad, but I'm not sure about rubber bands (or hair ties?).

People say that dreads fall out before locking up, does this mean they come completely undone or just loosen up? Will my hair look like a frizzy, knotted mess before they start locking up?

I don't care for super-tight dreads, but I don't want to go to school with awful-looking matted hair. If they're loose for the first month or so, then that's totally fine- as long as they LOOK like dreads :2thumbsup:

I have mostly straight hair, though it has a big of a wave to it. I'd put pics up, but my camera wire went missing

:sunny:

 

No matter what method you use, they won't LOOK like "good" dreads, in the eyes of most, for like a year, if ever.

If you don't care for tight dreads don't get dreads. When they're mature, dreads are very tight and hard.

If you can't handle hobo hair, dreads are not for you. If you care what others think you'll be miserable.

 

If you constantly crochet them at a young age & continue to do so, they will be the shape of dreads and resemble dread locks... but they also will take longer to actually lock up since your prolonging the process by poking, pulling, and breaking hairs. I don't necessarily condone this but you seem impatient and that will probably be the route that will make you happy in the short term of things.

 

Dreadlocks take a good year or more atleast before they start maturing into what you would consider real dreadlocks, regardless of what method you use. Backcombing, twist and rip, crocheting simply allow you to have a certain amount of control over the thickness of the dreadlocks you'll get and will partition your hair into sections making them look roughly dreadlock-like, but most likely not what you're expecting.

All methods are going to have the good 12-18+ months of being very messy and loose, with lots of wispy loose hair coming out of the roots and tips, this is pretty much unavoidable unless you crochet all the loose hair back in all the time, as in every time you take a shower, any time you get caught in the rain, anytime it gets windy out.. bla bla bla. I don't know anyone who has head crocheted dreadlocks long term so I'm not sure how they turn out when they mature, but I know the texture of crocheted dreadlocks is slightly different from the texture of dreadlocks that are just left alone. Also if you're crocheting all the hair all the time you'll stop the hair from knotting up by itself which is kind of the key. I haven't ever recommended crocheting dreadlocks, I know people who have had it done and not known anyone keep them long enough for them to mature. Also it's impossible to crochet all the hair yourself so you'd need someone to fix them almost all them alot, so either you need a damn patient friend, or it will cost you (if you find someone who can do it). Best advice I could give to someone who already has dreadlocks and keeps picking at them is - forget they are there, the sooner you leave the dreads alone and forget you have them, the sooner they will sort themselves out.

You said you don't want aweful messy matted hair (which is funny), but speaking from experience, that is exactly what you will get. They will get alot worse before they get better and if you aren't prepared or patient enough then don't waste your time.

 

I think you're confused by what I said... I don't care for tight dreads, meaning they don't HAVE to be tight. When I say I don't want my hair being a matted mess, I mean I don't want it to look like one giant nest of hair. I said I don't mind loose dreads. This means that I don't care for loose hairs. I expect that, and actually prefer that loose look over tight dreads.

I had found a really good picture before of what I'm trying to get at, but I can't find it now...
This is the closest I can find: (at the top of the head)
http://img.ehowcdn.com/article-page-main/ehow/images/a08/41/ia/rid-frizz-new-dreads-800x800.jpg

Except on the other picture, the dreads were sort of frizzy all the way down, not just at the top.

 

Ooh, I found good pics

http://api.ning.com/files/1H8vQ9MPS...4rODG05o/couplaweeks.jpg?width=600&height=450

http://api.ning.com/files/HILdeyeK6...xZyd5vesknB9/dreaded.gif?width=480&height=360

http://api.ning.com/files/1GH4RTgAb...RYFMp*8pyR1GoNPyqnbPasSw866Ir4_/yesterday.JPG

These pics are very different from this matted nest!:

http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a338/eatmewithcake/dreads.jpg

 

Mental Stages of backcombing

>backcomb
>OMG THEY LOOK LIKE SHIT
>weeks of re-backcombing and other useless maintenance
>OMG THEY STILL LOOK LIKE SHIT
>two years pass
>These are pretty cool, I should have just let them do their thing

 

Lol, thank you

 

Well you said you wanted them to "look like dreads" after a month or so.. and that isn't going to happen unless you become a crochet addict. I found a few pictures of my hair at 3 months and laughed because you couldn't even tell I had dreads. My hair just looked frizzy/wavy. Mine are now, at 8.5 mos, starting to form and be noticeable.

Dreads= time & patience...that's all there is to it.

 

Those pictures don't look like real dreads imo.

 

The First One Certainly Doesn't...



Cheers Glen.

 

I'd agree.

They all look not only manicured, but inexpertly manicured.

Unmantained neglect doesn't do anything like that slab picture, but I still don't think you'd like it, based on what you DO like....

Wax tiem, enjoy hating locks:love:

 

No. I think you are confused on what they are saying.

 

I think I just have a different idea on what 'real' dreads are. And don't bitch about how I don't have "good dread judgement
or something. I don't care if they look like fuzzy weasels instead of ropes.
I've seen a bunch of pictures of people's new dreads that just look like wavy/curly hair, and I think that looks nice and wouldn't care having my hair like that for a while.
I just don't want my hair to become an awful wreck... this doesn't mean that I don't want the dreads to take forever, or I need them to look perfect right away. It just means that I don't want my head to look like a giant wad of steel wool...

Also, nobody answered some of my other questions about hair ties or falling out.


Oh, and the first two pics I posted were the same person from the first week to the first month or something

 

Back combed dreadlocks don't look like a ball of steel wool. They look like tubes of steel wool that will stick out at awkward angles and have alot of non-dreaded hair blowing around all over the place. If you are going to be self conscious about how they look then I don't think it's for you. Sara Again summed it up pretty good.

You'll back comb them and they'll hurt like hell because someone has been pulling your hair for a good few hours.

They will stick out like Sideshow bobs hair for atleast a couple of months (depends on how often you wash them at the start)

After the first wash you will end up with lots of loose hair and you'll probably think you've ruined them.

You say you don't care about them being loose but I don't think you understand what is being said when they're referred to as loose. Loose doesn't mean that the dreadlocks are soft and wavy, it means that they have lots of loose non-dreaded hair coming out. It's inevitable that this happens and this is when they look like a rats nest and people (who know nothing about dreadlocks) will comment with things like "your dreadlocks need re-doing".

The timeline for each persons hair is going to be slightly different but my hair went from:
>Non-flexible steel wool like tubes that would stick out at any angle they chose.
>Same tubes but lost within the loose hair
>The roots will still be growing out as normal hair and the tips will be normal hair so you just have the backcombed dreadlock part in the middle.
>Stays looking and feeling an mess for (in my case 12-18) months before the loose hair starts to sort itself out.

The first year is a mess. The dreadlocks created by backcombing don't feel like or behave like dreadlocks that are created 'naturally'. After a long enough period of time, the new hair that grows out from the root will dreadlock itself naturally without you having to do anything to it, so if you've backcombed you will have the hard non-flexible dreadlock further down and as you get nearer the root you will have the softer bendy dreadlock made from new hair. Once mine grew long enough I cut off all the backcombed length because it will never bend freely or be soft like the naturally formed dreads.

I think the pictures you have seen on here where the hair is wavy from the start is more likely to have been made using the twist and rip method as this seems to make the starting dreads a little softer and more flexible than backcombing.

 

Thank you so much!!

I don't mind having loose hairs at all. I typically go to out or go to school now without even looking in the mirror, lol.

My hair is pretty long- more than a foot and half from the roots... I can't imagine that sticking up
Maybe sticking out, being a little poofy, but not ridiculously so

 

It won't stick straight up but they'll be pretty pointy and uncooperative. The dreadlocks you get will be considerably shorter than the length of hair you have now. I would advise against using wax, natural bees wax or otherwise, as well as most other products with claims regarding speeding up the process or taming loose hair. You want to try as hard as you can to keep stuff like that out of them otherwise you'll find they'll get quite uncomfortable and itchy etc. What I would recommend for you since you're conscious about how it will look is trying to tie them back. Headbands are your friend. It won't be easy at first because your scalp will be sore from the backcombing and also your dreads will be shorter than your hair is now, but if you can get them tied back they will become much easier for you to forget about and will look neater. The best thing to do with dreadlocks is forget you have them, you can spend far far too much time worrying about them and picking and playing with them, when the only thing you'll need to do is get them out of the way and get on with your life. Before you know it they'll be on their way all by themselves.

Good luck.

 

Sunny, if you want some real advice, PM me.

 

Well if you're going to be all defensive against the people you asked for help.... helping you......

Then I really can't imagine you having a good time with locks. People answered they way they did for a reason, and it's not because everyone else doesn't understand you.

 

actual hilair! id love it if my locks look like fuzzy weasels