"I followed all your instructions and my dreads came out looking like crap....KNOT!!, they look great! Your site is phat and your products kick arse! Thanx for all the help..." Knatty Chris, Spring Valley CA

Care for new Nattys.

So you got crown of phatty locks on your head. Congrats!

Now you wanna keep 'em happy and healthy and you wann'em to lock as fast as phatty knats can lock. Follow these simple tips and you and your new dreadlocks should get along fine. GI Joe said it best, "Knowing is half the battle!" (please note any web page that quotes GI Joe is destined for greatness)

In the beginning...

In the first three weeks your dreadlocks be will very delicate and you'll want to wash them about every 5 days. After they have had a chance to establish themselves a bit, usually after the 1st month, you should begin washing them every 2-3 days. Always use residue free shampoo when you wash your dreads. Not only will it help them mature faster, it will ensure that new growth continues to lock up. Soap residues slow down and in some cases prevent the hair from locking. Residues can also build up inside dreads increasing the time it takes for them to dry. This often leads to mildew growing inside the dreads. Growing mildew is unhealthy and it smells like you're wearing a sour gym bag on your head. Fortunately you don't have to go through all that!

You can keep a nylon stocking on your head while you shower for the first month or so. Yeah, I know you'll look a little ridiculous but it keeps the dreads from loosening up while they're wet. Pour some soap on your head, and lather it up through the stocking, then rinse it out really good. If you have rubber bands at the roots and tips wearing the nylon on your head is less necessary. More on using rubber bands later on...

After you wash your dreads, squeeze and shake the extra water out, then put them in a dry towel (one that doesn't shed) for about 10min. If your dreads are pretty thick you may need to put them in a second towel to suck more of the water out. Squeezing them with the towel works well to. Then let them air dry or dry them with a hair dryer. Do not stick your damp dreads in a tam and leave them there. Getting them dry is very important. You'll probably notice that the inside of the dreads, especially thicker mature dreads, takes quite a while to dry. As long as you get the outside as dry as possible the inside will air dry without a problem unless it's packed full of slimy soap residue... They also have these nifty hair dryers that have a plastic bag which fills with hot air and dries your dreads faster. These will leave your dreads tight and fluffy. I found one at Sally's Beauty Supply. On a side note: If you have a Sally's near you and you would like to be able to buy DreadHead products there ask the cashier for a product request form. Fill it out and hand it in. If there are enough requests for DreadHead Dread Products everyone near a Sally's will be able to get our stuff locally... very sweet!

Some tips on maintenance and the A B routine...

Only wax your dreads when they're dry. Warm them with a blow dryer while you wax them if possible. This will help the wax settle into the dreads. More wax does not make dreads lock up faster. You want to put enough that you can feel it on the dread, no more. Your not making candles, you know. During the first three weeks you'll want to keep some wax on the dreads all the time, you won't have to add wax every day, every 2-3 days should be plenty. Add more only when you can't feel it in the hair. A little goes a long way, when you are adding wax add small amounts at a time and work it in completely before moving on the next dread. As your dreadlocks mature a bit and feel tighter they will need less and less wax. Any time your dreads start to feel dry work some wax in to moisturize them. This will ensure you don't loose dreads due to breakage.

For best results wax your dreads a day or so after you wash them. Use this wax free period to create new knots by clockwise rubbing. One routine that works really well is to alternate your maintenance weekly:

Week A: Use wax and concentrate on palm rolling. This period will give your knots time to settle into dreads. Use the accelerator sparingly if at all. Don't worry about twisting, rubbing and creating new knots. If you have loose hair that needs to be dread balled do so right after you shower and dry the hair.. Wax after you finish.

Week B: Use accelerator and lock pepper to create lots of knots. Don't add any wax. This is the best time to use clockwise rubbing, finger rubbing and dread balling. Your dreads may look a lil' frizzy during this week but that's normal. As they mature their appearance will grow steadily better.

Switching back and forth like this helps the dreads mature much faster.

When your dreads are new it's important to cover them while you sleep. Covering them will do three things:

• It will prevent fuzzys from getting stuck in your dreads.
• It will teach them to lay down rather than sticking straight up.
• It will keep your pillow case wax free.

Get a pair of large woments nylons and stretch them over your dreads upside down, long dreads can hang down into the legs. They won't fall off, they are cheap and they let your scalp breathe. Downsides? You may end up answering the door with underware on your head.

Using our dread soap prevents itches and dandruff in almost all cases. If you're using our soap and still itch'in these things work great.

1. Rinse the soap completely away. Squeeze the dreads to flush them with clean water so no soap is left inside. I know this is simple but usually poor rinsing is the problem.

2. 9 parts water, 1 part vinegar. Poor it on your head. Make sure you soak all of the scalp. Leave it for 5 to 10 min. and rinse it out thoroughly. With vinegar this dilute it won't smell much, so you don't gotta worry about smelling like a bag of potato chips.

3. If 1&2 don't work this will for sure. Get some Rosemary from the grocery store, you can find it with the spices. Poor it into a pot or skillet and simmer it till the water gets darker. Let it cool, put it in a spray bottle and soak your scalp. Use enough rosemary to make the water dark. Mmm....smells good.

4. Tea tree oil not only helps with dandruff but its great on itches too.

Our soap usually prevents dandruff but until your scalp adjusts to having dreads some flaking is normal. If it becomes a problem find some tea tree oil at a health store or a holistic medicine/herbs store. Massage it into the scalp. It works really well. Occasionally old wax will look like dandruff in you dreads, just wash the dreads to remove it. If the wax is new but still appears white just melt it with a hair dryer. If you have heavy, stubborn dandruff try Nizoral™. You can get it at Wal-Mart and Eckards and it works really well. I'm not too keen on the scent but it works fast, you'll prolly only need to use it 2 or three times. After it clears up use the dread head soap and you'll stay dandruff free.

Palmrolling

Palmrolling is used to help dreads tighten and get loose fuzzys matted into the dread. It works much better than "twisting" with the fingers. To palm roll you simply grab the dread between the base of your palms and rub it back and forth vigorously. It's a bit like rolling Play-Doh between your palms to make it long and skinny. Rub the dread where it is loose, usually at the roots. Palm rolling works well anytime but the best time to palm roll is right after washing your dreads and soaking them in locking accelerator or fresh sea water and letting them dry with accelerator on them. The hair will feel dry and fuzzy and it will tangle really well. After a good palm rolling session you and work a little dread wax into them to smooth them out.

Click Here for a Palmrolling movie.

This is a method for tightening up the loops on mature dreads. Please note that crocheting should not be used for tightening roots. The problem with using it to tighten roots is that the hair at the base of the dread that you have crocheted will be twisted instead of dreaded. Loose hair at the roots can eventually get knotty and dread up but twisted hair will continue to lay twisted since it will be held at both ends. The roots will look much better right after you crochet them but the hair in the twist will never have a chance to get knotted and it will never dread. The long term effect of this will be dreads that look much thinner and bend more easily in some areas than others which makes them appear broken or weak in areas. And it kinda looks like a braid in the middle of your dread. So don't do it! :)

Used correctly however, crocheting is still great for tightening up the slack in dread loops that appear in the body of the dread. Remember that ALL dreads are supposed to have a little loose hair at the root, about an inch or so. This is where the dread will eventually start to dread itself. Crocheting this hair will make the dreadlock look tight but it will prevent it from dreading itself as it grows. The dread needs that area of loose hair to form tangles and knots which will eventually tighten to become new dread.

So how do you avoid these problems and get the most out of this technique? First only crochet mature dreads that are really loose in one area but tight in the others. One sign of this is a loop of hair to sticking out of the dread. Use the crocheting to tighten the loop by sticking the dread through the loop and pulling it tight.

There are cartoons of how to crochet and other helpful stuff in the toontorials section. Click next and check'em out.

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