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!
Some of you might know that in September of last year, I started skating with the Terminal City Roller Girls derby league, and a couple weeks ago I was lucky enough to be drafted onto house team The Riot Girls. This is one of my freshly minted teammates and fellow Fresh Meat '11, Cassandra Pain!
C.Pain's a play on Batgirl, but if this girl had a superpower it'd be growing obscene amounts of long gorgeous blond hair in absurdly short periods of time. (Cue inhuman jealousy!) It's borderline unfair. C.Pain's what I'd call a 'reluctant hair farmer'. Totally unreasonably in my mind, she's not really into having all this hair. So, what's a good-hearted gal to do?
"I donate my hair because there's not a lot else I can do. I'm not science minded so I can't find the cure for cancer. I don't make a lot of money so donating is difficult, however my hair grows at a ridiculous rate, so I can donate that! Knowing that my hair will help make someone who is going through a really rough time feel better is a great feeling."
I'm more than happy to help with such a rad cause! We're both loving the new cute 'do, even though I'm always trying to fluff it up after it's been mashed down under her helmet all practice. (She puts up with me.) C.Pain left me with this link if you're thinking of donating your hair and doing some good yourself!
Marlowe's Reconstructed dreads are looking amazing! Yeah, they're tightly sectioned at the top, but regular readers know that goes away fast. What a difference from the first time I worked on them in September of last year! Some flips I wasn't able to repair are still visible in her blond, but the new growth since then is tightly felted and looking amazing! She's at the point where I think we'll be able to maintain them without thread within her next two visits, leaving her with a much more natural appearance at the scalp.
She's really taking great care of this set of dreads - and the care shows. This appointment went faster than the last, and the next one will be faster still! Adorable. That is all.
I want to introduce you to one of the nicest, sweetest guys to swing by my chair. Sean's been coming in for years to get his locks touched up, and every time I see him he's got a new tale to share with me. A few years back he gave me his business card, and it's still the one that every single client asks me about!
This guy is my kind of awesome. Sean's the man behind the One Week Job Project, which took him to 52 different occupations over the course of a year in fearless pursuit of his passion. From Wyoming cowboy to military helicopter pilot, to mascot for the Washington Capitals, Sean's maybe actually done it all. (I remember him coming in for maintenance that year when he was Mayor of his hometown.) Since then, he's written a book about his experiences that totally knocked my socks off, and put together a documentary featured on the CBC.
Basically, I can't write well enough to do justice to how inspired I was by reading this book. It's really, really good. Really. I can't recommend enough that you cruise by OneWeekJob.com and learn about all the stuff he's up to in the words of the man himself.
(Also, his dreadlocks are super nice.)
It's been a couple of months since Kate was in for her bang trim and checkup. Here she is after her first real maintenance, with six synth highlights added for some flash.
Last time Kate was in I was impressed, her dreads were well on their way. In the photo on the right you can see the difference between the freshly woven roots I worked on today, and her locked up felted mids and ends. I'm really stoked to see how this head of hair changes with all the adventures Kate has planned for the next couple years!
Yay! Today's the day I finally got to meet Jeff! 
We've been emailing back and forth over the last couple weeks gearing up for the big dread sesh today. I totally knew what look Jeff was going for when he came in, the x factor being what he and his hair already had going on. (Knowing someone wants lots of smallish dreads is daunting enough, but without a personal consult I don't know if I'm looking at 4 hours of work or 10.) Jeff's hair was pretty dense, with coarse strands in a nice wave, so I already knew that I could get good sized locks without having to sacrifice a smaller section size. As for the coarseness, I'd have to do a test row.
There's a misconception out there that coarser hair is easier to dread. Sooooo not the case. I'll take fine hair over coarse any day of the week. The coarser the actual strand is, the more resistant it is to doing what the hell I tell it to, and staying put. It absolutely will dread up, but it'll take more diligence to keep it that way. I've had coarser hair unweave itself in front of my very eyes, and had dread sessions take double the length as I had to crochet everything twice! I have a few tricks up my sleeve for dealing with resistance, hence the test row. Luckily, the first few sections dreaded up a dream; no need to bring out my bag of tricks. We got rolling proper just after 11am.
We finished up tonight at 5. I think I counted 64 dreads, a number we're both happy with, and in a couple of weeks the coverage is going to be awesome. He's pretty stoked to show them off, which sorta makes me a proud mama... which is a bit weird, I admit. (But not as weird as 'Dancing With Cats', and Jeff'll back me up on that.)
I just finished up Dustin's first shop maintenance, so he's helping his girlfriend (and longtime Lock Shopper) Christina keep her mind off hers while Becca Hamburger gets 'er done. It just looked so freakin' cute I had to share!
Some of you might remember Brenna, my super-late-night dread adventure from back in November. Here's her before and after from that day:
January marks three months from her installation, so it's definitely maintenance time. I like to post these "way after" pics because they really illustrate to folks all the stuff I try to drill in on creation day: They'll get bigger! The sections will fill in! They'll look natural, I swear! It also really shows that if you do your homework, they'll mature months faster than backcombed-and-waxed dreads.
There's nothing wrong with starting your own locks without help! Knotty Boy even made a freely available video to teach you how to DIY. (If you do buy the DVD, I'm the peanut gallery laughing at Becca in the background. I'm also the PA, AD, and cue-card girl!) But if you don't have time on your side, there's a definite advantage to getting your dreads woven in the shop. My clients don't have to wait for their hair to form knots over weeks of re-backcombing, the knots are there from Day One. They just need to be maintained with a simple routine. By their first trip in to see me, shop-started locks typically have about an inch of new growth dread and their lengths felted up - no combing required. I've never seen a faster natural start-up method.
Thanks to Brenna for braving the Duke Point ferry, and for taking such nice care of her hair. It's always a pleasure to see people who love their locks!
