How to dread hair naturally
Dreading hair naturally is easy as can be. However some tips will make your natural dreadlocks journey easier and faster.
Dreading hair naturally tips:
- Clean hair dreads best– wash your hair often but not every day. use a non residue dread friendly shampoo or the baking soda deep cleanse, and wash at least weekly, at most every 2 days.
- Dry hair dreads best– dry hair dreads faster, however african hair gets brittle if too dry so should be moisturized throughout the process, other hair types it helps to reduce oiliness and dry the hair out somewhat, sea salt sprays and soaks can help. baking soda without acv afterwards will slowly make oily hair less oily, also, washing slightly less often will also reduce oiliness slowly.
- Longer hair dreads best– if hairs too short it is harder to hold in knots, (african textured hair however will dread short) the longer the hair the faster it can dread typically, but longer hair also shrinks more, and may try to congo more as it dreads.
- let it dread don’t make it dread– try not to play with it much, don’t twist roll or mess with it. when washing, if you use shampoo just scrub the scalp ignoring the hair. if you use the baking soda soak dont scrub. when drying shake it out and air dry.
Phases of hair dreading naturally
When hairs allowed to dread naturally it goes through fairly predictable stages.
- Sectioning stage: the hair separates into sections, groups of hair begin to cling together in groups typically this happens within days to a couple weeks of stopping combing.
- baby dread formation stage: the sections begin to get tangled and knot, loose knots but still the sections are held together by many knots forming baby dreads. This can begin in days, but more often in weeks, sometimes it can take longer.
- Looping wild teenager stage: the dreads will get loops, bumps, kinks, and change dramatically day by day. this stage is fun and exciting if you dont worry about your teen dreads misbehavior. this is the stage where they develop personalities that make them unique, typically in the 3-8 month stage.
- shrinking stage: as loops become tighter the dreads shrink drastically, longer hair can shrink from hips, to ears, shorter hair will lose about 1/2 the length typically or more.this is also the tightening stage leading to maturity
- mature stage: they change less noticeably over time
- growing stage: once mature they will begin to grow, slow until fully mature then faster.
Natural dreading dos and don’ts
do wash them
don’t force them
do enjoy the journey
don’t worry
optional seperate as needed to prevent congos (dreads combining)
tips sea salt sprays and soaks help sea water is 3.5% salt content. don not leave it on too long, it only needs to be in the hair 10 minutes to 2 hours then can be rinsed out, any longer and you over dry the hair and scalp.
Wool tams, wool sweaters or blankets put over your pillow will help encourage knotting.
feel free to post questions in the comments.
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Let me start off by saying I am a 21 African male. My mother is mixed so my hair texture is a little different from normal idk if that effects the loc process but I’ve been on my natural loc journey for a little past a year. My left side started locking first and it has the strongest and longest locks,!than my hairline and next the back but the right side won’t lock. I see it in the first stage of curling n twisting up but I feel it’s been like that since the start. Am I being to impatient or should o be worried, I’m afraid I play with my hair to much and I might be stoping a process when I think I’m just pulling locs apart or separating. I’m also scared my locs will be un even because these locs are a year behind the rest. My other question is the top of my head. It locs are a killer thick and as you get to the root it gets really thin like I could break it off if I pulled on it. Is this normal or am I doing somthing wrong, I use coconut oil n motorizers once a day. I clean my hair maybe every 2 weeks. Please give me a little advice as I don’t have anyone I can go and talk to, should I start all over, should I keep being patient and it’ll all even out? Thank you
when you say playing,are you twisting them? that can cause the issues your facing.
well not the 1 side dreading faster then the other, that 1is extremely simple. its because of how you sleep. you sleep on the right side the right side dreads 1st, the left will be a few months behind.if you want to speed up the right side, simply roll over nd sleep on the other side . (some find they have to switch sides of the bed with their partners to accomplish that)
i am more concerned with the thinning and lost dreads. do me a fave, join http://www.dreadlockssite.com post a discussion in the forums, with photos, and we will get ya all the help you need.
oh also, washing mire often helps, the coconut oil will slow progress but washing 1-3 times a week will eliminate the need for oils. with dreads the more often they are washed, the cleaner they are, the faster they dread.
oh also like i said photos would help, but very often people think their roots are thinning because they feel thin. you pinch the dread, its firm and thick and resists being pinched very far
but at the roots they are not really dreaded to the scalp, so when pinched your fingers meet, with only the width of a single hair between them, its not cause the roots are thinning, just cause the roots are not dreaded to the scalp.
there should be no reason for freeform dreads to thin at the roots, that’s caused almost exclusively by retwisting and/or interlocking… constant playing could do it if it was constant .. but simply changing those habits should solve that
washing more and using less or no oils will help the right side dread up too, as will sleeping on that side.
I am a yr old African male. I been on my free form journey since late 2015. My mom is mixed so my hair texture a little different and real curly. I have kept up with Locs but I have a few questions. My hair has mostly loced except for the right side and it leaves me wondering will it ever lock. In the beginning I played with hair a lot maybe pro longing the process but my left side is starting to get long and I’m really scared my locs will look completely uneven. I can see they are starting to form but why so late. My other question is the locs on the top tend to be thick then get super thin towards the root and over time some have came out due to me playing and separating my locs on top. I understand patience is key just done times I don’t know if I should start all over or keep giving it time. Please help me
I’m considering starting my journey with freeform locks, mostly because I hate brushing my hair. My hair length is to my butt. It’s fine and tangles really easily. I haven’t brushed my hair in 8 days and it’s already starting to form into more advanced looking dreads than I would have expected. A decent amount of loops, a lot of congos if I didn’t separate. I have a lot of oil build up and I’ve been trying to only wash my hair twice a week with an organic, gentle shampoo.
I’m trying to find what’s the best way to clean my hair and find out if wearing it up all the time (have a baby) is harmful to the natural locking process.
YOU WILL NEED TO SEPARATE ALOT!! having it up most of the time will slow dreading (hair like yours can dread very very very fast) but will also possibly lead to a dread bun or pony dread
all dreading into 1 big dread roughly in the shape of how you wear it up.
usually it just slows or prevents dreading but in some cases it can cause it all to dread together.
wash more often if needed but make sure its a dread friendly shampoo.
oily hair might benefit from hot wash to remove oils and freezing cold rinse to seal up pores so less oils pumped out
Hey all, I’ve occasionally browsed this site and others looking for a solution to my problem. I’ve been dreading my hair naturally for just under 2 years (been growing it3 & a half to dead it) now. Since then I’ve had 13 dreads form. My problem is that I still have more completely knot free hair than I do knotting, which has refused to start since day one. I’m unable to understand why the majority of my hair won’t start to catch. I’ve tried many things to help encourage them without directly interfering with them. Washing more & less frequently, sea salt sprays, essential oils ( I use Lemon & tea tree oil mostly) deep cleansing and all sorts. I don’t know whether my hair needs to be drier or less oily and so on. I usually wash my hair every 3 days as I have a sensitive scalp and any longer gives me an unbearable almost constant itching. but to summarise, what would be the best things for me to do to make the rest of my hair knot? I have a few friends with fully matured dreads and none of their advice has worked for me.
Just for information my hair is long, ginger and does tend to get oily quite quickly
I’ve previously tried:
Sleeping with wool hats/pillows
Many sea salt soaks
Deep cleansing (sea salt, baking soda, lemon, lavender, tea tree & rosemary essential oils)
Rubber bands ( didn’t want to use them but 3 of my 13 dreads are worryingly thin at the roots, didn’t help so took them out after 3 weeks)
Numerous dread friendly shampoos
Increasing & decreasing time between washing
Sorry for the long comment, any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks all. 🙂
i do not recommend the baking soda! not after i found out what long term use caused.
http://www.dreadlockshampoo.com lockin up liquid will help it dread fastest, but really your best bet is..beads.. beads, peyote sleeves, wraps, etc. (re you towel drying? if so that’s probably the cause)
thyme as a tea spray on the scalp often it supposedly will help (eventually) regulate oil production
you might smell like a pizza
remember you don’t have to buy beads anything with a holes a bead
you can add a hole to anything, or start with a hole and wrap something around it (like leather sleeves) (or vegan alternative)
I’ve had my dreads for quite a while now, but I still don’t understand how do they twist and lock and get longer by themselves with out somebody manually doing it.
hair tangles..its what hair wants to do
tangles when slept on compress into matts
the natural state of all hair.. ids dreadlocks. its what your hairs been trying to do all your life, ,but you been preventing it from dreading
why would you have to have it done if everything you had done prior to dreading was just meant to prevent it from dreading.
you saw my dreads, that was the result of simply going camping for a couple weeks.
anyone manually doing it is doing extreme harm, and ripping you off since they happen 100% on their own without needing any help at all
I have had my dreads created by the crochet method and I deeply regret it. I would love to have just gone the free form way but not it’s too late. If I allowed the roots to form as they go would this create free form dreads leading me to be able to slowly get rid of the forced dreads by perhaps cutting them?
yes ofcourse but u could let the crocheted dreads recover although its a slow process
you could comb out the crocheted dreads ..you’ll lose handfuls of broken hairs but then it will freeform from there
yea i wish more people were aware how horrible crocet is and started out right from the begining
Hello SE. My question is simple but my problem is big.
I started neglect locks for several times, but after about 2 months my hair (thick and wavy at the ends….about 17 inch long) tends to turn out in one big mess after a regular wash (organic shampoo). The dreading goes really fast, in my opinion a little too fast. Seperating in this stage is frustrating. And i mean really frustrating. To do that every day or at least 2 times in a week after a shower isn’t what i’m looking for. Combed them out for at least 5 times now. But hey…..I love dreads and i wan’t them so bad in the natural way. What can i do ? What will happen when i seperate it ones in two weeks ? I don’t wan’t big and massive dreadlocks.
What do you suggest ?
which shampoo exactly some are meant to speed dreading
some light oils jojoba or something will slow it too
shampoos made for more mature dread might be better
I’m wanting to do Dreads but I have no job or source of income at the moment so Natural is the way to go my question is will my dread look nice and neat is I Neglect them or will they look all crazy and ratty looking like some I’ve seen on the interweb I have dark brown hair that is about 3-3 1/2 inches right now it’s very thick and very straight I haven’t combed it in three days just to see what it will do but I’m definitely wanting to dread it it’s getting unruly and I’ve decided hell let it do its think and stop trying to take the wild lol anything I should look forward to or expect if u need a pic to see wat I’m working with I can post one
good going to a salon paying for dreads is the worse mistake you can make ..so in this case its a blessing in disguise to be broke!
3 inches is pretty short it will get messy (which looks awesome btw) but won’t even begin to dread till 6 inches
even starter methods require 5 ..unless they do the most harmful things to force it.
at 5 you can twist and rip or backcomb (tnr is better less damage)
if you stop combing at 3 wait 4-6 months it might begin to dread under 6 but will be slow going
i would tart taking biotin daily (its a vitamin) after a couple months growth rate doubles or even triples when it gets 2-3 inches longer it will dread easily
so either way your going to have to get it a bit longer before dreads start..biotin will just decrease that time a lot.. keep taking it till they are well dreaded cause the longer it gets the faster it dreads
just now a member of http://www.dreadlockssite.com had a 1st dread form in 1 week with hair just like yours same length too so..though 6 inch is the norm its not the rule
I have been locking for 10 years now. I’m just learning about freeforming and I think it’s beautiful! Do I have to cut my mature locs and start over from scratch if I want to freeform?
well.. that depends 1 you say “locs” which is a purposeful misspelling of locks by the salon dread crowd, salon dreads tend to have a lot of harm done
it depends on their condition but most likely that shouldn’t be an issue and they will recover
next freeform has the word form in it technically freeform or natural dreads are allowed to form freely or naturally
however as more and more embrace that way of dreading its common to transfer to the freeform way..
i started off more ‘organic’ with separating dreads then transitioned to more freeform by just stopping most separating.
i call mine natural not freeform exactly because they didn’t start completely freeform
the point being that its a personal choice you can embrace the freeform way let your dreads recover and freeform from here
but if your very drawn to the idea of being pure freeform you might want to start fresh
10 years however is a lot to let go so id be more inclined to just keep going..but in a healthier way
could you join http://www.dreadlockssite.com post some photos if they are in decent condition you can just keep the years of growth and let it freeform from here on out
1 thing though for precision of language (many salons call natural dreads anything that’s real hair) you should, when asked bye honest and say how you begun then transitioned to freeform
its just a pet peeve when ppl call their crocheted backcombed waxed interlocked etc dreads natural just cause they didn’t get a dread perm
and that misuse of language is why most people don’t even understand that dreads do form by themselves and don’t require a salon to ‘install” them
when I shower and run my hair under water is that causing to not freeform cause I don’t wash it I just run it under water.
you should wash it clean hair reads best just use a good dread shampoo http://www.dreadlockshampoo.com is the absolute best use liquid till mature thenbar, unless your African American then go straight to the bar
don’t use additional oils and greases etc unless absolutely needed the bars should eliminate that need, if you wash at least weekly 1-3 times a weeks recommended
when washing mostly scrub the scalp try not to disturb the hair much by running fingers through or moving it around
after washing don’t towel dry shake it out and air dry or gently blow dry in winter
hello, I’d like to as some questions and advice please. I started interlocking my African/curly hair about 5 months ago and most of them are about around 10cm long, I was wondering if I wanted to let it free form as it grows while trimming of the interlocked parts over time, would that work or do I have to cut off everything and start from scratch, I am a bit concerned as I noticed some mould in 2 of my lock at such early stage. thank you for your time
already answered n your other comment
hello, I’d like to as some questions and advice please. I started interlocking my African/curly hair about 5 months ago and most of them are about around 10cm long, I was wondering if I wanted to let it free form as it grows while trimming of the interlocked part over time, would that work or do I have to cut off everything and start from scratch, I am a bit concerned as I noticed some mould in 2 of my luck at such early stage. thank you for your time
-interlocking is horrible, but no need to cut them off interlocking might make them break off..if not they will be ok just have weak points and maybe holes or weird crinkles
mold in young dreads would be from most likely wax or gel use
or wearing hats while wet or damp.. rot knot from dreadlockshampoo.com will kill the mold though
what are you washing with..and how often
what products were used
if wax (a lot of mango lime products contain wax, petroleum even plastics ..don’t use them!)
but if wax was used you should also use wax b gone from the same site
he bar shampoos are also best for your hair and should e washed 1-3 times a week
What would happen if I dye my hair? Will the dye damage it or make my scalp extra dry? Would you recommend dying? My hair is naturally black, but I want to try blonde.
ofcourse dying (except with henna) damages the hair which can be very mild to severe
/
henna actually is good for the hair but hard to rinse out of dreads
bleaching to go from dark to blond is by far the worse, as to accomplish this it must penetrate several layers deep into the hair shaft where the pigments are. and destroy the pigmentation.
this is the extreme level of damage caused by chemical treatments like bleach (multiple times most likely) and straighteners/relaxers
the chemical treatments can completely break down the structural integrity of the hair
the worse salon disaster i ever saw was over bleached hair that then the salon said was “too healthy to dread’ and used a dread perm on 2 weeks later she had 3 “dreads” left dangling from about 19 hairs each
the rest had fallen off at 1/2 inch from the scalp
i’m locked for life so i wouldn’t risk dying but ding with henna is safe enough to risk if your not planning on dreads for life
even some over the counter dyes are probly safe-ish
bleaching you can maybe get away with for awhile without very severe damage but everytime yiu bleach it is damaged more
dry brittle feelings is a vey common complaint after bleaching
Would the same thing occur if I just dyed half of the dreads (Half of the lock, not to the roots)? Would it be safer to do since [I don’t think] I am not damaging the hair follicles? Or does the dye make the locks unravel?
henna is conditioning so might loosen them
bleach will damage the hair no matter if its just the tips or not
tying them up during summer heat the sun naturally lightens the tips anyway
dying just the tips is a better option because if there is severe harm youd only lose the tips
usually 1 time bleaching or dying wont cause severe harm and therefore the tips are a ok idea since you wont need to redo it every couple months so the roots match
dying the tips is a 1 time then done thing .. so the damage wont be cumulative
Hello. I started Growing my dreads about 3 months ago. I backcombed and then did nothing. Mind you I only started with about 3 inches of hair. I am African american. It’s been 3 months and the back of my head is all matted and little pointy baby dreads are showing in the back. But the top of my head isn’t so tight so the dreads are alot looser looking and messy. Is this normal? I wash about once or twice every two weeks. I’m guessing it’s cause I sleep on the back of my head. Would wearing a Sleeping cap at night help to compress the top of my head? Or should I just let it be? How long until the top looks as tight as the back? Thanks in advance.
Hi Chris,
Just wondering if you received an answer to your question because I’m experiencing similar occurrences. I have the matting from where I sleep and sometimes from wearing a hat to cover my hair during my workday. Any update you can provide regarding your journey is much appreciated.
i almost never miss a question so glad you commented so i could answer him, and you
when you sleep it compresses it and it tightens more
wearing hats however interferes with the movement needed for new tangles to form (fitted hats that is tams and loose hats for dreads alow movement within them but also add a tiny bit of compression)
the side of your head you sleep on will dread a lot faster then the rest, the rest will just be a couple months behind in progress and will catch up and be indistinguishable when matured
Thanks that’s what I wanted to know!
why did i miss this? this is totally normal, the part you sleep on dreads fastest the rest is a couple months behind
its all because sleeping on it compresses it making it tighten faster
What kind of oil would be good for my scalp ? It gets really dry right now I’m using tea tree tingle shampoo once a week ? Thank you
stop using hot water first of all hot water dries out the scalp
if your dreads aren’t mature (does not apply to African americans) don’t use oils on them till mature
the 3 best options are
jojoba oil- the closest thing chemically to yournatural skin oils
argon or morocan oils – these are excellent conditioning oils
pure aloe vera – this has to be really pure even if the bottle says 100% aloe vera read the ingredients, there should be 1 ingredient only. aloe vera nothing else at all (solsd as a food additive lily of the valet i think ids the only company i know of that makes it pure (might be lily ogf the desert or something i forget) the best way is buy 3-4 large plants, harvest 1 leaf everytime you need to. aloe plants are hardy easy to care for and don’t need watering often, cut off a leaf, split it in 1/2 the long way rub the gel on your scalp or scrape it out add to water in a blender to thin it (very little water)
hi, i have a problem i had before with two baby dreads forming into one on opposite sides of my head on top. I tried to tease out the renegade strands (not too many) but they are really kontted sat the ends – can i just snip them with scissors so they should grow back into the other? I very rarely check if they are knitting together with wide spaces – once got one and was able to get all the one lot out by gently easing it out, but this time these are firmly knotted! If i cut, the bits of hair should just stay embedded in the other knot right? im about 6 months in btw, hair is not so long, maybe 6 – 9 inches longest locks. lots of cool loops now tho 🙂 what is the best spacing for locks? thanks!
you can although its better to try putting a lil olive oil on your fingertips work it into that knot then try to work it out 1st
only snip as a last resort.
theres no best spacing theres only whats easy to care for and what isn’t.
if the dreads are over an inch thick when mature then they are hard t clean and take a very long time to dry (so much more likely to get mildew)
many people love huge dreads..and that’s cool but they are a lot harder to care for, and in some cases can be painful even.
so i generally recommend to not let them get too thick unless you feel bound by a vow or religious conviction to not interfere at all in the process.
even mine that are just a hair over 1 inch (not even 1 1/4) need extra special care to make sure they dry thouroughly
ok cool, thanks for this! i dont really like doing anything to them but i read it can be painful (as you said)so every now and them check them to see how wide they go. I also dont like doing anything cos the knot seens (obviously) to loosen a bit and i dont want to go back rather than forwards. will try the oil, if it doesnt work maybe will leave rather than cut! (tho the most of it is out now). thanks again!
ps a better place to get more help dreadlocks natural dreads
ok cool, will check it out, thanks! i tried oil just now and those hairs want to stay there! maybe i should just leave them…thats where they want to be! and im loathe to take scissors to my hair….is it better to wait and try separating again when they are more solid (this sounds a stupid question i know!. The roots are not knotted, just round the middle or a few inches from roots at this stage. but trying to pull those strands out seems to make the knots looser all round, not the strands i want to get out of it. so maybe i’ll just leave it 100% as the gods intended after all.
post a discussion with photos on dreadlockssite and ill take a look
if i can see whats going on it helps alot
ok will try to – tried now to take a photo myself but u cant see it properly, i need to ask a friend to take one! weird for me to take a photo of myself…im not of these ‘selfie’-types! 😉 thanks again for help!
light helps and if its an actual camera not a phone put it in macro mode for close up
yeah tried with a real camera (dont have a hi-tech phone/camera!) but its all out of focus even in macro, i think my hand is shaking cos im holding the knots with one hand to make it clear. anyway will try tomorrow with friend, thanx again for all help and info! 🙂
i have the same prob.. i got a p900 the lens is kinda heavy and my hands aren’t too steady to begin with
try putting it in multi shot mode if it has 1 pressing the shutter button induces movement but if you press and hold and fire off 7 shots in a burst, 1 of the middle shots should have minimal shake
also turn on vibration reduction and if your hands not steady maybe even full time autofocus instead of single shot
Hey, can u please answer me, I don’t own anything wool and I’m trying to grow freeform dreads, how do u sleep, cus the back of my hair has become flat and not separated. The front of my hair is more thick than the back, which is pretty thin.
wool would only matt it up more, separate anything that needs to be separated to avoid 1 huge dread.
flats good that’s being compressed and tightening, but you don’t want it forming 1 huge dread
separatings technically organic not freeform but it is recommended in many cases to avoid massive dreads
huge dreads are cool. but dry so slow and take extra special care to take care of them
In the center (crown) of my head, there is kinda a bald spot. I think that is where my hair parts at. What do think about this? Can it be fixed.
you mea the center of the spiral your hair spirals around?everyones got that but as hair grows out its covered
just let it be its fine
When did the salon styling of dreads come along? What makes people convinced that that is the correct way to dread instead of free forming? I know that hair was dreading by itself before clips and bees wax was invented. Whenever I am debating with someone, I can’t seem to convince anybody that free form dreads is the correct way, and not salon made dreads. They say, “why don’t you get your dreads done the right way?” Then I say, “this is the correct way” but I never back it up tho. (Everyone has their opinion, but free form dreading is a fact, right?
well blame the internet and sites like dreadheadhq and knottyboy who were the 1st to push wax and making dreads
these sites also made actual dreading sound like a scary process with lies like looking like your homeless the 1st 4 years, not being ale to wash without wax to hold them together
etc
then it got to the point where most people didn’t even understand that dreads do happen on their own, they believed they were always made in a salon
salons invented a new term, loctician that made you believe you needed a technical degree in hair tangling
then came top secret patented methods .. making it even more misunderstood that they can just dread on their own.
early on in the internet popularity boom people posted ideas for dreading including toothpaste peanut butter axel grease all types of glues even cow manure..so its easy to see why wax peddlers offering a better option were so successful (even semen was used)
people also associated every style wiith having to do something to achieve it, almost always involving paying someone to imitatre a certain cut or style from a magazine. salons started getting people request dreads as a style with no knowledge of the fact that dreads just happen, so they learned all the ways to create them by force.
over time this morphed into excessively maintained locks which were disassociated from locks by dropping the k locks became locs, something else something less shameful (according to those that call natural/freeform locks shitlocks)
as dreadlocks became popular a expensive imitation market sprang forth with locticians earning more per hour then many lawyers or doctors.
remember back a couple decades when ripped or frayed jeans were in style and they started selling pre-ripped or frayed jeans/
it wasn’t enough to wear your jeans till the knees wore out instead you pay twice as much for pre-worn looking jeans with a designer lab;le
that’s what we got now brother locks sister locks nappy locks etc ..designer label dreads..patented styles.. something that imitates dreadlocks but seperates themselves from the real thing while shaming the real thing at the same time by simply dropping the k off locks.. the implication being dreadlocks are dreadful and locs ..that cost 30,000 over 6 years maintenance are therefore higher class and more acceptable
its pure shame tactics by the locticians
true story
i was at the beach, on the boardwalk, with 15-20 people surrounding me raving about how they never saw such beautiful dreads
a loctician walks up says your dreads are a disaster i can fix them for you for only 1000 dollars
they shame you into thinking they are a mess just for being healthy
and the more balding you have from excessive maintenance the more they praise it as frsh clean and tidy… even if they are only washed twice a year
in fact your hairs nasty filthy and gross minutes after you wash them but the salon versions that only get washed once a year look nice clean and beautiful…
its social conditioning, brainwashing even..
believe me when i say i have seen people spend 10 grand on complete disasters ..and not have any real dreading going on till they stop[ped going to the salon
when i started dreading was a long time ago..i never knew there was any way but freeform
it wasn’t till i was 8-10 years in that i ever heard of wax. and a few more years before i heard of backcomb or any other methods
back then 99% of all dreads were natural 1% were messes made with toothpaste or peanut butter
it wasn’t till sites like dreadheadhq popped up making a business out of dreading that these other methods started to show up
every so often i hear about someone who backcombed way back when, but mostly back then you had either rastas, or punk kids who grew dreads
the rastas just told people to toss the comb
the punk kids generally had mohawks or whatever that they used stuff like knox gelatin to hold them up and when partying hard they neglected it till it dreaded.. they might have backcombed for the big hair look and used the gels and crap to hold it up.. likely the precursor to wax
so some of them may have mentioned backcomb and gels then let it do its thing.. it was all workd of mouth back then no internet
so its likely most were natural but slowly other methods developed mostly from punk kids saying i put eggs or peanut butter or grease in my hair and left it that way and it dreaded
or i teased or backcombed it then it dreaded
but your question was specific to salons and the only answer is when they realized they could make insane profits off of people who just didn’t understand that all hair will dread if left alone
So I have discovered my hair dreads up really fast. 1.5 months in , all I do is wash 2 times a week and separate daily. My roots are slow to lock up, and I know I’m still very early in the process. What I’m experiencing is a lot of flat spots and loops. Will the loops and flat spots sort themselves out? Or should I use small rubber bands to sort them out? What are your thoughts?
+
never use rubber bands!
but yes they are a normal part of the dreading process
almost all will go away (lots more to come soon) they will be missed when gone
if 1 or2 stay they will be your favorite dreads
they build your dreads character and uniqueness nothing to sort out its how they build personality.