How to Dread Your Hair
Posted By Stephanie Tripp on September 9, 2010
Neglect/Natural:
Simple. Just stop combing your hair. Throw your brush out. You don’t need it anymore. Just wash your hair with a non-residue shampoo or a good baking soda/apple cider vinegar wash and let it do its thing. The only maintenance required is ripping the sections apart as they form to prevent congos.
Backcombing:
What you’ll need:
At least 5-6 inches of hair (although, you can start shorter, that’s just a guide. You’ll lose some length when backcombing).
A comb. You can get a “dread comb” from various websites, or you can simply go down to the local pet store and grab a metal flea comb. Much cheaper and it works exactly the same.
Before you actually begin the backcombing process, you need to decide how big you want your dreads to be. (They will thicken some as they mature.) You can section your hair if you want neat uniform dreads, or you can just grab random sections of hair if you want a more natural feel. If you section them out, do it in a brick pattern so you can’t see the spaces as easily.
The actual backcombing itself is fairly simple. It’s exactly how it sounds. You just comb the hair backwards, towards the root. As you comb your hair will start to knot, press each knot tightly against the one before. Keep it tight so there’s less chance of it falling out when you wash your hair. (Dreads do need washed, contrary to popular belief. Clean dreads lock up so much faster than dirty ones.) After you get the entire length of hair backcombed, you can palmroll if you’d like. It’s not really necessary though. Finish up the rest of your head and you’re on your way to having a great set of locks.
Twist and Rip:
Again, you can section the hair if you’d like, the bigger the sections the bigger the dreads. Or just grab randomly. It’s up to you. Twist and rip can be a little harder to figure out than backcombing, but once you get the hang of it, it’s actually faster and less damaging.
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