Dreadlocks
When I experimented with dreadlocks in 1999, I was frequently asked three questions:
1. How do you grow them ?
and
2. Do you wash them ?
Okay, that's only two you may say. What about the third ? Well that can wait a minute. Let's
take these two questions first.
The first thing I did when I decided to realise this long held ambition was
to start surfing the net and to find out how other people did it. Perhaps that's what you're
doing right now. If so, that's a good start.
Quickly, I discovered that there were several options available to the dreadlock wanna-be depending
on how authentic or natural you wanted the locks to be. For instance, hair extensions can be bought
in any decent hairdressing salon that would give an immediate solution to those wanting dreadlocks
and wanting them NOW. You don't even need to have particularly long hair to go down this route as
the extensions can be attached with relatively very little of your own natural hair to bed them too.
I don't know for sure, but I would imagine this is a very expensive option !
Alternatively, you can start things off with a 'dread perm'. This perm has the effect of messing up
the hair so that it tangles and knots easily ( essential for natural dreadlocks ). This method gives
your dreadlocking a kick start though I think it's fair to mention that many dreadlocked afficianados
consider any sort of perming or the adding of hair entensions to be a poor substitute for dreadlocks
that are grown and developed 'au naturel'.
For my own part, my hair was already shoulder length, and quite capable of knotting and tangling of it's own
volition at the best of times, so I decided to try and do it without any artificial assistance from
the local salon. This is how I did it.
First of all, as I knew I would look a complete mess for a week or two, I waited until I was on holiday
before I started. If you're able to, going far away on a 'dreadlock holiday' is the best thing you can do at this stage !
Secondly, I enlisted the help of my long suffering wife and we messed up my hair as much as we could.
We tangled it, and back combed it until our arms were aching and my scalp was hurting. Then, taking a clump
of hair at a time between our fingers we began twisting and twisting until each clump would twist no more.
Time and again, the hair would unravel as soon as the twisting stopped. We twisted it again and again until
eventually, the clumps surrendered and hang in lumpy knotty masses off the top of my head. I now had my
first set of embryonic dreadlocks.
The problem was, of course, that as the hours and minutes passed, most of the hair slowly unravelled,
but crucially, not all of it. Some of the locks stayed knotted and the success of these early locks encouraged
me to stick with it.
At this stage, the locks were not recognisable as dreadlocks. In fact I looked like I had been dragged
through a hedge backwards, plugged into an electrical socket, and taken back through the hedge for ten
rounds with Lennox Lewis. However, I was determined to carry it through. We dutifully re-locked the unravelled
clumps every few hours until collapsing into bed with exhaustion.
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Now one of the things I'd come across while researching the growing of dreadlocks was the question of whether
to wash them or not to wash them. I found out that the amount of natural oils produced by the scalp depends
somewhat on the frequency with which the hair is washed. The more you wash, the more oil you produce, therefore
the more you need to wash. If you stop washing your hair, eventually the amount of grease in your hair will
fade as your scalp adjusts accordingly. The problem for many people is that they won't go through the pain of
initially having very greasy hair when they stop washing it before the scalp has readjusted it's oil
production and I was no exception.
This undoubtedly led to a longer period of developing my dreads. I would wash my hair less frequently than
before, but every time I washed it ( every two or three days ), most of the dreads would come out and I
would be almost back to square one. My wife solved this problem by tying small knots in the end of each
lock so that the lock couldn't possibly unravel.
Slowly but surely, many of these clumps began tangling from these small knots upwards towards my head and
didn't require any more daily back combing. After about a week, I was beginning to form proper dreadlocks.
My hair had now reached the stage where it was real mixed bag of genuine looking dreadlocks, half tangled
clumps of psuedo dreadlocks and loose hair not yet snagged and tangled ( particularly at the fringe and
temple areas ), but gradually more and more of the hair was staying 'locked', even after washing, and I was
convinced I was on the right track.
After three months, the dreadlocks were pretty much as good as they ever got. I was able to wash them
as often as I wanted as there was no way they could untangle. The whole texture of the hair had changed
and couldn't possibly be unpicked or unravelled. I had finally done it.
The next, unexpected problem I had was with the new growth of hair coming out of my head. It was coming out
as it always had done, in relatively neat and orderly fashion. When a couple of inches of new growth had
come through at the head of each lock I had to try and tangle the hair up into it's parent dreadlock. This
was difficult and, in the end, soul destroying.
The dreadlocks were great fun while they lasted but I never ever got to the stage where I was entirely
happy with them. I always seemed to have to spend time messing around with them to keep them looking good.
I got so sick of the bloody things in the end that I just took the scissors to them one night and chopped
the whole lot off.
So what was the third question I alluded to at the start ? Well, it's this:
3. Why dreadlocks ?
I suggest you get yourself a satisfactory answer to this question before you start and I
can't really help you with it - but trust me on the holiday.
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