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Dread Care & Accessories! Washing your dreads & keepin em dry!

Hi Everyone! This is something I have wanted to talk about forever. How many of you have taken showers; and have tried to fit like 2 shower caps around your dreads? How about elastics? Do they last longer than 2 days when wrapping them around 60 fat dreads? Head Wraps that fit nicely? Come on? Are we alone? Is anyone out there?
The answer is yes! And I will help you with all your dreadlocks and dread accessory/product related problems.

Through-out my dread journey; and my career in the beauty industry; I have found some amazing, chill, heady, and really fashionable gear for locked heads. Part one of this discussion if a dread head's basic; SHOWERING

Let's Discuss the shower first! Ok; so you decided to dread your hair. Let's be real. When you first get your dreadlocks put in; either back-combed or a dread-perm; WATER IS THE ENEMY!!!
So what do we do to combat this? Shower caps? Towels? Holding our head outside the stream of water? Taking a bath? What a pain in the ass!
Even for us vetted dread heads, we still do not wash our hair with the regularity of most people with unlocked hair.
Why? A Few Reasons, actually.
1) Dreads are like sponges; even after towel and blow drying they can take 3 to 4 days to fully dry. If you don't allow the matrix of the dread to dry completely for a good while then you will start to notice a smell; lets call it heady mold. Yep, that smell you get when you wear a hemp necklace too long and shower with it. That same fungi will attack moist, dark places; like our dreads. If you have dread fungi do not try to wash the smell out, it simply makes the issue worse!
2) Washing for the first few years tends to throw our dreadlocks' maturation back centuries. As they get more mature washing can actually help to lock them up even better! YAY! But that is a way down the road.
3) For me anyway, my dreads look ridiculous after I wash them. I wear a wrap and am horrified that I am doing other peoples dreads with a rats-nest on my head.

Well, lucky for me and you. Most Locked people I know wash whenever it starts to get itchy, uncomfortable, dry, too oily or a bit smelly. This is about 2 weeks for me. After I spend an hour washing my dreads with Knotty Boy Dread Stuff's Liquid Dread Shampoo or Knotty Boy Dread Shampoo Bar (this stuff smells good, its good for the environment and has antibacterial and antimicrobial properties) and is available at http://www.knottyboy.com: Dr.Bronners may be good for tooth-paste or washing your clothes at a yonder mountain show (ya dirty hippie) but it is not ideal for locked hair, nor is Dread Head HQ cheap and insulting products. They really do believe that the knotty, nappy dreads are going to buy a crap product that should be and is sold in pharmacies because it's a few bucks cheaper. If anyone who uses Dread Head HQ hasn't figured it out yet. Here is there dread tightening spray, table salt, water, yucca, um that's all folks. Do they think we are suckers? Knotty Boy has been around since 1998 and really has nothing to compare it to. There is one other line, which i will discuss another day that is great for afro textured hair. But I digress. Use Knotty Boy, The Rest SUCK!
After shampooing; I then rinse and shampoo again; I rinse and scrub my scalp; repeat all three steps again!
Finally I give my dreads a cold water rinse to help close the cuticles. I quickly grab a towel and walk around naked with a towel-turban on my head for a few hours before I start the blow drying process. I dry it until it feels comfortably dry. I have both a hood dryer and a regular hand-held. No big diff!
The next day my hair is magically still wet and soaking my clothes. I grab it into a big old bun and allow it to air dry. I do this for a few days until completely dry. (Approx. 3-4 days)
When dry, I take Knotty Boy's Knot Tea's and brew em up and then refrigerate them. I add a tbsp of fresh squeezed lime juice to the spray bottle with 1/3 cup saponified Aloe Vera Gel by Aloe Life. Aloe Life is amazing ; and the gel is dark brown! Knotty Boy's Salt Spring Knot-teas work great, but when you have been playing with dread formulas for as long as I have, you start to feel like you have to play chemist. Finally I ad an essential oil of my choice and an extra tbsp of kosher sea salt to the mixture and shake for about 3 minutes in hot water. Now I'm ready! I mist the heck out of my newly dried locks. I almost soak them!
As soon as they are pretty drenched I start to mash the spray into the center of the locks, til they are dripping wet. As soon as this happens I grab a blow dryer and start going to town. Keep the temp on low to med and the fan speed on high I blow dry my hair again. This time the saturation is more superficial; so it takes like 30 minutes to dry.
They now feel tight and dry & they smell amazing. Time to section!!!
I section my dreads into 4 pony-tails. I take each section down and palm roll each dread from root to end with Knotty Boy's Lock-Steady Dread-tightening-Gel (this aloe based dread tightener is the best on the market hands down) I palm roll clock-wise; back and forth but always holding the tension in a clock-wise direction.
After doing this over and over for each dread it's about an hour later. Now I can sit and let them air dry or take a dryer on low heat and speed up the process. Do not use a hair dryer on high heat with knotty boy's lock-steady! It will burn off the aloe vera gel and evaporate any sap! Whenever possible I air-dry.
Now I put on a bandana and lightly wrap my dreads until I go to sleep.
This may sound crazy, but it is also why I only do it twice a month. Every time they get wet they lose some of that tight, perfect form that I like.
So why this long story you ask? Because I have ruined more of my palm-rolling sessions by washing my face, brushing my teeth, showering; washing my pets,etc.
THE ANSWER! You say there is an answer? YES!!! NO, it is not possible!!!!....... But it is, and it is so simple!

Get one or Ricky Beauty Supply's "BiG HAIR SHOWER CAPS" Extra Large Shower Cap. When they say extra large, they meant, built for bee-hives, the b-52s and people with dreads. They have a great visor all the way around and are made of hard core PVC Rain-Coat material. They cost about 14 bucks. But in-between washings, I can't live without it!
If you do not live in the metro NY area, you can go online to http://Rickys-nyc.com for Ricky's Online Beauty Supply Store, (those cheesy ghetto beauty supply places don't have these) Ricky's Gives the words "beauty supply" CLASS. Meticulous, Kick ass brands, and the best stuff on earth.
Ok bad news, Ricky's Online doesn't seem to have them listed yet. But Ricky's NYC will mail-order direct from store and you can email me with any requests for info.
These ginormous things just say in big trippy letters "Big Hair" all over it. You simply can not beat this thing! I have so many other products that i want to share with my nappy headed brothers and sisters, but I will leave you with just this one. Just a little teaser for my next entry "check out american apparel's hooded scarf" they are t-shirt cotton ;come in all colors; are made in the USA in a socially progressive environment. One word. These may be hoods, but watch my video next and you will see the sickest most bad ass dread-wraps, head-wraps, dread-bands, turbans, etc. All From one Garment, order them online now from AmericanApparel.com! One Love tobias from Dreadology Salon