Not So Virtual Armor

I've come to realize that I've been giving myself some armor lately.  It's not the kind of armor that you strap on before going into combat, but a very different kind.  Instead, I'm wearing an armor that's more spiritual in nature, but physically present with each piece I add.

The idea really came from my friend Raven.  She wears certain pieces of jewelry and considers them like her spiritual armor.  One of the ones easiest to note is her pentacle.  The other is an ankh.  She's worn these every day since I met her, and is probably still wearing them now!  I don't foresee her ever taking them off without a serious amount of convincing, or nothing short of sheer force.  I didn't really realize she was the inspiration, but looking back, there it is.  I wanted to add pieces to my earrings that would have the same meaning, but I never managed to do it.  Instead I started adding them to my hair.

It all started with a simple little charm, Kokopelli.  My friend Erin called me all frantic asking me what the meaning of a broken necklace chain was.  I explained that in my experience I'd always known a broken chain to mean that the item was no longer meant to be worn.  The fact that she still had it in her possession meant that it needed to be passed on to someone she knew.  Well, she did, and the fortune he's brought me has been interesting, to say the least.  He is my first and possibly my favorite of my little companions.  I bound him into my hair seeking fertility and abundance, and by that I mean finding a way to provide for my family.  It's not surprising that it should come in the most twisted and confusing of ways.  That is Kokopelli's nature.  He's a bit of a trickster god, like Loki.  However, I'm eternally grateful for him.  He's helped me to look at my life and see the bright side of everything, even when it seems like there is none.  He's helped me see every bad situation we've been in lately really is a blessing in disguise.  I'm looking out for his every message because he's leaving them loud and clear.  Now I just have to figure out how to listen.  It wasn't at all what I expected, no, not in the least, but I'm starting to take the hint.  We really needed a lot of these changes in our life, and while they've brought a lot of hard times, we're definitely in a better position now in many ways than we were before all this chaos began!

After Kokopelli, my son brought me his old pentacle.  We bought it for hom when he was very small and constantly ill.  I wanted to give him something to keep him safe, and at the time I was very much involved with the local Pagan community.  I'd found it at one of the local shops and it was perfect.  He wore it begrudgingly, and often times I would have to keep putting it back on him.  It did it's job well, since he was rarely sick or injured while he wore it, but eventually it just got to be too much of a hassle to find it every time he flung it off into the void, deciding he was sick of wearing it that day.  We'd found it a while ago and he wanted me to have it.  I decided to bind that into my hair for protection.  There was a lot going on in my life and it felt good to have a protection symbol bound to me to follow me wherever I go.  That pentacle has been in my family since my son was only a year old.  He wore it for two years before he lost it, then decided it needed to be on me, not him.  Not only is it a symbol of protection, but it is also a connection to my child, a very special connection, one that can't be copied by anyone else.

Shortly after that, Erin gave me another gift.  She had two matched bone daggers.  One would go in her dreads, the other would go in mine.  It's a rather large piece, so I didn't expect to have it go in my hair right away, but I decided it needed to.  It hangs a little longer than the dread it's bound to, mostly because dreads shrink up over time.  It was put in my hair to represent my connection to my dance sister, since she would some day wear hers too, but with it's constant and persistent jabs, it's also a constant reminder to be aware of things that may not serve my highest good.  After all, it's called a bone dagger, and daggers are weapons meant for offense.  While I would never use this in such a way, I think the mental association between a dagger and this thing stabbing me every time it's got something to tell me is kind of appropriate.  It has also become one of my favorite pieces, both due to it's uniqueness and due to it's persistent and demanding nature.  How could I not learn to love it?  It speaks to me (even if it isn't in the nicest of ways)!

It was a good long while before I had anything else to put in my hair.  Nothing showed up that felt like it really belonged there.  I didn't have need to add anything else.  I really wanted to have more, knowing that I wanted to have a full dowry or a pirate's booty worth of goods in my hair.  I thought it would be fun, unique, and make my hair stand out from everyone else's dreads.  Since my dreads are so thin, it's hard to find rings and beads just kicking around that will easily slip in, so I'm down to charms and baubles right now.  That's when a whole box of treasures from my past just showed up, including an old, treasured necklace and a belly chain with a broken clasp.  I wore the charm necklace for a while, but it just didn't feel right.  Something needed to change, so I decided to go a different route.  The five charms would go in my hair, as would the medallion from the belly chain.

The first charm to hit my hair was from the belly chain.  It was a medallion-like coin with a Goddess symbol on one side with the triple moon and the Green Man stamped on the other.  It just seemed to want to fall with the Green Man turned towards my dread, hidden, only to appear when needed, and the Goddess turned out to face the world.  When I bound them into my hair, I thought of them as my connection to the divine, but I think now they're something more.  The Goddess represents the outward image I need to have, the balanced Goddess of my own home and family.  I need to be the divine within myself, something I've long since forgotten about being.  The Green Man represents everything about myself that I keep hidden, and need to keep hidden.  He is that wild side to me, the incredibly natural aspect, the part that's deep and earthy.  He's the side that no one really understands because it's hidden and obscure in the wilderness, and perfectly happy and okay with being there.  He only peeks forth to show his face at times of need, and so I need to let that wild, passionate nature only poke it's head when it is time to do it's work, when I need to be that feral animal to defend my family, or to share it's wisdom.  This has perhaps the deepest meaning of anything I've had in my hair, and I've carried it since it was purchased at Unicorn Books back home over twelve years ago.  I'm pretty sure this too was a gift, but I can't remember who gifted it upon me.

The next was a horse head pendant that was gifted to me years ago.  My friend's brother found it while we were digging around the foundation to fix the damages to it when we just got out of 7th or 8th grade, I forget after all these years.  She was moving.  He found it and thought of me.  It went on my pendant which already had one other horse charm on it.  I wore that around for years.  Just recently I found it again.  I wasn't sure at first if it would go into my dreads, but I decided it needed to be there.  It would be a constant reminder that there were hidden treasures all around me, and it was bound into my hair so that I might bring more hidden treasures into my life.  Yes, you have to look a little harder to find them, and they pop up in the most unexpected places, but they're always worth it in the end.  It's also a horse, the animal that was labeled as my below from my totem reading, that which is supposed to ground me, which is interesting by a Native American standpoint from what the person doing my totems said.  It's kind of fitting that I'll end up with several in my hair when all is said and done.  Horses have meant a lot to me over the years.  They were companions for a while, and partners in the show ring.  I worked mucking out their stalls and one even broke my finger, something that never healed quite right, a constant reminder.  They're a creature that I truly miss in my life a lot more than I thought I ever would.

Next to follow was a lion, right up close to my face.  I joked that he represented Leo, since there have been so many meaningful Leos in my life, like my dad and Chesh.  It would represent their influence in my life.  I'm not entirely sure why the lion found his way to me, or who gave him to me, but I definitely remember it having some connection with strength.  Thinking deeper on it, it makes perfect sense.  Not only am I Alice in Wonderland, but a lot of people used to peg me as Dorothy in the land of Oz.  I swear, that was only the long brown hair worn in braids.  I'm not very much a Dorothy kind of gal, but I am definitely the Cowardly Lion.  I'm timid when it comes to other people and I'm afraid of virtually everything.  Maybe this lion can help me learn the same lesson as the Cowardly Lion did, that I've had the courage all along, I've just needed a reason to seek it out.  Now he's right there in my face, driving me nuts and annoying me with each day that goes by.  He tugs at the other dreads and tangles in with his legs and tail.  He's really quite the nuisance.  I have to admit, on several occasions I thought it might be better to remove him from my hair, or to wrap the dreads around him so he won't get tangled up, but I guess it's his way of constantly reminding me to pay attention to him, and he's right, I need to.  Fittingly, he's the charm that tangles in my hair all the time, right there on the dread that catches on my eyebrow ring all the time!  Maybe they were destined to be friends!

After all that I added a silly little bead.  It was from a bracelet my daughter broke years back.  I warned her it would happen if she kept stretching it out that much, and that's exactly what she did.  The bracelet pieces went into my make-up bag to be fixed later, but that ends never came about.  The pieces fell out one by one as I went from show to show and house to house.  Eventually all that remained was one green bead.  Having nothing else to do with it, I asked my daughter if I could use it, and then in it went, into my hair, a little something to remind me of my daughter.  It's meaning?  Well, a green, happy bead with a flower on it should do nothing more than draw happiness into my life!  I could always use a little more happiness and a little more brightness to my day, couldn't everyone?  It's easy to forget it's tucked back there, but when I need it, I always know just where to find it, all tucked away and safe.

The next was a big Gothic cross that I was given years ago in high school by my friend Missy.  She'd give it to me for the school play, Fortress, where I played a girl named Kim Nolan, obsessed with Superman and her best friend, a boy who lived in the funeral home.  I wore that thing everywhere, and when I finally did take it off for good, I kept telling myself it would go into my dance costume bag and it would be attached to something sooner or later.  Just the other day I pulled it out when I was unpacking.  I'd thought it was gone, disappeared in some move or another, yet here it was!  Not only is it a reminder of the past I'd had and the friends I miss, but it's also a good ward against vampires!  I know, it's not something I really need to worry about, but in a way, it is.  It's an excellent shield against those who would suck the life out of me and cast me aside.  Sure, they may not drink my blood, but they're certainly just as draining.  May this not-so-little piece ward me against those kinds of people, and people with those intents.

Currently the last piece to go into my hair is one that makes people wonder.  It's the 1st Cavalry Division shield.  This is important for many reasons.  First, it was the military that played in my marriage, my impending divorce, and the birth of my youngest child.  I never would have had the life I did now were it not for the military.  It's an occasion worth marking.  It was a gift during the first deployment we went through so  I wore it around my neck on a little black ribbon.  It's been traveling around in my make-up bag ever since.  To me, this represents all the changes that have happened in my life, and is there to help guard me against making the same mistakes again.  It connects me to all the people who have left my life, that I miss incredibly much, many of which were taken all over the country (and some of them even out of the country!) as a part of military service, or upon end of their military careers as they go home.  The list is far too long to mention here, but I love you all.  I miss you very much, and you know who you are.  Be safe, all of you!

I've got other pieces of armor that have yet to go in and I'll talk more about them later.  There's the crossed labarys, a sign of lesbianism in this modern age, but also a sign of the Amazons.  I could use a little warrior woman energy in my life.  It fittingly belongs right next to my lion for courage.  I've got an old Goddess pendant that I've been hanging on to for years and she's very special to me, all curled up in the fetal position like an infant, made of beautiful knot work, sheltered in a knot work crescent moon.  She speaks of rebirth.  Another is a horse pendent that my grandmother gave me when I couldn't have been more than eight or ten. There is another horse too, and another cross.  One charm looks very much like a Christmas ornament.  Another is a lizard with a hinged body.  There are some keys and some rings if I can ever find a way to add them.  My dreads aren't thick enough to wear a ring as a bead, even at a tiny size five or six.  Finally, there is another pentacle that Chesh used to wear as his own.  These all have their own meanings, they're all part of that which protects me and brings good things into my life.  They are my armor.  They are my amulets.  They are my shields.  Certainly I'd be just as well without them, but to me, they're physical representations of something significant, something I need to remember.

I was reading in a book about Plymouth Rock not long ago how the rock was really meaningless.  Chances are the Pilgrims or First Comers never actually set foot on the rock.  It's likely the rock was just there, a witness to it all, but often times people like a solid and tangible reminder of history.  They like to point at something and say, "There, right there!  That's where it all happened."  That's why the Plymouth Rock, in all likeliness just an unusually big rock sitting on the coastline as any other unusually large rock may want to do, ended up becoming such a landmark of significance, all bound up in honor surrounded by Greek columns, and etched with the year 1620.  That's kind of how it is with my adornments, as goes for my piercings.  A part of me wants to be able to have something physical that I can touch and say, "This!  This right here is where it comes from!  This right here was from when it happened!"  It's a physical representation of something so incredibly important.

So this is it, my virtual armor.  These are the pieces I not only use to adorn my dreads, but also for so much more purpose.  These are more than just meaningless trinkets.  They're things that have meaning to me, both in the people who gave them to me, and what they represent in my life.

Dreads at (almost) Nine Months

I've been thinking a lot about my dreads lately.  They look kind of, well, shaggy and rough.  I've got whispy bits sticking out everywhere.  There are all kinds of crazy loops and bumps.  I kind of like the loops and bumbs, but I wanted my hair to be neater, and those bumps were a lot of the reason my hair was able to pull loose.  I keep hoping that sooner rather than later I'm going to have the beautiful dreads everyone says I'll some day have.  Supposedly dreads start looking pretty beautiful after they've hit the one year mark.  I'm hoping mine will do the same, but with only one month to go, I'm not so confident.  I think it's going to take longer than that, but it may have to do with my dreads being so incredibly short when I started them out.  I barely had enough hair to dread!  Thankfully, though it's been a struggle, they're finally getting there.

Having gotten sick of looking at my dreads doing crazy things, I wasn't terribly thrilled with the overall effect.  I just want my hair to start looking good.  I love my dreads and all, but I'm tired of waking up every morning to having little wisps everywhere.  It doesn't look very neat and it's only making it easier for the dreads to eat each other.  I decided it was time to break my previous pattern and do some serious maintenance.  As much as I wanted to let my dreads do their own things, something had to be done.  I've been doing some palm rolling with each shower, but it hasn't been getting me anywhere, so it was time to take it up another level.

The other day, after getting out of the bath, palm rolling, and taking a "before" picture, I decided it was time for some serious work.  I tried crocheting the dreads in front, but it didn't do anything.  I've crocheted other people's dreads before just fine, but my own?  Apparently that just can't happen.  Instead I thought I would just bind up the roots so that I could go in and crochet them later.  I started working in the front, working my way to the back where I knew it was going to be a nightmarish trouble spot.  I would have to rip apart all those dreads and I wasn't looking forward to it.

I found out early on that my hair wasn't even going to co-operate with that.  I had to bind my hair pretty much all the way down or it was just going to attempt to dread together the whole length.  I'm impressed!  My hair really wants to dread, it just doesn't want to do it the way I think it should!  Even now, with just the ends loose, my hair still tries to dread together, but it's a little more well behaved.  I bound them up pretty well through my hair.  The back was a nightmare.  It was all tangled in to each other, so it took twice as long as the rest of my hair.  I was thrilled to see the results though.  It looked fantastic!  I just hope it helps all those scrappy bits clean up so my dreads will start looking pretty good.  In a couple of months my dreads will be a year old.  I really hope that they can start looking pretty fantastic before then!

In other news, I've found the perfect way to tie my hair back to keep it out of my face, yay!  I have a fantastic bandana/scarf kind of thing that I bought at the local shop (Gaia's Garden) a year and a half ago.  It's called a MayaWear Bandana, and it's wonderful!  It can be worn as a headband or pulled back like a more traditional scarf.  It's very hippie and I love it.  Mine is a beautiful aqua color, but they've got a variety of colors from African style woven patterns to solid colors.  I wish I could buy a few more!  They're so practical for every-day wear, especially with dreads!  They're quick, easy, and convenient.  Unfortunately, they do make it a good deal easier to pop the elastics in my hair, but I suppose that's just something I'll have to live with.  I'd rather have my hair back and neat than worry about popping the elastics!

We've Made It to Six Months!

And we're here...past six months!  It somehow feels like it's been so much longer than that.  I've had to deal with some difficult situations.  I've had more than a few friends try and convince me to get rid of them.  It's not exactly easy to keep to a commitment when everyone keeps telling me I should get rid of them.  I have to stand against what most of my friends think I do.

I know most of my friends hate my dreads, but I've got to breathe.  I've got to realize that it's not their hair.  It's not their lives.  They've got to accept that this is my hair, my choice, and they don't have to like it.  I particularly enjoy my hair and they shouldn't be pressuring me to conform to their standards.

The hardest thing for me is a number of my friends shaving their heads in various ways.  In all of this I got the comment that I should shave my head.  Mind you, I don't want to shave my head again.  I love my dreads.  They suit me and I'm pretty happy with them, even though they have a long way to go to hit perfect.  These things take time, of course, but at the same time, I have to consider what my friends must think of the process.  It's scary to think I'm doing something so different, so unique, something I'll feel so alone about.

I don't want to go against the grain.  I don't want to break the mold.  I don't really want to do this to be different, but I kind of have no option, in a way.  All I want is to be happy.  I want my friends to accept me for who I am, to love me for what I like, and to let me be me.  That's not what I've been getting at all.  It's a lot of pressure.  I'm just glad the men I live with are so incredibly accepting, that my dance partner seems to adore my dreads, and that I've got some encouragement to be myself.  It would be quite the challenge without that.  I can't imagine having to go through this feeling isolated and alone until people started realizing that this look, these dreads, they're not going away.  This is a part of who I am, the style I choose, the way I want to be.  They can take me for who I am, or they can leave me.

As for these dreads?  I love them.  I'm six months in and I'm still enjoying them.  This is the longest I've held any one style without regret.  I think I should take that as a sign.

The Spiritual Journey of Dreadlocks or A Learning not to Be Vain

So, a friend of mine has been writing about her journey with dreadlocks on her blog, Otherwise Quite Good.  She has sadly decided to end her journey with dreads.  As much as I loved her dreads, I understand that it's not a good choice for everyone.  It's going to be a different experience for each person.

In her blog she wrote about the pros and cons of dreads from a newbie perspective.  While I understand that's her experience, at the same time I'm finding that I don't recognize it at all.  A lot of what she's saying is pretty strange to me.  Every experience is different, and I guess mine is very different than hers.

The biggest reason most people I know do dreads is maintenance.  Dreads are supposed to be a pretty easy, care-free hair style.  Of course, when you ask people who have actually had dreads, you get a very different story, depending on the method they use.  They're also an exercise in patience.  I think if it weren't for the dread community I'm involved with on Ravelry, I'd be pretty lost right now.  I certainly wouldn't know what to expect and I'd be doing a lot of things I've now come to realize are just some company's way to make money off people with dreads.  In truth, I'd probably be combing them out by now too.

What most people don't understand is that dreadlocks are a spiritual journey.  It's not something you can undertake lightly.  You've got to seriously think into it before you do it because they're just not going to look the way you want them to any time soon.  They may never look the way you want them to.  It's going to take a while before they even look halfway decent anyway.  It's a long term commitment.  It could take a year or two, and for some people, that's quite some time.  You've just got to have faith that the dreads will come out okay in the end.

I've had to learn the hard way that having dreads means giving up on vanity.  It means letting go of preconceived notions of how we should look.  Yes, dreads tend to look wild and horrible in the first year.  I know a lot of companies that make dread products will tell you that it takes up to six weeks to have great looking dreads, but the reality is that's just not likely to happen.  I've gotten to talk to one woman with fantastic dreads that spent two years watching her dreads go through all kinds of evolutions, shrinking, thickening up, and looking wild.  Mine have been going strong for nearly six months and they've still got all kinds of crazy loops and things.  Some of them are flat.  Some of them have weird little spots that just aren't dreading the same as everything else.  The roots are pretty wild and I've got all kinds of fuzz.  I've attacked them with a crochet hook for the first time, but I'm not even going to attempt to get rid of the roots.  I'm not going to bind them down or crochet them in.  I just want to pull in the loose ends so my hair stays together.  I've picked up a bit of finger rolling, but for the most part, I'm just leaving them to be crazy.

Over the past nearly six months it's been a test of faith.  Because I used the twist and rip method for dreading I ended up having to hold my breath while they nearly fell out entirely at the beginning.  Over time they slowly started to dread up again.  I've been lucky enough to watch my hair grow, not shrink up through the process, but I think a large part of that has to do with the length of the dreaded hair.  Much of my dreads aren't very solid and haven't thickened up much, but I'm sure that will change in time.  I've had a few heart attack moments with my washing routine as too much apple cider vinegar caused my hair to start to slip and come undone.  For the first four months or so I just let my hair do whatever it wanted.  I ended up with one dread eating another, so I eventually went through and separated those that were starting to grow together.  That's pretty much the only maintenance I've ever done.  I've toyed with palm rolling, but my dreads are too narrow and short for that to be practical.  Like I've mentioned, I finger roll now and again, but it's done nothing for the shape and form of my dreads.  It's more just something to do with my hands than something for the appearance of my dreads.  I've got to release that vain side of myself that wants everything to be perfect and beautiful, kind of ironic since I wrote not all that long ago about my own vanity.

The thing with dreads and maintenance is it only takes as much as you let it take.  I know there are some people who are obsessed with it.  They palm roll daily.  I know some who crochet their hair once a month in order to get rid of all the wisps.  There are some people who go in for routine maintenance monthly.  Maintenance on dreads can, in theory, take a lot of time.  If you choose to palm roll daily, or even after every bath or shower, that can take one to two hours, especially if you've got long dreads or particularly thin dreads.  This can be a huge time drain often making people feel as though their dreads are like children, requiring so much time, attention, and care.

Choosing my style of maintenance didn't take much thought on my part.  I know a lot of people refer to them as "dreads by neglect", but the truth is they're really just "au natural" if you really get down to it.  Dreads by neglect are one of three major ways to make dreads.  Backcombing, or backcombing and crochet are the most popular style of dreads.  Twist and rip are far less known about, but they're another common choice.  Dreads by neglect are simply forming dreads by neglecting your hair.  Don't brush it, don't comb it, and eventually it will knot up.  If you want to have some control in your hair's natural sectioning you rip apart and separate the dreads as they start to form, kind of sectioning them as they develop.  It's the most natural way to let your dreads develop, but requires a lot of trust and faith in your hair.  Your hair does what it wants and you really don't know what you'll end up with.

The natural dread maintenance plan pretty much means letting your dreads develop the way they develop.  Some people will let their dreads eat each other, forming massive dreads, but that's not my style.  All I do is rip them apart when they start to blend together and try and pick up the wisps when I can.  Some who use this natural method do use a crochet hook to weave the loose ends in once or twice, but after that wait for the hair to pull in on it's own.  Eventually it will dread.  They don't use any methods to pull the dread closer to the roots.  I've had dreads with two inches of undreaded hair at the root, but over time they've grown closer to the scalp.  Now I just have about a comfortable inch on most of them.  At the most I throw a little bit of nag champa oil in my hair to make it smell nice, especially if it's got a tinge of that vinegar smell right after washing.  Sometimes I use amber oil or dragon's blood for variety.  It doesn't take much and all I have to do is put oil on my hands and rub them into my dreads.  It seems like every time my hair moves the scent subtly escapes for days on end.

Styling has been a little more of a challenge.  I can't just tie my dreads up with other dreads because they're just too short.  I'm still in need of hair ties, scarves, and bandannas.  I have to do something with my hair in the morning because I don't have my friend's luck with gravity solving all.  I look like Medusa or that character from Starcraft.  I'm starting to rely on the things I can do with my hair.  Thankfully my hair is starting to grow so I'm finding I can do more and more each day.  I can finally pull it into a single pony tail!

In the end, I think the most important lessons any potential dreadie should learn is that the process takes time, potentially a lot of time.  It could take a year or two for your dreads to get out of the wild phase.  Maintenance is really not as necessary as some will try to tell you.  The dread product companies will sell you on the idea that you need their products to expediate the process, but honestly, you don't really need them.  The best thing you can do is let your hair do it's own thing and enjoy the ride.  These are the things I'm glad someone told me at the beginning of all of this!  I have to wonder how many other potential dreadies would keep their dreads longer if they only knew what they were getting themselves into in the first place.

I've still got a long way to go.  It's going to be at least six more months, I can figure, before my dreads look anything like I'll want them to, or more accurately, the way they want to.  They're still evolving quite a bit these days.  Maybe I'm unusual, but I love the wild, chaotic look of the dreads right now.  They seem very natural, very wild woman.  It's kind of freeing.  I wash them once a week, but I don't notice any of the scalp problems I've heard reported.  Maybe my hair is just responding really well to the soak I use, or maybe it's just what I'm doing.  No matter how I look at it, this is clearly the right choice for me and my hair!  On top of it all, I really am learning a lesson about myself.  Maybe I just need to stop being so vain.

Sometimes that's the biggest lesson you can ever learn in life, to release yourself from the things that are holding you back so you can recognize a new state of being.  I guess one could say that this is like the hanged man card in tarot.  You've got to look at the world from a different perspective for a while.  As a dancer so much has been built up on appearance.  I was convinced I would have perfect, maintenanced, clean dreads.  They were always going to look fantastic.  I would never have a single doubt about the end result.  Instead of getting what I wanted, I've had to learn to release myself to the outcome.  The dreads will be what they will be and there's nothing I can do but keep faith that they'll be beautiful, just like the other fantastic dreads I've seen before!

Five Months into Dreading Already? Almost Six?

I have to say, this is the longest I've really committed to anything!  Five months of one hair style seems like an eternity to me.  I can't seem to stick with one look to save my life.  One day I'm feeling grunge.  The next day I'm feeling like a hippie.  Two days later it's all-American jeans and a tee-shirt.  Keeping to dreads was expected to be a huge challenge for me.  I expected it to be work, a hassle, and to get bored with it, to be honest.  Most people I've known with dreads don't even last out the year.  They decide they don't like the look, so they comb them out.  Of course, dreads are a journey and a few months is hardly enough time to tell what they'll be like.  I knew going into this it would be a long process.  I was hoping I could last out a year so I could at least see them mature.

The first few months were rough.  I have to admit, I'd had tons of thoughts of combing them out.  I kind of missed having normal hair.  Dreading the bangs seemed to help as it got them out of my face so I could see, but I lost an element of what I was going for.  I liked my bangs, and I was tempted to comb them out until recently.  This whole process was just taking too long, and I was ready to give up on them.  Even with the bangs dreaded back, I was starting to think they were just never going to be what I wanted.  They were never going to be anything but a messy, chaotic, disastrous mess.

Well, five months have gone by in a blink.  I didn't even realize I completely forgot to post a five month update and it's almost been six months!  My dreads look fantastic, at least for being baby dreads.  They're developing nicely.  They're starting to build up a nice locked up portion, which is exactly what I want to see!  If they keep up like this I'll be proud to be the owner of lovely dreadlocks before the year is out.  I'm not going to hold my breath on that quick of a result, but I'm seeing progress in a very quick way.  I'm actually impressed with the way my dreads are turning so quickly.

I'm sure there's going to be some more shrinking to be done.  My dreads aren't as tight and hard packed as I was given the impression they should be and I know that's a factor in shrinking.  I've had to attack them with a crochet hook this morning so I could pull in all the wispy bits.  When I was done with that I experimented with palm rolling a few.  I'm not sure they had any real effect, but I guess it was worth the try.  There's only one way to find out what the results will be, and that's to try it.  If palm rolling makes them look better, then great. If not, well, I at least took the time to break up any that were growing together.  On top of that, I'm not palm rolling all of them, so I guess one could say I'm just doing an experiment.  It's really more finger rolling too.  there's not enough to hold in the palms of my hand and roll!

I'm not ready to say I'm satisfied with my dreads yet.  They still annoy me most days when they're down.  I'm not quite sold on the look of my short, scrappy dreads.  Most days I wear them up or in a scarf.  This has a two fold benefit.  First, I can keep myself from messing with my dreads.  I've heard the more you leave them alone, the better they develop, so I'm going for that.  Second, my dreads just look a lot better when they're up.  I've gotten a lot of criticism on my dreads, and I can honestly say I'm tired of it.  Yes, I know they look crazy and out of control.  That's because they are.  They're going through the crazy, wild phase and they're pretty short.  It's going to take some time to tame them down and make them look "respectable".  Until then, I'm only letting them loose on a good day, like today.

I have to say, I'm so happy I decided to do this.  There's nothing like dreads, and I adore them.  The more they develop, the more I love them. I can't wait until I can have some beautiful, long dreads like some of the ones I've seen!  It takes time, but I'll get there.  I just have to keep exercising good patience.

A Little Bit of Vanity is Good for the Soul

I've been noticing this whole thing with dreads has brought out a new side of me.  I'm not just trying to document the process of the dreads, I've got to admit, I'm a little bit vain.  I've started to realize that my previous amusement of taking my own portrait has taken a totally different turn.

Well, I should be honest here, part of this increase in vanity is because of my new phone.  I've got a smart phone and it's got a pretty good camera.  I can load those photos directly to photobucket or Facebook.  This, of course, makes it so much more enthralling to be vain.  I even have a whole album on Facebook dedicated to my dreads.  It's made the whole thing a lot more fun.

This whole vanity thing has actually done something good for me.  I'm a lot happier about my life right now.  I'm starting to notice that I'm a lot happier with the way I look.  When you look good, you feel good, and I'm starting to notice the balance there.  Yes, I look a lot more adult than I want to.  I hate to say it, but the past couple of years have really aged me.  I can no longer pull off being a teenager.  I definitely look like a grown up.  Maybe it's time I start embracing that.

Photographs are also documenting the evolution of me.  I'm noticing small changes in myself.  The youthful innocence I used to display in pictures was replaced with something a little sultry.  In turn I outgrew that and started to notice I just looked adult.  Now I'm noticing that I'm looking more and more my age, especially when I actually wear my glasses.  I have to say, I actually like the look of wearing my glasses.  I may just have to do it more often.  It's probably better for my eyes anyway.

Something productive does come out of vanity.  Yes, I've grown up a lot, but I'm actually kind of happy that I'm starting to look a bit more grown up too.  Maybe I still don't look as old as I feel, but at the very least I'm starting to feel a lot less like a kid.  I wonder if that's why so many people are overlooking me these days.  Maybe that's a good thing too!

Dreads, Month Four

Well, I'd meant to post pictures of my dreads when they officially turned four months, but I never got to it.  It may be half a month later, but it's made all the world of difference.  I've colored my dreads, which I expected was going to help them wash out.  That was a journey in itself, but I'm thrilled with the result.

I have to be honest, the bleaching and dying process did make it a bit hit or miss on the dreads there for a bit.  It was nice to have someone go in and separate the dreads that were trying to attach to each other.  Unfortunately, the process also knocked them all quite loose and I actually lost a couple, having to redread them.  It wasn't what I was hoping for, but it may be a while before I can dye them again.  It was totally worth the risk.

In the long run the dreads turned out beautifully!  Most of them are starting to dread up even better than they were before.  My guess is the dryness of my hair and having been stripped of any remaining oils by the bleach managed to help the process along.

While I had a few doubts a little less than a month ago, I think I'm really starting to come into acceptance of my dreads being what they're going to be.  They didn't turn out quite the way I expected them, but I love the way they're developing.  They've got this crazy personality, which I totally adore!  I can't wait to see what they're going to look like in a few month's time!

The Dread Journey: Hitting the Three Month Mark

After three months I'm really starting to understand this whole journey of dreads.  In the time I've had them I've almost had them come out on me twice now and they're not exactly doing what I expected them to do.  I've found some things about them that I love.  I've found some things that I hate.  It's been an experience.

Three months in I've found that I haven't lost any length.  I've barely got any dreading going on.  The roots are grown long and wild.  It's pretty obvious how much length I've gotten out of my dreads in the past couple of months.  You can see it in just how long my roots have gotten, but I'm not going to be bleaching my hair again any time soon.  The dye is slowly starting to fade out.  Before long my hair will be just a completely average shade of blond with an average shade of brown.  Would you believe I'm actually looking forward to that?  My how things have changed!  Just a few short months have made me into a different person, and the hair is just an extension of all of that.  It's also amazing how much my hair has grown.  It's only been three months!

I think I'm looking forward to the rest of this journey, but at the same time, I don't know.  A part of me has become very defeated by the whole thing.  I'm getting frustrated by the way it's all turning out.  It's not coming along as quickly as I hoped and the dreaded section is so incredibly short.  I guess I'd kind of hoped that my hair would have more length dreaded by now.  I had wanted them to progress so much faster.  I was always told shorter hair always locked up and started growing faster than someone with longer dreads.  I'm a little disappointed because so many people talk about how much their dreads shrink in the first year, but my dreads haven't shrunk at all.  They're the same length as my natural hair, and it all started the same length.  I was told my dreads would thicken up, but so far they're no thicker at all.  I was told they would start to get more solid, but again not a lot of change there.  I guess I was expecting things to be a lot different by now, but they're not, and it's not necessarily a bad thing.

So, here we go, one more month down!

Self-Image

I've been thinking a lot about image lately.  Isn't image kind of a part of mental health?  When you look good, you feel good.  That's something we all need to consider.

I've come under criticism in the past about caring too much about my self-image.  I don't exactly put a lot of time into my appearance.  As much as I was told dreads would be a whole lot more work, I've found that it's turned into a massive time-saver!  I wish I'd done this years ago!  I don't spend time on make-up every day.  I make a bit of an effort on what I wear and I don't have a problem spending money on having nice clothes.  I'm not like some women out there that spend a good deal of time on their image every day, but it seems like there's this unwritten law that moms can't spend time on their appearance until their children are older.  I just don't get that.

One of the major things I've noticed is when I look good, I feel good.  When I feel good, I'm a better mom to my kids, a better friend to have around, and a better partner to whatever relationship I've got going at the time.  When I'm happy, the world around me is impacted in a positive way.  Shouldn't that alone be a reason to take a little extra time and money for my appearance?  And it's really not that much time at all.  It would be a bath once a month (because sometimes showers just don't cut it!), wearing nice clothes, or at least clothes that I like, and spending all of a couple minutes putting my hair up in the morning in some way that looks cute.

So, why do this?  I'm kind of stuck looking in the mirror several times each day.  Every time I go into the master bathroom, the bathroom I actually go out of my way to use, I see the mirror right as I walk in the door.  Public restrooms often have mirrors that can't easily be avoided as well.  It means several times each day I catch my own reflection.  That's not even counting the dark shadowed figure I see reflected in the monitor of my laptop, my phone, and on occasion the television.  Each of those moments can be a moment of knowing I look good, or looking at myself and thinking, "Wow, I've really let myself go."  It really does change your perspective, even if you don't care much about your appearance.

The same goes for what I'm wearing each day.  When you put clothing on you know you're going to see it all day long.  Comfort is a must, of course.  When you're comfortable you feel good too!  However, looking at yourself in sweats and a beat-up t-shirt doesn't exactly inspire a feeling of greatness.  Maybe that's why I've always leaned away from sweat pants and always go for cute and fashionable t-shirts.  I just can't stand the idea that maybe I'm starting to let go of caring a little too much.

Then there's the external half of it.  It feels really nice to get a compliment on your outfit at the supermarket.  I've gotten more compliments on my hair with the wool dreads than I can count.  While I've gotten significantly less without the woolies, I still get a lot of positive feedback.  On top of that, regardless of gender people who look nice tend to get more of a positive reaction from strangers wherever they go.  When I take the time to look nice before going out I get more smiles from strangers, and those smiles are infectious!

Wouldn't it be wonderful if the next plague of man was the smile?  It would certainly mean that people feel better wherever they go.  Grocery shopping wouldn't seem like such a hassle.  Running errands wouldn't seem like such a chore.  Then they'd take that energy home and share it with their families and the plague would continue, infecting one after the other.  It could so easily come from something as simple as taking the time to dress in a way that makes you smile or do your hair up in that cute way that you love so much.

I think that's also a vital point that most people forget.  It's not about what other people like, it's about what I like.  When I put my dreads up in too cute little pigtails, it's practical because my hair is up and out of my way, and I look at it and think, "That's such a cute hair style!"  Other people might look at me and think I'm too old for pigtails.  Someone else might look at them and think the "typical male response" of handle bars.  Others might look at it and think how much they really hate that hair style for whatever reason.  None of that matters.  All that matters is that I think it's cute.  The same goes for my style of dress.  The same goes for makeup, or in my case a lack of makeup more often than not.  When I look good, I feel good.  When I feel good, I view the world differently.  When I see the world differently, I treat the people and things in that world differently.  It's a cascade effect that comes from nothing more than being myself.

This is something I've decided I need to put more thought into.  I need to start creating a self-image that makes me smile.  I need to start dressing the way I enjoy dressing.  I need to wear my hair the way I like it.  I need to carry myself in the way I choose.  After all, I can't worry about other people taking me seriously.  If I take myself seriously other people will see past what's on the outside and take me seriously too.

You know, I think that's a lot of the problem with people in alternative communities not being taken seriously.  When you walk into a job interview with piercings, funky colored hair, and gobs of black eyeliner topped with the attitude of superiority or the underlying thought that they won't hire you because of the way you look, well, guess what?  They're not going to hire you.  All they see is a rebellious troublemaker that's going to give them problems.  However, I've seen a woman walk into an interview at a very professional office with black and purple hair, over-the top black eyeliner and matching lip stick, long acrylic nails painted black, dressed in a black suit that wasn't exactly the most business looking in cut, with piercings up her ears, in her nose and eyebrow, big crazy rings (though admittedly smaller than I've seen her wear), and a big Gothic cross necklace and still walk away with the job.  Why?  She conducted herself in a professional, serious, and friendly way during the interview.  She wasn't changing who she was or acting in any way different.  She just went in there with confidence and showed a genuine portrayal of herself.  She was requested to tone down the look a little for work, but she still got the job.  If she had gone in there with a bad attitude trying to keep the goth image rather than just be herself as a woman trying to get a job, I doubt they would have hired her at all!

Of course, in some areas of the world it's not that easy if you stand out.  There's a lot of places that aren't accepting of piercings, tattoos, and crazy hair here in Texas, but not all of it is that much of a challenge, and companies are growing more and more accepting of self-expression by the day.  On top of that, if you don't make a big deal out of things, people are more likely not to notice.  For example, I had a friend who knew me for six months and when I got the second hole in my lip he thought they were both new!  I think he might not have even noticed if I hadn't pointed it out.  I can't count the number of people who don't realize I wear two gauge earrings in my ears.  I think most people would easily forget about the dreads too, were the colors not so shocking and bright.  Even if they did, it's something easy to tone down the appearance of with creative use of a scarf or wearing a pretty beret.  It's all a matter of what you make of it.

I've thought about this a lot on the whole image for a profession thing too.  A friend of mine was saying she didn't feel like she looked like an artist.  There are times I feel like I don't look like a belly dancer.  I know there have been people who haven't taken me seriously as a mom because I don't look like a mom.  I've heard friends complain that their job doesn't take them seriously because they don't look like tech support, IT, an accountant, you name it.  They feel like they have to adopt some expected look to fit in and succeed.  Unfortunately, by doing that you not only are promoting stereotypes, but you're also not being true to yourself!  Perhaps the reason these people (myself included) aren't taken seriously has more to do with taking themselves seriously.  It's about living the life, living the dream.  If you don't feel like other people will take you seriously as a corporate executive because you have a tattoo or an unconventional piercing, they're certainly not going to!  In my case, if I feel like people won't take me seriously as a belly dancer because I've got piercings, tattoos, dreads, and funky colored hair, they're not going to!  If I feel like I'm not going to be taken seriously as a mom because I don't wear mom jeans, t-shirts, have piercings, a tattoo, and crazy funky colored hair, people aren't going to take me seriously!

Suddenly the world has changed.  I've started owning who I am, funky hair and all.  I don't pay attention to it when I go out.  I don't even notice my piercings to the point where I got the deer in the headlights look when someone asked me why I decided to get my nose pierced "on the wrong side" because I couldn't even remember why I'd done it, and didn't even put much consideration to it.  People don't treat me like I have funky colored hair when I'm not calling attention to it myself.  The way I dress doesn't really catch much attention these days either, which is great because I can be comfortable and dress the way I love without having to worry how I'll be treated for it.  When I'm me for the sake of being me without a care in the world or putting any mental focus on how other people will view me, they treat me as though I'm no different than anyone else.  I'm just your average person, with a few quirky beliefs about life and a slightly more eccentric appearance than most.

Self-image is something I think we all need to focus on, not because we need to conform to some standard of society, but because we all need to accept our own beauty.  We need to create an image of ourselves that we love, something that inspires us, something that makes us happy.  It's time we all started caring about our self-image without worry about what society will think of us.  We're all beautiful people.  It's time we let our own inner beauty shine through.

Soaking It All In

Yesterday I decided to start a new cleaning regimen with my dreads.  I'd been doing the bicarb for a while now.  I stopped using the ACV because it was making my hair too silky so it didn't want to stay dreaded.  The bicarb made my hair feel kind of gross, but it wasn't too bad, and I knew the ACV would be back as soon as my hair was securely dreaded and wouldn't come out terribly easily.  Who knew something so acidic would turn out to be so conditioning?  If some day I decide not to have dreads I think I'm going to stick with this style of washing as well.  It's made my hair feel absolutely fantastic!

Since I've had my dreads in for about a two and a half months now I decided it was time for a deep clean.  Most of the research I've done on dreads seems to show there are really two methods of dreading hair.  One is done with products and additives.  The biggest component seems to be wax.  My friend over at Otherwise Quite Good has taken this approach.  She recently got a dread maintenance done and her dreads look fantastic!  I've known some people to say taking a crochet hook to your dreads now and again is an awesome way to keep them neat and pull in all those loose ends.  There are some who use a peppermint spray on their hair, though I'm not sure what that's supposed to do.  I've seen mixed reviews on all of these things, though it seems the dread forums I frequent shy away from wax more than anything else, though I've never been able to get a solid reason as to why aside from being able to trap water and dirt and being really messy if you decide to comb them out.

On the forums I've been on have seemed to be filled with people who go for completely natural dreads.  Many of them suggest letting your hair naturally start to dread and then separate it or let it go naturally.  I'm not quite that bold on the natural dreading.  For me it sounds like it would be too chaotic.  Instead I've kind of given them a push.  Besides, I wanted very fine dreads, not massive ones.  The big dreads are gorgeous on some people, but I'm such a delicate looking person that I think they'd look like too much on me.  It seems like the more time I spend on dread forums the more of a push there is to go naturally.  It seems like there are a number of people who don't even crochet their dreads or do any other kind of maintenance because many of those styles can create weak points in the dread.  Given my hair is already very fine to begin with and my dreads are pretty thin, I don't want to take any risks.  I'm just going to let them do their own thing.  I don't even palm roll, though a large part of that is because they're so incredibly short.  There isn't much hair that's actually dreaded to be rolled round anyway, and I'm starting to find that I like the small loops that are developing.  I'm liking the funky flattened dreads (which I hear will naturally round out as they tighten up).  I'm just in love with letting them go and do their own thing!  Given most of my research has said the best way to get your hair to dread and fast is to leave it alone for the first six months or so, not even doing any maintenance at all, that's what I'm doing.  I might consider other options if my hair was longer, but I honestly think I'm glad I've found the sites I did before I started.  My dreads may not look as neat and manicured as my friend, the Artsy Eclectic, but it feels very me.  Better still, my dreads are making the journey their own way, which I've heard is interesting with short hair.

Anyhow, I was going to talk about my deep cleaning and new hair care system!  I got completely sidetracked.  The suggestion I'd gotten was to throw a "packet" of bicarb into the tub, then fill the bath.  Given we don't have packets here, I was left to try and do a few conversions on the measurement she gave me.  It turns out she used a little over a cup of baking soda.  She said her hair was really long, so that's why she needed so much, but diluted in the bath it's all about the same.  I threw about that much in the tub, filled it up, and hopped on in.  It seems like it would be a lot more comfortable than sticking my head in a bucket for a half an hour!  I just sank back into the tub and soaked!  I added some good music, a couple candles for mood lighting, and set up about three teaspoons of apple cider vinegar diluted in about a gallon of water sitting on the toilet, waiting for use.  It was a half hour of relaxation, though the music was muffled by the water in my ears.  The water didn't turn out near as dirty as I expected, which is kind of nice.  I guess that means I'm doing a better job cleaning my dreads than I thought!  Either that or they're just not getting that dirty.

Once the half hour soak was done I just dumped the apple cider vinegar mix in with the rest of the bath water.  Last minute I was having some fears about the ACV making my hair too soft again, so I thought this would help.  I dipped my head back into the spot it had all been dumped and shook my hair around a bit.  Then I started to drain the water and used some clean water to rinse it all out of my hair.  Given the advice I'd gotten on some of the dread forums, I'd decided to pour it over my head with a cup instead of actually showering.  It seems that way is less risky for the hair wanting to come undone.  Again, I'm a bit paranoid with my short hair.  I think it would be a lot easier to dread if my hair was longer.

After my hair was clean I stepped out of the tub and dried off.  My skin felt so incredibly soft!  It seems like that bicarb bath did wonderful things for the rest of my body too!  I've decided I need to do that every month!  It's both good for my hair and good for my body!

Following some more advice from the dread forum, once my hair was clean and dry I took a spray bottle and filled it with a mix of water and sea salt.  I prefer the non-iodized stuff, but I suppose it doesn't really matter.  I sprayed it in my hair and now I smell like ocean water!  By that I mean salt water, not all the smell of fish and other sea creatures the ocean comes with.  It's making me a little homesick, but my hair actually feels like my hair is a little drier and likely to dread up this way.  My hair also didn't loosen up the way I expected it to.  It's starting to come along pretty well.

Finishing off, once my hair was completely dry again I decided I wanted to smell extra nice.  I put some nag champa oil in my hair.  You could use any oil, really.  I used to do this by getting the oil on my fingertips and running it through my hair, but that doesn't work so well now that my hair is dreaded.  I just dabbed it on the palm of my hand, rubbed my hands together, and rubbed it in my hair.  It's nice because the scent becomes pretty subtle after the initial application and as my hair moves I notice the scent gets slightly stronger and weaker.  While it would probably make a bigger difference if I played with my hair more, it's still nice.  Right now I'm just trying to touch my hair as little as possible so I don't interfere with the dreading process.  It's just nice to have that subtle scent.  It feels nice to smell nice!

I have to say, I'm really glad for the dread forums I have.  They've been wonderful.  It's been such a source of advice and ideas.  This is definitely more of a journey than I thought it would be, but I'm excited!  I can't wait to see where it all ends up!

Dreadies, Month Two!

So, we've made it two months now.  This is the longest I've kept any of these hair styles lately.  My braids lasted maybe three weeks.  My woolies lasted a month.  Now, just in time for month two, I've put the woolies back in.  I can't promise how long they'll stay.  I can only hope that they help encourage the dreading process, bu there's no way to be sure.  At the very least, my hair should dread better because I'm not messing with it all the time.

I have to admit, I faced some challenges.  I almost took the dreadies out all together.  The balance of what I washed them with was making them want to come loose.  I couldn't get the balance right.  My hair was over-conditioned, which was completely going against the goal of it all.  Now I'm starting to get the results I want, but it's going to be a while yet.  I don't know whether the wool will help it out or hold it back, but I do know it's keeping my hair bound up so I can't mess with the process.  It's also massively extending the length of my hair, so I'm getting a chance to have actual length again!  I can actually wear my hair up now!

The wool won't stay in long, this much I know.  It will be too hot before long and I'll have to take them out.  Summer doesn't seem like a great time to wear wool on my head.  Texas summers are hot enough without help!  I can't imagine having wool to top it off!  Still, it will give me another month or two without messing with my hair too much, and hopefully that month or two will be enough for my hair to really start to lock up.

It's not going to be long before I'm debuting the summer season with some solidly started dreadlocks.  Short dreads are supposedly so much faster to stop shrinking and start growing.  They set up faster so you can move on to normal dread life.  We'll see how true that is.

My hair is really starting to get long too.  You can see it in my bangs.  They weren't near that long when I started all of this.  They might not have grown at some insane rate, but it's nice to see my hair is actually making progress from where it was.  Almost one year ago I shaved my head, and in that year, so much has changed.  It's nice to know that my hair has done nothing but change colors and grow!

Bicarbonate and ACV hair care

I'm doing something new with my dreads.  I love my organic soaps and all, but it's been leaving my hair greasy.  Regular shampoos just won't cut it.  They leave too much residue on the hair, which is bad news for dreads.  I need something that will leave the hair clean and oil and residue-free.

There's been this whole big revolution of people going "no-poo".  Some people choose to stop using shampoo and only use conditioner.  Others just wash their hair with water, nothing more.  There are those who opt for regular bar soaps, organic soaps, or Dr. Bronner's.  I've heard that you can use Dawn dish soap to wash their hair.  There is recipe upon recipe online.  From ingredient checkers to recipe makers to those who simply listen to what some online source tells them, people everywhere are starting to look into alternatives to the shampoo revolution, and for various reasons from cost to health.

In my case, I've started on this whole journey with dreads.  I know from listening to the experiences others have had that it's easy to screw up dreads, as much as it looks like an easy, no-brainer of a process.  Yes, it's a wash and wear hair style, but if you think about it, bound up clumps of hair can easily be damaged or destroyed.  Think about any fiber that gets wet and stays wet for long periods of time.  Moisture builds up inside and it can easily mildew or mold.  It develops a lovely musty smell.  That's just one of the many ways things can go wrong with dreads.  Because of this, you'll want to be careful what you're putting in your hair.

I'm sure you wouldn't believe it, but I've heard all kinds of stories of things people put in their hair to help their hair dread.  The two most disturbing on the commonly used list are honey and tooth paste.  I can't imagine anyone thinking it would be a good idea to put honey in their hair.  For me, that just sounds like a sticky, messy disaster that would leave the hair in a great position to rot if I didn't wash it all out.  Nope, that doesn't sound like fun at all!  Toothpaste actually has much the same effect from what I've heard.  Both of these do nothing to the dreading process, aside from perhaps destroying the hair, which is not at all the intended effect.  There's this huge debate going on about wax as well, given that if used while the hair is wet, it traps in the moisture, encouraging rot and bad smells.  Wax also tends to attract dirt, so you've got to be careful how much wax you use.  Now, I've known a lot of people who have used wax and have had their dreads turn out just fine, so I'm not one of the "evils of wax" kind of people, but I choose not to use it for a variety of reasons.  One of which is the number of nightmare stories of "wax gone wrong" and people trying to get the wax out.  The anti-wax playing field got to me long before the wax side did, and even with the research, I think wax-free is the way for me.  There's too much room to mess it up with wax!  It's easier to put my woolies back in without wax to mess them up too.  Of course, just as the hair stops bleeding out dye so I could put the woolies back in, the weather turns and it's almost too hot for wool!

I wanted something that would be easy and inexpensive. Organic soaps can be pricey.  Dr. Bronner's is great for washing everything under the sun, but it seems several people find that it leaves a residue on their dreads.  I just didn't want to take the risk.  Straight from the start I decided I wanted to go with a home-made rinse, but I didn't think I could because my hair wasn't long enough for a soak.  It's hard to sit with your dreads in a bowl soaking when half your dreads are too short to reach the bowl!  However, I finally decided I had no choice!  I had to do something.

There are dozens of "no-poo" recipes out there.  Most of them contain the same major components, bicarbonate (otherwise known as baking soda) and ACV (apple cider vinegar).  Some of them include additives like tea tee oil, lavender oil, and lemon juice.  For your typical non-dreadie, the easiest recommended recipe is a tablespoon or two of bicarbonate mixed with just enough water to make a paste.  Once that paste is formed, you scrub it in to the roots of your hair just as you would a normal shampoo.  Rinse, and then soak the hair in a mix of one or two teaspoons of ACV mixed with water.  Rinse until the vinegar smell is gone.  Simple as that and done!

For someone with dreads, there's all of these different recipes.  The one thing I'm finding common among all of them are between two and four teaspoons of bicarbonate and between two teaspoons and a quarter cup of ACV mixed in a bowl with about four cups of water.  To this is often added some lemon juice (about the amount of one full squeezed lemon), or a few drops of some kind of oil.  Some even add a bit of sea salt.  You soak the hair, leave it for a half an hour, then rinse until clean.  Until recently I hadn't heard the whole idea of pouring it into and over your hair until soaked and wrapping it in a towel for a half an hour.  That's something I can much easier manage in my daily life.  Soaking my hair is much harder to do with it being so short.  It would mean pouring water from the bowl I soak in with a cup to soak the rest of it.  It might take some creativity.

Not wanting to go with anything fancy, I just used the bicarbonate and ACV.  I mixed them, soaked them for a short period, probably about ten minutes, and rinsed.  My hair felt shockingly dry, and clean!  I wasn't sure I got all of the vinegar out of my hair the first time, so I rinsed my hair again when I showered today to be sure.  Now that my hair is dry, I absolutely love the way my hair is starting to look now!  I have to admit, I was a little scared because the knots started coming loose!  Half of what was there came out, but what didn't is pretty solidly locked up!  I think it's the greasiness of the hair that caused them to slip loose when being washed out.  I went back and redid anything that was too loose and they seem to be staying fairly well.

My hair is kind of dry, but I think that's either a need to tweak the recipe or I need to let my hair adjust to the new system.  We'll see what happens from here, but the dreads are turning out great!  The new wash seems to really be working!