One week in: let's talk about waxing dreads

I can't believe that one week ago today my scalp was in agony as we backcombed the hell out of it.  Where are my locks now?  They're in lots of different places:

One week in, professional and stylin' in one slick package

• some are poofy with a wall of hair around a hollow inside
• others are really narrow, closely-packed little spikes of hair
• a couple of them, shorter ones, are really only sticking together because of the rubber bands

which I would call progress, all in all.  There's a halo of loose hair around every lock, and combined with the sprinklings of salt in my pepper they lack visual definition.  On the other hand, they're staying together better, and when I've worn my hat for awhile they're willing to stay down until I palmroll them.

I've been cautious about overwaxing my dreads, and I realized that what I thought was wax was actually the hair starting to lock up, which is a lot faster than I expected.  (The flipside is that they'll probably take a lot longer to mature than I'm expecting, but we'll see about that.)

Waxing dreadlocks is very controversial, it turns out.  I am waxing my locks, but I don't know enough to say that it's the right thing, or a good thing, or the best thing, or the dread thing.

I just don't have wax on lockdown.

Here's a good example of the argument against using wax:

Man, that screen shot is not flattering, is it?

So wax will cause problems like mildew, wax will slow the locking process, "you won't have dreads, you'll just have candles on your head."  That last one's funny.  But hey, I didn't know there was a controversy, and I'm learning by living.  In fact I bought my wax from one of the companies named in that video, although I found my information about using wax elsewhere.

In truth, DreadHeadHQ recommends a very minimal amount of wax in dreads.  I don't think I would need another container, because I'm supposed to use it less and less frequently.  I'm cautious about not adding wax if there's any left, so worst case scenario I've been sold something I don't need, and something to remove it with.

The opposition seems to like videos:

It's passionate, but is it accurate?  Some people believe that anything other than neglect isn't "natty" enough, but I'm going for a more controlled, cultured look; bonsai instead of banyan tree.

I'm going to follow the regimen I'm on, which calls for wax in the locks for the first month, reducing after that.  I already own the wax, so it won't cost me money.  If wax really slows down locking, well my hair likes to knot anyway, and it's been pretty well backcombed, so it's just going to take longer.  If it works, though, I will have smooth, tight locks in two or three months under the best of circumstances.

Either way, one week in I'm continuing to take a laissez-hair attitude about my dreadlocks.  At least when I'm home and no one can see them.

Keeping it under wraps

My plan all along has been to keep my dreads on the down-low, like a business-owner friend of mine who has three locks hidden in the back of her hair.  Since I'm going for the full dread head, though, I'm finding that it's quickly becoming difficult.

Four days in (feels like forty), and a spike in temperatures has made me rethink my favorite hat.  Yesterday saw the mercury pass 80 for the first time this year, and I found my head was incredibly hot after a walk into town with the took on.  All winter I'd taken to wearing the hat at home (even while sleeping) as well as away, but I didn't see the point in that heat.

Today it's much cooler, in the 70s, and my head is on the warm side of comfortable.  The day started out cool and clammy in the house, which I like to counteract with a hot tub soak.  It felt great and completely energized me, so I wanted to run a few errands.  Wet dreads covered become mildewed stinky dreads, so I couldn't wear the hat out unless I waited for the locks to dry.

I had three errands:

Unedited, people look at me like this

1. Deposit checks at the bank
2. Pick up gardening supplies at Agway
3. Pick up a check from a client

The bank's drive-through ATM would be a snap.  I dismissed picking up the check until I could do so with a hat on, because even when I am seen in casual clothes I need to maintain a professional appearance.  This translates into a simple, clean profile, which is something my locks dread doing.  Locks are less flexible than strands of hair, so when they're short they tend to stick up.  The hat is training them to stay down, but when I palmroll them they spring up to attention again.  Nope, I was not picking up that check.

Agway was somewhere in the middle.  I would be out in public, but the onus of professionalism would not be upon me.  In fact, the employee I spoke to was very professional.  I had the feeling that people were looking at me strangely, but it was just my imagination.  Well, except in the parking lot, when the man getting out of the car next to mine allowed his eyes to drift slowly up to the crest at the top of my head.  I made a mental note to remember that driving with dreads could be grounds for being pulled over (now that racial profiling is mostly illegal), and drove cautiously away.

More maintenance madness

Profile, dreadlocks two days old

I think there's more wax in there than I realized, because my fingers are slightly tacky from palmrolling, so I only rewaxed three or four dreads.  Overwaxing causes problems, so I'm being very cautious.

Palmrolling is tedious and tiring - keeping the arms up in the air gets old before too long.  It's challenging to make sure I get every lock, so I expect some just won't get rolled as much as others.  I have to learn to adopt a bit of a laissez-hair attitude, after all.

I can still detect moisture in some of the fluffier locks around back, so I imagine that in the winter my hair will become a deadly weapon.

I need to get myself some kind of locking tool to address the halo of looseness around each lock, but I'm hoping that a lot of them will find their way back in on their own.  I already found one lock with a loop of hair coming out; this is to be expected, and having a tool around to pull stuff like that back in should make my life easier.

I'm taking a poll about the dreadlock decision:  would you dread your hair?  Click there and answer with care.

Not tonight, I have to wash my hair

I washed my hair for the first time today.  Twice a week is recommended for new locks, with the suggestion that you can wash more frequently as they tighten up.  My mother washed my hair once a week and I keep to that schedule (unless something makes me grimy), so the question is going to be whether this new hairstyle attracts more dirt.

Am I a bank robber?  Only my hairdresser knows for sure.

I'm not entirely sure I did it right.  I wore a stocking on my head because the locks are still fragile, so the first challenge was getting the damned thing over my head.  When I finally stretched it out enough to fit, I felt like my skull was in a medieval torture device.  I used the dreading shampoo by washing through the stocking, and there was no sudsing at all.  There were suds when I used this shampoo just prior to dreading, so I don't know where they went. Were they sloughed off by the stocking or absorbed by the dreads?

I focused on my scalp, because that's where everything you don't want on your head tends to show up.  I scrubbed as best I could through the nylon, and squished my head around to get the soap in my hair to come out as I rinsed.

The post-shower fluffhead look

Shampooing is definitely dangerous, because with the nylon removed I can tell that there's less wax, and the locks are all much less tight.  Looking at the picture, I think that some of them may have doubled in width.

I don't think I could have done that by taking off the stocking too roughly (think there's a how-to video for that?).  Thinking on it, it's probably because the wax which is helping to compress the hair until it locks was washed out.  I guess that means that I did it right after all.

So the washing means I have to add more wax, based on the approach I'm taking to locking my hair. The debate over whether or not to use wax or not is a really fierce one, believe it or not, and it's worth a post of its own to explain the different positions and how I made my choice.  I've made it, though, and it means that I need to put wax in a lock if I can't detect any in it.  After my hair is completely dry I'll be adding a small amount of dread wax to about half of my locks. I can do it while watching television, but it's probably going to add half an hour to my hair routine on washing day, which is a lot.

The daily routine right now includes checking locks for wax, rewaxing the ones that need it (again, only if I can't feel any wax at all), and palmrolling each of them for thirty seconds, or a minute for the rewaxed locks.  Eventually I will be using wax only every other week, and mature locks have no need of it, so the time requirements drop off.  I won't be washing my hair any less, and with the time requirements I sure as hell hope I don't have to wash it more.

Drying takes more time, too.  I prefer shorter hair because I can quickly towel it and let it air dry, and that takes longer now.  I also find that my scalp itches while it's drying.  I don't think I will start using a blow dryer, but I can't put a hat on wet dreads so the time factor could force my hand if I have to be somewhere. Especially when they're fluffy like this, I'd prefer to keep them covered in a lot of circumstances.  I'm a journalist, and it would be a distraction if my hair became the story.

Coming soon:  a video from dread day.  I have the link to the Flip video and should have time to figure out how to edit it together soon.

One day in . . .

Today I have bits of hair sticking to a light sheen of wax on my fingertips.  It means that every time I touch my nose I tickle it with some tiny hair, or fiber from my hat or sweater.  There is just enough wax on them to make the surface slightly sticky, accumulated from palmrolling my day-old dreadlocks.

Step 1:  section the hair

Yesterday, Earth Day, was a lot longer than I expected it to be, and completely exhausting.  My good wife set to sectioning my hair at about 1 in the afternoon, and we finished the final step of blow-drying the newly-waxed locks after eight.  We did have breaks for meals and such, but all told it was a solid six hours worth of work.

I expected it to take less time because my hair is on the short end of the range, but that actually made it take longer, for two reasons:

1. the learning curve was spread over more locks, and
2. there's a lot less hair to lock, so it takes more backcombing to get it together.

To expand, there's always a few "learning dreads" which aren't as tight as they could be, and have to be rebackcombed.  This is already sounding technical, so here's less than two minutes of video on backcombing to explain it:

The example of the ideal dread is all fine and dandy, but keep in mind that the first inch or more of each lock is not tangled, and won't look like that; my locks are all about three inches long each so that gives you about two inches of learning per lock, and those are tough inches since the poof percentage is elevated by the percentage of root hair.  We were three-quarters through my head when my wife said, "I think I'm starting to understand how this works," meaning that her tactile sensitivity to textiles was kicking in.

Agony above,
serenity below

One thing that was exactly as expected was the pain of having that done to every single square inch of my head.  Oh.  My.  God.  Maybe dreadlocks are like tattoos and childbirth (I've experienced the former and heard about the latter) in that you forget how agonizing the process is after you're through it and recall it through the hazy delirium of endorphins, but I don't think so.

The reason why is that I am going to have regular reminders of how much dreading sucked as they mature.  I get to do the palmrolling, and the clockwise rubbing, and the squeezing them dry when they're wet.  None of these things actually hurts much, but my brutalized scalp reacts to my touch the way Tina would to Ike's, and it all comes back to me again day after day.

Don't dread having a cat in your lap.

My friend Amanda Catherine told me that they'd by "spiky," and she wasn't kidding.  When I first saw what they looked like, before I put in any wax, I thought that they were being supported by rubber bands at the bases, but such was not the case.  Poofy, erect stalks covering my head, bringing forth images of electrocution caused by a game of "Truth or Dare" gone wrong.

The waxing took most of another episode to complete (we watched a couple each of "Buffy," "Xena," and "Jack and Bobby," and one of "Sliders" as well).  After I warmed it and worked it in, Robin took the blow dryer to it so it would melt and really get in there. The heat was enough on my inflamed scalp to make me gnash my teeth and rend my clothing, which is why I'm glad I was wearing a high-quality sweater from L.L. Bean, for it was quite resistant to rending.

I tried only briefly to put my beloved took on over this new head of mine before giving up.  The tam fit, but I put it on and removed it gingerly, since the locks are probably even more fragile that most new locks are.  Today I stabilized my locks more, and to my amazement got the took on over my Styracosaurus self.

The stabilization started with putting rubber bands at the base of each lock, in addition to the ones at the tips. This compresses the base just enough that I can get some results from palmrolling, which is the same motion used to make a snake out of clay.  With the wax in there, palmrolling compresses the lock and helps it stay that way as the locks tighten.  My regimen for the next month is going to be daily palmrolling of each lock, and adding a little bit of wax to the locks that don't have any left in them.  I think I already have a couple like that, but I'm paranoid about overwaxing so I'm going to wait a day.

As the sun sets on my hair's first dreadful day, I have a low-grade headache and feel like I'm wearing a constant state of surprise.  I may venture out this evening and see where my hair takes me.  Perhaps tomorrow I'll talk about the mental toll all that pain takes, unless I decide that I'm whining too much.

Today's the day!

Yep, I have chosen Earth Day as my locks' birthday.  I need to take one more before picture, to capture the moment for all time.

Then I'm going to wash my hair with dread shampoo and figure out how big I want 'em to come out.  This can get complicated, but these tips on sectioning for dreadlocks say I should be aiming for bundles of hair about the diameter of a pencil, which will make slightly thicker locks.  We will figure out how big the sections need to be.  It ranges from about half an inches to two inches for each square, and my hair is thick so I expect that about an inch per square will be about right. I want my locks to be consistent in thickness because it will look nicer and they will mature at the same rate.

Then I will squirt a bit of locking accelerator on them before the backcombing begins.

Crap, I need to figure out what we should watch on TV while we're doing this!

I dreaded this: the cat's out of the bag

Well I mentioned to a friend and business associate that I have plans for my hair, and now the world knows.  The mention included sharing the link to this blog with her on Twitter, and, social networking what it is, seeing it retweeted and posted on Facebook.

Samson, who had "seven locks of hair"

So in truth I'm thinking six people know, and maybe one of them actually knows me.  My secret isn't exactly safe, but it's secure it obscurity.

You may wonder why, if I wish to be private, I would choose to blog about this process on a platform owned by Google.  Or why I wouldn't pick a hobby that's a little bit less visible than transforming my hair into "locks like snakes."

I'm actually not trying to keep it secret (hence telling my social networking diva friend), but I do enjoy watching the process unfold slowly and build momentum.  The more people knowing and reacting the more I will have to write, but I don't want to just announce my intentions on CNN or anything because then it will feel forced, like adding too much buttermilk to the moss garden.

Fun fact:  locking hair makes it shorter, but it has the potential to be much longer than straight hair can be.  This is because it doesn't let the hairs that shed fall away, so the lock length is not limited by the maximum hair length your body can produce.

Got my dread kit!

Supa Dupa Dread Kit + Lock Peppa

I got my Supa-Dupa Dread Kit in the mail today (well, yesterday), exactly when it was promised.  Here's what I got in the box, which includes the kit and one add-on product:  dreading comb, dread wax, dread shampoo, lock accelerator, and Lock Peppa.  That last one is the product I added onto the kit.

So far, so good:  I was promised the kit in 5-7 days and got it in 6.  Everything I ordered was in the box.  Nothing was broken, there wasn't any unnecessary packaging, and there was absolutely nothing else in the box - they sent me an email, and I like that they didn't print the invoice out, too.

Dreading comb

The dreading comb is the crux of this entire adventure.  It's the tool that makes this a process of cultivation, rather than simply allowing it to grow wild.  My head's going to be an English garden, not an old-growth forest.

Backcombing can technically be done with any comb, but if it's not metal it's probably not going to hold up without breaking.  I'll be writing a lot more about backcombing, the technique which my team is going to use for the locking.

Dread shampoo

In terms of PR, I think the dread shampoo and its tag line ("dread don't have to be dirty") is top priority.  Not only is it possible to wash dreadlocks, it's a really good idea.  Good washing and drying practice helps the lock tighten up and keeps them healthy.  However, ordinary shampoo will do anything but.

Commercial shampoo has a whole lot of crap in it, crap that doesn't get rinsed out of locks the way it does out of "straight" hair.  (When you're talking dreadlocks, "straight" is hair which isn't locked.)  When I popped the top on this bottle, I didn't smell a blessed thing.

Dread wax

The wax is something that I'll use a lot of early on, and eventually not need at all.  You have to put a whole lot of in the new dreads, but re-waxing doesn't happen until there's none left in a particular lock.

DreadHeadHQ calls its wax Dread Butta.  The stuff is slightly yellowish (can you say "waxy yellow buildup?") and doesn't have any particular odor.  It has about the same consistency as coconut oil does at room temperature.

Locking accelerator is a product that's supposed to help the locks form.  It comes in a powder in this bottle, which has to be filled with water to whip the stuff up.

Not entirely sure what this stuff is supposed to do, but I'm going to make some kind of mass-instruction list about what to use when and how and maybe even why, so I can keep it all straight, which will hopefully keep my hair from staying that way.

I don't think there's much to be said about the elastic bands, although the kit came with 50 more than promised, which is cool.  Overdelivering makes good marketing sense.  The bands are black, which is especially stylish.  They're going to help keep the locks separated as they mature.  Natural dreads merge and separate over time, but I'm not going for that effect right now.

Why do I want dreadlocks?

Egads, what on earth am I doing this for?  Why do I want dreadlocks?  It's an important question, part of the whole mental-preparation process.  This video is definitely worth ten minutes of your time if you want to dread your hair.  I'll clue you in below if it's not worth spending ten minutes.

As Jonny Clean explains, knowing why I want dreadlocks is going to make it easier, because the reason will give me the commitment and the will to get through the hard parts.  For the first six months that's going to include:

• The long day of initial locking
• Daily palm-rolling of locks and checking for loose hairs
• Weekly waxing
• Regular washing, every two or three days for most of the process

My reason, and my commitment, will also carry me through as I learn to explain my hair, answer questions which I'm sure will get tiresome ("You wash your hair?" "Yes, I just can't use the chemical crap on most stores shelves because the residues will cause rot and mildew."), and potentially deal with bias or discrimination based on my appearance.

Writing a book about it isn't going to cut it - that's too circular.  For me, like many people, this is going to be a spiritual journey.  Where it starts will be with a desire to learn more patience, which is one of the reasons I admire trees and other plants as much as I do.  Trees can only adapt to the world by using one tool:  slow, methodical growth.  In comparison, blooming flowers and ripening vegetables in the garden seem swift, but gardens themselves are best improved year over year in the long haul.

Where the journey will take me after that is unknown - and that's part of the fun.  I like being surprised.

It looks like this will be happening in about a week or so, although the full cast and crew hasn't been lined up yet.

How long to dread?

Even though I've made up my mind to dread, I'm still pondering if my hair is ready or not.  In some ways it's readier than anyone's, but it may literally fall short, or come close.

Hair with texture, before shower

I've been washing my hair using a non-residue natural shampoo that I make at home, and instead of conditioner I use a vinegar rinse.  I avoid putting a hat on when it's damp, but I've worn my took throughout this long, cold winter.  When it got really goddamned cold, I put on hat on over it when I went out.  I haven't brushed my hair since last summer . . . I'm going to say certainly August 2010, but probably sometime in July.

I think it's safe to say that my hair has texture, as evidenced by these before-and-after-shower pictures.  In the first, I pulled my took off and simply photographed exactly what I saw in the mirror.  The second picture is after I have towel-dried my hair.

Hair with texture, after shower

Where I may lack is in length.  Most sources I find online suggest a 4-6 inch minimum for my hair, because while it has texture and definitely can dread, it lacks the kink factor which makes it possible to lock hair when it's as short as an eighth of an inch, so it's claimed.

When I was a young man, I had more than 18 inches of hair, and I pulled it back into a ponytail for about a week straight, discovering the natural method for locking hair.  I never completed the process, but it tells me that I can probably get away with something closer to 4 inches, and I'm reasonably sure I've got at least 5 all around.

The main advantage of locking the hair when it's shorter is that it will take less time for my dreadful friends to help me.  The backcombing process can take six hours for 18 inches of hair, and is painful and tiring.

On the other hand, it also means less time to practice, so there won't be any really mythic dreads.

On the other other hand, my hair is going to take more maintenance in the first months to get it to lock.  Longer hair simply stays put better.

Ultimately I like shifting most of the work onto my own shoulders, since I will also reap most of the rewards, whatever they shall be.

Hats and head coverings

The black billed tam, stuffed to simulated locks.

I bought myself a billed tam to wear once I knot the ol' locks up, because they should start taking up more room than my little knit took can handle.

Changing hats will be a big deal, because that's the one that got me started on my present course towards dreadlocks.  I started wearing my took in July of 2010.  Even though it was warm, I found that I really enjoyed how it fit my head:  not cranium-tightening, but not prone to slippage, either.  I liked it so much that I soon wore it every day.

Once I was in the habit of wearing the took all the time, it was easy to stop brushing my hair.  I didn't stop washing it, mind you, just brushing it.  I noticed that my hair started to fall together naturally into locks, something that friends of mine with dreadlocks have confirmed will happen.  I know that my hair is thick and rich enough to lock, and the idea has always both fascinated and repulsed me to varying degrees.

Me, adorned with my took

I figured that I could continue to wear the hat while I transitioned into dreadlocks, so nobody would notice if it turned out horribly.  Being a freelance journalist helps, too; people who want to get a viewpoint into the press don't quibble about the reporter's appearance all that much.

However, the hat's a teeny bit tighter than it was 9 months ago, and once my hair is locked, it's probably not going to fit at all.  Tams are a popular covering for dreadlocks, and I like think the billed looked is more professional than the round beret style.  The local store had a lot of multicolored options, but black was the only solid style available.  It's pretty lightweight, like the summer tams that I linked to above, which I'm sure I will appreciate once July comes 'round again.

I've got a few more things on order for this project, but I will wait until they show up to talk about them.

What a dreadful idea!

Maybe it's just a way to have a midlife crisis that costs less than buying a sports car and a new mail-order bride, but I have decided to lock my hair, as in dreadlocks.  I'm also going to write about the experience . . . how it gets done, what it's like to have and maintain dreadlocks, and most importantly, how it shapes how people perceive and interact with me.

That last part - chronicling those perceptions - inspires the name of this project.  Dread Like Me is a play on Black Like Me, John Howard Griffin's story of how he became black in order to experience racial oppression in the southern United States.  I know that there's a good amount of negative stereotyping and perceptions about dreadlocks, mostly because I've shared a lot of those perceptions myself.  People who wear dreadlocks are dirty, aimless people who can't get a job, right?

Of course, I've also worked with attorneys who have locks, and it didn't keep them from commanding respect, so maybe it's more than just the wearing of the hair that forms those perceptions. The name is also rhymes with Dead Like Me, which is a bonus.  Maybe the creators of that show wanted to remind people of Black Like Me; I don't know, I just had the idea this moment.

I'm a writer whose greatest challenge is finding things to write about, so I'm hoping I can milk an ebook or maybe even a publishing deal out of this idea.  Can't hurt to try, hmm?