For any one following this blog who would actually like to read some recent pots by me....

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:D

I have not been on here in forever but figured I would post in case...

I just re-read some of my earlier posts and smiled a lot.
I really would not use wax ever again, nor would I recommend it.
My boyfriend has been dreading naturally for a few months shorter then I have been and his results have been awesome.
I think that the back-combing I did helped, but there are better alternatives to wax to give my hair some texture.

The repeat back-combing at the ends has resulted in me actually loosing hair... not huge chunks but small bristly end chunks that I was thinking I was going to have to cut off anyway.

Anyway almost a year later and I wouldn't change my process because I learned a lot, but wouldn't do the same thing on someone else.
The most effective things I did wear use wraps and beads to guide my hair. If I had done that from the beginning and skipped the two weeks of wax I wouldn't have had to soak them in hot water and blow-dry/paper towel them to make sure I had it all out.

Thank god I used this weird beeswax/conditioning wax that may have taken a lot of knots out with it but was very easy to wash out. It was more like leave-in conditioner then wax really, now that I look at the jar again. I am sure the black lady who said to try it was well-intentioned, but obviously had no idea how to dread white people hair. It was more counter-productive then anything else.

the hardest part about starting dreads was getting through all the useless information other people were giving me.

5 months!

It's difficult to see the changes happening in pictures, but they are getting tighter and tighter. I may make an attempt to sew in some loose hairs, but I m not going to bother until I am out of school in June. 

htshatsHATS!

Child hat $10
Child hat $10
Child hat $10
Elf hat $20
Left-Over yarn hat $15
Fairy hat $15
Easter-egg hat $15
100% wool $15
Cotton-wool beanie $20
Viking hat $20
Boy beanie $15

All hats hand crotchet by yours truly :) if you would like to inquire about one just ask! I need to get them out of my room so I can make more!!!

baby dreads in winter

The cute pigtail hat I made for my baby dreads!

3 months 3 weeks and 6 days

YAYYYYYYY!!!! They are starting to really feel like dreads now. I still have lots of loose stray hairs, but they have either started sticking to surrounding dreads or forming their own baby dreads with no help from me. Since the novelty has now worn off it is pretty easy not to mess with my hair all the time :) 

The few things I do for "maintenance"  (if you can call it that) are: 

-salt water rinses between washes to  keep them from getting oily, (since I only wash them with shampoo once a week) and 

-using hair wraps and beads to keep the huge bumps and loops down, and to get  loose hairs to connect to specific dreads.  (although I am really lazy about this and will probably have very bumpy dreads)

Altogether I am still really happy about starting this process. I no longer waste any time doing my hair on a daily basis and have completely eliminated the "bad hair day" from my life. Since I don't use any products I can always comb out my dreads if I really really want to BUT I think that this may be my favorite hair style ever and I will probably either have no hair or dreads at any point in my life for the rest of my life :) :) :)

The next step is finding cool beads for my hair since I already have an amazing hat collection... 

Two months and one week and one day!

I finally mastered the art of leaving my hair alone! (mostly) I stopped using wax completely! they are not much frizzier and they hold their shape well. They have started sprouting all sorts of loops and bumps as they lock in and get more solid. I love the way the ends curl :)

My babies are a day short of a month old!

(Just more about me taking care of them…)

 I have continued doing a lot of reading about what sort of care is recommended for dreadlocks and I stumbled upon a really great site called dreadlocktruth.com

 They are a community of people that exist to offer advice on dreadlocks and have enlightened me about the use of wax. They had a lot of information about the ways wax can make your dreads very unhappy by doing things like causing mold and letting pieces of lint and foreign matter get stuck in them.

 YUCK needless to say I no longer put any wax in my dreads although I would have to add that my initial backcombing would have been a disaster without it. My hair is very soft and fine and did not hold the backcombing without the wax, but I washed it out completely after I was finished. I would say that it is not bad to use a minimal amount of wax in the first stage of backcombing to make sure you can get them in tightly, but be very sure to wash it out afterwards with a lot of hot water and hair dryers. (They explain how on their site) I used small amounts of natural beeswax and did not notice any problems with it, and had no issue getting it all out. It helped the comb actually grab my hair and definitely let me knot it tighter. My dreads did loosen after I got it out, but they did not fall out completely the way they did before. Again, I would only recommend using it in the initial backcombing and making sure you are using something natural that you can get out easily and completely afterward.

 I have also decided to tie off some of my dreads with tiny hemp wraps (that I may cut out later) to try and keep them from combining and help them hold better towards the top. The body of all of them is nice and tight but the few inches from the root some get seriously crazy. There are a lot of stray hairs that fell out of some and I will tie those in as well. I’m going to try and train them into shape gently… so at the very least I can spend some time worrying about something other then my dreads. They definitely need time to mature, and all my obsessing can’t be helping. I will post a picture after I get them organized and ready for their vacation from me.

 My poor dreads have everything they need except time away from me poking at them J I swear for the next month I will only wash and un-flatten them I really, really will…

My baby dreads at a little over twenty days old! (they have only been fully roughed in for about ten days though) 

They are pretty tight from backcombing, but still fall out a bit every time I take a shower just from the water. I use all natural vegan soap that leaves no residue (yuck! no smelly dreads for me) and usually twist them while they are are drying so I can start making the baby hairs stick. When they are fully dry I backcomb some of the areas that seem really loose (usually the ends) and wax them to keep the frizz down. 

the birth of my baby goat dreads

I had known that I wanted dreadlocks for a pretty long time, but it was one of those commitments that I kept putting off. I knew I had to be sure of it when it happened, and for a long time I just wasn’t sure. I worried about work, what my parents would say, what my extended family would say, how it would look and if I would miss having soft pretty hair. Essentially, they were one of those distant “when I grow up” dreams.

It was the week before my first trip to Burning Man when I really started to think about it. I had put my hair into a bunch of small braids to keep it manageable in the desert climate, and I liked how it looked. By the time the trip started my braids and I were pretty close. The moment I realized that I was ready for my dreadlocks I was sitting on the playa in front of my camp, “The Golden café” and the man had just caught fire. Somewhere in the crackling flames I realized that I wasn’t afraid of what anyone thought of my hair. Watching the man burn was like letting go of my doubts. A little while later a guy who had been talking to me all week came and sat next to me. I knew he liked me, but I was less then interested. He sat looking at my hair for a few minutes (it had been in a bandana almost all day and now my braids were in a ponytail) and asked what it looked like when it wasn’t in braids. I looked at him and smiled. I told him that they weren’t braids, they were baby dreads. He laughed in his weird LA way and told me I couldn’t be serious, that I was too pretty for dreads. I kept smiling and said I was completely serious and that telling me I was to pretty to get them was no way to get laid. He laughed and said that he was sure I would be beautiful anyway and would eventually change my mind. I laughed too and spent the night chasing the sunrise with my friend Rez.

I enjoyed the rest of my trip and on my 21st birthday, September 9th 2009 I started working my braids into dreads. It was a slow process, and they were not completely roughed in until my birthday party on September 19th.

It has been about twenty days now, and they still require backcombing and waxing. I hear they won’t fully lock in for 3-5 months and I suppose I will find out around Christmas. My boss doesn’t mind and my family still hasn’t noticed. It has been interesting trying to sort though all the different methods and supplies and I’ve settled into a pattern that seems to work pretty well on my soft white-girl hair. (Although I will always have lose curly ends<3)

ode to my baby goat dreads

My hair doesn’t blow in the wind anymore.

Weighed down with memories and the collecting

Of thoughts like leaves drifting

 

together to lie in heaps.

Only the fresh leaves, like children

dancing

 

I mirror their growth in human form                                

Textured like the bark of surrounding trees

 

(I still have baby hairs but…) 

 My branches grow longer and thicker slowly with 

the nurturing of my gardeners, friends

Who see me growing, and

 

bring

water

 

My hair looks like worms (when it’s wet), wriggling creatures with nine hearts that

though split by careless shovels still crawl out into the rain to

live and love with the pieces of themselves

that have slipped away.

 

Together strands bond as I connect with the 

hands that pull each piece together and they

(like branches) grow tighter with

the winds of changes and human hands

wrapped tightly in the hearts of

my worms splitting still,

and loving

in the rain tears

and life still

growing

(Note: The formatting of this has been changed to fit this page)