Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Our Daily Dread



Our before and after today comes from Lindsey, who dropped in on Saturday on her way back out east. Lindsey's hair was in great shape - too great, in fact. She had a ton of hair, and it was like silk! Fine hair often works just awesome for dreadlocks, but very healthy hair with a tight cuticle is slippery as hell. I promise, I can dread any hair type with any combination of texture and density (yes, even yours) but some are certainly more difficult than others and this is one of those cases. I knew that to knot it up tight I'd have to backcomb more than I like and it'd take me forever, so instead I busted out one of my favourite tricks and did a little pre-treatment.

When I know a client's hair is going to fight me, there are a couple things I can do to stack the deck in my favour. The easiest is using one of Knotty Boy's most popular maintenance products to give the hair a slightly rougher texture. I misted Lindsey's hair all over with water and massaged in a small amount of Locksteady Tightening Gel. (It's a wicked tip for people starting dreads themselves at home, too!) When blowdried, the all- natural gel coats the hair and gives it just the smallest bit of "grip". Lindsey was able to retain so much more length than she would have otherwise, and I'm sure that 45 minutes under the dryer saved us at least 3 hours in the end! Here she is after her 8 hour sesh, with her 68 new dreadlocks!