Very short and dyed - twist and rip dreadlocks timeline :)

Hey. Hope it's ok to be starting my timeline so early on but I figure there might be some other people starting with similar hair who want to see what progress they can expect. I'm new here so hope I'm not doing anything wrong, I've read the stickies.

My hair when starting was a little shorter than 5 inches long, it's naturally fairly straight with a slight wave to it, and it had been bleached and dyed about two weeks earlier. I think the bleach has helped a lot - I've helped my girlfriend and my husband dreadlock their hair before also using twist and rip, and she found they locked up way faster and looked really mature really fast because it was bleached, but his took a really really long time. May just be coincidence though.

Method I used was twist and rip - I sectioned the hair, sprayed it with sea salt solution, blow dried it and then twisted and ripped. I'm not really doing maintenance, a little palm rolling if they look flat, separating them if they stick together (yep, a few of them are already trying) and spraying them every couple of days with sea salt solution. I know some people think it doesn't do anything but I've seen it make overnight differences with my husband's dreads before, and I definitely notice more new bits of knots and shrinkage on mine after using it than I do on my off days. Might as well try it, right?

Anyway here we go:

Day 1 (kinda... I did them in the evening, went to bed, and took this first thing when I woke up)


Day 6 (I think - and do excuse my terrible face!)

Added a few beads to keep them separated, I'm not wearing any at the moment though I want to avoid squishing them too much while they're babies.

Day 11

And that's where I was yesterday. You can't see loads of progress but they're starting to feel really nice and knotty, kinda firm but not hard. The last time I washed them they didn't slip at all, a few bits of frizz are coming out but I know that's all part of the process.

I'll try to keep this thread updated every couple of weeks or so, I don't want to spam you guys too much but I'm super excited to see and show off how they're getting along! I've been wanting dreads for about 8 months I guesss, was waiting for my hair to get long enough (had a shaved head for a bit last year - was very liberating but got boring after a while!).

 

Nice! Vry nice color.
Also, you're going from bald to dreads.... COMPLETE opposites, just so you're aware. And dreads take forever. My advice is to not really notice them for about 6 months so, but keep them separated. If you track your progress day to day you'll go crazy.

 

Thanks And yeah I know they'll take ages, I've always been impulsive with my hair and changed it a lot so I think this'll be a good lesson in patience for me. Plus it's near enough the only hair style I've never had haha. At the moment tracking my progress is fun, but if I find myself starting to stress over every little change I'll try to step back from it a bit cos I'm sure they'll have some points of looking like a total mess, seeming to go back from the progress they've made, etc.

 

Nice colour (envy!) and I reckon, if you stick to it, yer dreadies will look awesome.
The style is suiting you already

PS You are an adorable chick

 

The colour is awesome! It all looks good

 

hotness

 

Thanks everyone!

Just a quick update, I was really sick on the day they turned 4 weeks so I didn't get any really good ones but this shows the progress. Also new colours! They survived being dyed again fairly well but the dye I use is conditoning (and I had to go over it twice to cover the remains of the green which didn't help) so there was a lot of loose hair for a few days, I backcombed them a tiny bit just to help them to get back on track but aside from that I've been doing pretty good at leaving them alone.



When I actually get around to taking some photos with a proper camera not on a phone/webcam I'll post them, cos my hair is looking pretty awesome at the moment Am still using baking soda for washing and I've been managing to go 4-6 days between washes (pre dreads I was washing it daily) so I'm pretty pleased with that. Aside from that not much news haha.

 

awesome im digging the colours keep up the good work sweet COB poster in background

 

dooood! you have no idea how happy it makes me that you have judas priest tattoo

 

I forgot to get any decent pictures for week 6, but here's some for week 7. They'd been starting to get quite a lot of loose frizz and stuff, I know it's all normal but it was really annoying me. I went to the beach this week so I bottled up some actual sea water, figured it might be better than making my own mix, so I soaked my hair in that overnight with a wooly hat over it. Was quite uncomfortable but they were really knotty in the morning. I did a 20min soak in bicarb and then rinsed it out, part air dried and then finished off with the hairdryer and they have locked up so much more!

That's the closest I get to maintenance now, apart from checking they're not attatching to each other and doing separating when I have to. I dyed them last about 2 weeks ago, it did soften the hair which is really annoying but it didn't cause as much chaos as last time so they're obviously getting a bit more resiliant.

 

VERY cool and cute puppy dog!

 

Here's my doggy!

I can feel progress more than see it at the moment (they're just over 9 weeks). They're a lot tougher feeling, and there's much less loose hair. But I'll admit in pictures they really look near identical to two weeks ago. I think the back has smoothed out a bit, they're looking a bit straighter to me but I'm not sure:



I got my lip pierced and it feels really weird, so now I do this face a lot

 

I won't normally spam every week, but I just changed the colour and put some beads back in These were taken when they were exactly 10 weeks old (Thursday). They're definitely getting tougher, dying them had no effect on the fuzziness, loose hair etc. I know they look looser here than in the 9week pictures but they'd been this way for a few days anyway, all part of the process I guess, and the dye didn't make it any worse

 

blue looks good! tres bien

 

wow I'm in love with all the awesome colors!

 

Thanks I'm probably going to stick with blues and greens for quite a while now, dreads make it a proper pain in the ass to fade any colours well enough to change them much. I'm only washing it around once a week and the colour all gets stuck in the inside of the dreads haha, before I got dreads I used to be almost back to bleach blonde within about 6 weeks so it was easy to change a lot. But I can still sort of go one step along the colour spectrum at a time, so I'll just mess around with that

 

I'm in a blue phase myself.
I've been doing oranges/reds/blonds for some time but I needed a change.
Loving the blue. I just wish there was a more permanent dye for blue that doesn't fade to ick green. Dying is a real pain in the ass, and I only do my tips and my undreaded hair-line.

 

Haha I'm the opposite, I wish the dye faded faster, I'd change the colour every couple of weeks if I could Though it probably wouldn't be good for my dreads, the dye does make my hair really soft. I'm way too indecisive to ever stick to a permanent colour though.

 

Hahaha literally my last post "I'm way too indecisive to ever stick to a permanent colour". Then I went back to brunette, with a permanent dye. I don't know, I got sick of shedding on everything. My blue had started to go greyish but was still leaving blue stains on everything, plus I'm utterly shit at bleaching my roots without any overlap and I was worried my hair was going to fall out D: Once my dreads are totally mature and I've given my hair loads of time to settle, in like a year or something, I might dye a few of them, that'd be easier to keep up with.

It's been a while since I got any decent photos - I was really sick for weeks, I got a kidney infection and bronchitis at the same time which was random and horrifying, I'm usually pretty healthy. All normal now though!

Anyway, pics! 14 weeks.









I'm really happy with them at the moment, they're starting to feel like proper dreads - nice and tight and knotty but also soft and flexible, they've lost the stiffness they had for a while. I combined a few of the super tiny ones then did a count - couldn't get it totally accurate because they're too short to pull back but it's somewhere between 80 and 90. They're getting really long as well - I'd expected them to shrink quite a lot but I don't think they have, they've grown loads since I put them in. I might not stay that lucky but for now I'm really pleased with how long they're getting.

 

I loved the blue/green. It was beautiful but also the dark brown/black is beautiful with the beads in it! I'm sure you would be gorgeous with any color