guess who's coming to dinner....natty dreadlocks!!!

i could not resist it any longed and decidded to lock up my hair again. i had dreadlocked hair for about two years until june 2004.. it was a enrichening experience and i had decided to cut them because i was tired of being stereotyped. however, something happened the weekend of may 5th 2006 and i felt like it was time to be dread again. i had had only two trims since i cut my locks so my hair was a decent length for starting locks. i have been part of online discussion groups for dreadlocks for a while and have been researching various methods for starting and maintaing locks for a while. however, my biggest challenge was that most of that information was geared towards people with naturally kinky hair, basically black people. and the only information that i found regarding locking straight hair like mine was on websites like knotty boy or dreadlock HQ which sold products and gave descriptions on how to have dreadlocks using their products. and the emphasis was always on "making" dreads and not growing them. these websites gave "backcombing" as the ultimate method to make dreadlocks. however, my first set of locks were created by this method with my dear sister's help and i knew that i had a lot of breakage and a dry look because of it. so this time i decided to do something different.

i had been noticing that when i do not comb my hair, it used to seperate itself into small sections and if i leave them as they are, the ends would start to kinda lock. this used to happen especially at the back around my neck. so i took this phenamena as my starting point and seperated my hair into small sections using black rubber bands. the picture of the end product can be seen here.

i then twisted each section with the inside of a fresh aloe that i got from the supermarket to drown them in the nutrition they need and put them in small rolls in what some people call "bantu"s. i slept like this and let them loose the next day and had a nice curly texture as seen here. since then i have been regularly washing every 2-3 days because of the advice i received from veteran dreads. it is actually a fact that clean hair tangles, therefore locks easier than dirty hair because dirt is greasy and grease prevents hair from tangling since it makes it slippery.

so it's been about three weeks and things are looking good so far. i am going to wash it as normal and see the little sections evolve into locks over the next months. i am curious to see how long this will take because even some ppl w kinky hair say that it took them about a year. i notice the ends of the ones at the back knotting already. this is a good start.

i wore my hair without a headwrap for the first time in weeks to work yesterday and i received many compliments. one person said that my hair looked "futuristic." however, i told them this hair is actually one of the most ancient hair. proud to carry the roots!