Dreadlocks And Loose Hairs

What's the deal with loose hair? Loose hair is seemingly the bane of most dreadhead’s lives. Not all, but most. 

Loose hair, it's like the anti-lock… literally. People see loose hair and they see it as negative progress, it’s messy, it’s undone, it’s the opposite of the way they want their hair to go and it’s really easy to stress and obsess. However, with locked hair, some unlocked hair is always going to be present, it’s unavoidable.

Starting with young locks loose hair is going to be most prevalent. Before you begin, all your hair is loose and your starting method of choice simply sets that loose hair up for the journey ahead (backcombing doesn’t create locked dreads, T&R doesn’t make locked dreads, the methods just hold those loose hairs in some sort of order while over time they lock - same time dependant process that plays out if you’re instead neglecting or free forming).

So, to begin, you’ve got a whole head of loose hair, you start your dreads so you’ve got your loose hair starting to separate into some sort of dread-like order and over time your hair is going to lock tighter and stronger into mature dreads. Ok cool, loose hair gone, right? Well, no.

Over time your loose sections will lock tighter, they’ll mature and become more rope-like. What was once a kind of semi-organised mass of sectioned loose hair will get some order to it. Loose hairs that were once poking out and forming patches should slowly begin to knot together and mat into the surrounding locks. Over time the total amount of looseness and loose hair will decrease, but there’s not a magic point where all of it disappears on its own… you just reach a sort of equilibrium.

At a certain level of dreadlock maturity you get to a point where loose hairs are getting locked in at the same rate as new hairs are either getting pulled loose or forming loose - so the total amount of loose hair remains the same. Washing and drying can work some hairs loose, every day life rubbing against them and pulling on them can pull some hairs loose. Plus you’re always shedding hairs, breaking hairs, whether your hair is locked or not, so you’ll have some baby hairs that have never been locked yet. These things are pretty much unavoidable. The same friction that causes hairs to interact and lock can also pull some loose.

The total amount of loose hair can vary over time and from person to person. That equilibrium point for your average amount of loose hair will be affected by how long the loose hairs are - shorter hairs are harder to lock so if your dreads are short or if you’ve trimmed the loose hair shorter, it’ll be less likely to lock on it’s own. If you have naturally soft hair or your hair is excessively moisturised or conditioned, you’re more likely to have loose hairs. Same with if your hair is particularly oily, either naturally or from the balance left by your shampoo - hairs near your skin, eg face, ears or neck pick up oils from your skin and are less likely to lock on their own. And also seasons can affect loose hairs - dry winter months can often cause more hairs to lock compared to hotter, more humid months.

Even at 11 years in, I get loose hairs.. sometimes a lot, in summer, where it’s hot and humid, my hair is gets frizzy and loose - I get more loose hairs around my face where the hairs can catch oil from my skin. Whereas in winter when it can be cold and dry, I may find more hairs are locked down.

What can you do? Some people don’t really care and accept that dreadlocks aren’t something that is ever “completed”. Locked hair is always growing, changing, forming, you never reach a point where they’re done. Some people like this and just let the hair get on with it’s thing in the knowledge that sometimes they’ll be messier than other times. Whereas some will make sure to maintain their loose hair periodically to keep it more controlled. There are pros and cons to both views - leaving the hair alone is going to usually leave you with a higher level of peak frizz, whereas maintaining it is going to require constant upkeep overtime to maintain new loose hairs as they present themselves - even with maintenance, loose hair returns so some prefer to just let it sort itself so as to avoid the hassle and avoid risking obsessive maintenance that can damage the dreads if overdone over time.

Can I tell you how much loose hair you should expect given a certain age of dreadlock or a certain starting method? No, it all varies from person to person depending on the environment that the dreads are exposed to and the variables at play with the hair such as length and natural softness etc. Should I tell you how much you should maintain them, how often, what method you should use or whether you should maintain at all? That’s down to personal preference, depending on how you view your locks, how you’d like them to be and how you balance up the pros and cons involved with these decisions. What I can say for sure is that everyone is going to experience loose hair, EVERYONE. It’ll vary from person to person, but it’s there. Sometimes it’s better than other times, sometimes it’s worse. Don’t stress about it, don’t panic about it, remember that locking your hair is a continuous process and not a one time thing.

Tips Becoming Loose + More! (Dreadlocks Q&A #58)

Episode #58 of my dreadlocks question and answer series!

rgcthat

 Question I have a undercut nd only grow the top of my hair out can I dread my hair by leaving braids in? thanks a bunch:).

Nekro Nymph 

Question: I used the twist and rip method and they are a little over a week old. I already have a couple loose hairs, is it normal to have loose hairs this soon? I'm really hoping the knots aren't coming undone…

Joely F 

Question: is it bad (or not necessarily good) to fidget and play with dreads when they're young? Mine are almost a year but the entire time I've had them i play with them and twirl them around my fingers and stuff. Just curious if it changes anything with the maturation process. (:

TieranKarbashewski 

QUESTION: I washed my dreads a couple days ago and now i have huge paintbrush tips the size of my finger, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

DeathThemeThirteen 

Question!: How tall are you? :)

My 93 Month Dreadlocks Update!

Dreadlocks update for month 93!

93 months into my dreadlocks journey, checking in for a quick update on what's been going on over the last month. Talking a little about tied up dreads causing looser roots, the shampoo I've been using this month as well as the ever increasing length.

Loose After First Wash? (Dreadlocks Q&A #48)

Episode #48 of my long running dreadlocks question & answer series where I answer YOUR questions!

KayBrad13

Question: I'm having difficulty deciding if I want to commit to a full head of dreads or partial. If I do just go with partial dreads how should I go about setting them, since my normal hair will cover the roots? 

krystle dinning

QUESTION....what do I do if I have dandruff with dreads? Is there a special dread shampoo I can use?

Courtney Jenkins

Question: I'm waiting to start dreading my hair when it's a bit longer. In the 'messy early stage' of the process, can u just wear a hat or will it effect the maturing process some how? 

Sydney Rianna

QUESTION: If you have loose ends that have not locked up, is it better to encourage them to lock up or to just leave them be?

Mulle meckbb

QUESTION: I've got dreads that are about a week old and after I showered they seem to be a lot softer and that's nice but they are also a lot looser. Some roots that were thight before are now 2 cm of loose hair before the dread begins. I also got a lot More loose hair and I don't think it's a problem but maybe it will be if it continues after every shower. 

I just the "no poo method" (baking soda, ACV)

What Shampoo Do I Use? + More! (Dreadlocks Q&A #47)

You ask the questions - I (attempt) to answer them! Episode #47

toaster467

Question:What shampoo do you use?

Autumn Schelde

question: Some of my dreads look very braid like. Is this normal? or did my friend possibly mess something up when she twist and ripped them? Should I redo them or just leave them alone?



CENT MGA

Question: I did half back comb and now I'm Going for neglect I've had them about 8 months but I've been growing my hair for close to 4 years. How much longer for the loose hair to dread it's about 6 inches 

Aiden McKinley

Question: What should people expect when first washing their dreads? I remember when I first washed mine a lot of my root came loose, was that normal?

Caleb Heffelfinger

Will young, frizzy dreaded hair un-frizz on its own? 

Tidying Dreads For Graduations + More! (Dreadlocks Q&A #44)

xRASTAxXxLIONx

question: im afraid my roots wont knot once I dread my hair... and itl just grow out normal.. I see people crochet the roots once it grows out a bit, but I want to just let mine knot on ther own... will my roots grow out dreaded or normal? If they grow out normal...how often... and for how long will I have to do it? 

Pauline The Princess

Question: is hairspray a forgiving product on dreadlocks? 

As in: I have graduation pictures in less than two weeks with 2.5 month old dreads. If I use hairspray once to tame it for photos, would a deep clean do the trick to getting rid of the hairspray? 

Love your videos :)

josh Holden

Question:what method did you use?

Lo Got The Dro

question: I didn't section my dreads when i did them, so theres lots loose hair at the roots. can i make more dreads from the loose hair? or should i just let it lock into the existing dreads? peace

Jes Whitelaw

If you were a super hero, what would your super power be? 

Dreadlocks New Growth

Dreadlocks new growth - the hair that continues to grow out once you've already started locking up your hair. Despite all the shrinkage, compression and length loss that may occur as the dreadlocks mature - your hair will in fact always be growing, 24/7, round the clock, day and night. This new hair will of course be regular, unknotted, new growth... so what happens to this hair? Does it need to be maintained? does it need to be redone? - rebackcombed? will the hair just grow out as normal and will the dreadlocks grow out? 

This video covers the topic of this new growth and what happens to it.

Dreadlocks - Clockwise Root Rubbing

Probably one of the most well known of the friction based dreadlock maintenance techniques, if not only due to it's name. Clockwise root rubbing is a method of root maintenance that involves rubbing the root of a dreadlock against your scalp in a circular motion with the hopes of forming new knots.

Personally I am not a fan of this technique:
It only works once the dreadlock roots are already on their way because it cannot be effectively used on super longer, loose roots.
It can make your scalp sore from all the rubbing.
Long term rubbing at your roots can cause damage and root thinning.
It's arguable how effective the root rubbing is for locking at the roots over the long term.

But most dreadheads give clockwise root rubbing a try at some point in the dreadlock-lifetime and some people do swear by it in certain situations and it's less harmful overall than interlocking (-less harmful than attempting to use the interlocking method on non-interlocked dreadlocks.) So for the sake of providing a complete guide to dreadlock maintenance this method is included.

Dreadlocks - Dreadballing

This is a technique that involves balling up loose hair and stuffing into the root of a neighbour dreadlock. This is a rather invasive technique and can damage the root of the neighbour dreadlock if you are not careful or if you carry out this technique regularly. Personally I only ever use this on one part of my head to remove hairs from in front of my face and would only recommend using this technique with extreme caution.

Dreadlocks - Wool Rubbing

Wool rubbing is a simple and easy way to try and encourage loose hairs to knot. I will often recommend it in conjunction with a saltwater spray as both methods are known to help get loose hairs knotting up.

If you've ever tried to pull a wool sweater off over a head of long non-dreaded hair you'll know what I'm talking about with wool. When you pull a wool garment over normal hair it will make the hair go super frizzy, knotty and even static-y and stand on end. This is really not a desirable look or effect for normal hair, but can be really useful with dreadlocks.

Take a wool item of clothing, a sweater, a hat, or in my case some gloves and just go to town on your head. I find a circular rubbing motion comes the most natural but any rubbing motion will work fine. This will get the loose hairs to start to cling together and will encourage them to knot. While they're in the wool rubbed state the loose hairs can often stick out a little, but you'll also find they're rather more workable than normal so you can pull them down and they'll stay in the direction you've pulled them, which is an added benefit.

Wool rubbing can be used with all types and ages of dreadlocks and can even be used to help start dreadlocks from scratch as it can kick start a head of non-dreaded hair down the neglect/natural route.

Something to watch is that it can start to get dreadlocks to stick and congo together because the wool rubbing does not differentiate between the hairs it makes cling together so watch out for congos forming! Personally I would not recommend using wool rubbing specifically for starting congos because you have no control over which dreads you're going to make stick together.

Loose Hair, Roots and Tips

Loose hair

Sometimes you can become completely obsessed with the loose hair. Loose hair is going to happen no matter what you do, it's normal and everyone has them. Overtime my dreadlocks have gone through phases of having loose hair and not having so much, the sooner you stop worrying about it, the happier you will be.

You'll find you get way more loose hairs when it's summer and humid and everything will calm down in winter. If you really need them out of your face, then you can't go wrong with a wool hat/beanie/tam. The wool rubbing encourages frizzy hair and new knots, while also keeping the loose hairs out of your face. Failing that you can always just use a headband to hold them back and forget about them.

If it's a make or break situation and you need them neatening up, you can crochet the hair into it's nearest dreadlock. If you do this over and over again for all the loose hair you can end up giving the dreadlocks an unnatural texture that might not be even across your whole head, but it does work if you can get the technique down. The major problem with crocheting though is that overtime you can really damage your hair. Every time you punch the crochet needle though the dreadlock you're breaking the hairs. So if you do this a lot and break enough hairs it's possible that the dreadlock can pull apart / fall off, especially when they get heavy as you wash them.

I strongly believe that palm rolling is a myth. It's peddled a lot by the companies selling dreadlock products, mainly as a way of rubbing the product into your hair. Palm rolling is when you take a dreadlock and roll it between your two palms - back and forth. Short term you might manage to stick a few hairs into a few dreads but chances are you'll be back to square one once you wash them again.

Rubber bands sometimes recommended to help tame the loose hair. Often they will be placed with one at the root and one near the tip, sometimes with another in the middle of the dread. The problem with rubber bands is that the dreadlock will absorb them over time. Loose hair will dread over the top of the band and so you can end up with rubber bands buried inside your dreadlocks. So I wouldn't recommend rubber bands.

Loose hair will sort itself out over time, either by locking into surrounding dreads, or by forming they're own new dreadlocks. The hair behind my ears and at the top of my neck stayed loose for a very long time, but eventually the hairs naturally formed their own dreadlocks that then locked into larger dreads.

Here you can see a newly formed baby dreadlock that has formed from just the loose hairs by itself.

Roots and Tips

Ok, so we're talking about the roots and the dreadlock-tips specifically now. These are the areas that bother people the most. When your roots aren't dreading then you feel like they're going to grow out and when the tips are loose it looks and feels like it's all falling apart. Fear not! neither are areas you should worry about in the long term.

The roots are going to take a while to get to the point that most people would really like because that only occurs when your dreads have matured. The longer you have your dreads and the longer you leave the roots to their own devices, the faster you'll find that loose section between root and dread start to shrink. For the first year or so it's completely normal to have an inch or two of straight hair before the dreadlock really starts. There isn't much you can do about it. If you take the dread and rub the base in a clockwise motion against your head it is possible to encourage the root tightening, but I wouldn't over do it because you can make your scalp sore. This is obviously normally referred to as 'Clockwise Rubbing'. Do not resort to 'Root Flipping'. This is where you take the tip and thread it through the loose root - temporarily making it tight. Overtime this threading will damage the root and split it, meaning you'll still have the single dreadlock, but it will be linking to your head with two roots.

For the tips, some people like the thin whispy ends and others like the blunt ends. With new dreads it's normal to have loose hair/whispy ends. This can often look a little wild and messy but is actually beneficial for drying. The thin loose tips allow the water to run out of the dreads much faster than the chunky blunt ends. Rounded blunt ends take time to form. You can rub the tips between your thumb and forefinger to encourage the locking and you can cut off some of the loose length to make them look a little neater. If you want whispy-er ends then you just have to either brush or pick at the tips with a needle to get some loose hair out. But whispy ends normally form by themselves when water runs through them.

Dreadlock Maintenance?

Ok, people tend to be torn two ways on this. There are those who get dreadlocks and can't leave them alone, each loose hair has its place and each dread tip must be immaculately crocheted to perfection. Then there are people who never touch their hair and enjoy the extra time they gain from not having to brush and condition and cut and trim etc etc.

Here's what you need to know...

Dreadlocks are formed by neglecting the hair. You leave the hair to its own devices and eventually dreadlocks will form from the chaos, so you really don't have to do much to keep them on the right track. 

The best thing you can do to maintain your dreadlocks is to follow a good washing and drying routine. Keeping them clean and then keeping them dry is essential for the longevity of your dreadlocks. When you keep them clean, but not conditioned, you're putting your hair in a good state for locking-up. Also if you keep a regular cleaning routine you're going to stop the hair from becoming irritating and itchy. Thoroughly drying them after they've been washed is equally important. Leave anything damp sitting around long enough and it'll start to become unpleasant - dreadlocks are no exception. Roughly drying with a towel also causes a lot of friction and can help form new knots.

Washing and drying is the essential maintenance. Companies will often try and sell you maintenance products that you don't need - they will assure you that you do.... but they have products they want to sell. Not all products are bad, but most are unnecessary and most are just repackaged simple ingredients you can find around your own home. I cannot stress enough that dreadlocks need time and patience, but that makes it easy for companies to cash in by selling quick fix dreadlock products. There are no magic instant dreadlock products, there are just those that are waxes or variations on waxes/gels that stick your hair together to make them look more like tighter dreadlocks (while in reality actually slowing down the locking process by inhibiting the movement of the hairs and therefore stopping them from forming new knots). Then there are also products that simply dry out the hairs and make them more frizzy allowing them to knot up. The gels and waxes you really don't want to go anywhere near, the drying/frizzing products are completely unnecessary and the same effect can be achieved without buying branded products. You can make your hair dryer and more frizzy by using lemon juice, swimming in salt water or rubbing a wool jumper over your hair. Do you need to do this? no. Does it actually help in the long run? who can say. Over time the lemon juice will also bleach your hair slightly, but it's kinda sticky so needs washing out quite quick.

You may have to rip and/or cut certain dreads to stop them from merging together into congos. This is normal maintenance, if you would like your dreads to be fatter then simply don't split them! More information about that on my Congos page.

You really don't need to do anymore work with them than that. Feel free to play with them during the day, the friction encourages the knotting process, but they get it from the towel drying and when your head rubs on the pillow anyway (this is why you will find that the dreads on the back of your head mature the fastest).

I'll cover some other little bits here:

Palm rolling: 

this technique is commonly recommended by most sources of dreadlock information. You place a dreadlock between your palms and... roll. You're squeezing the dread, pushing loose hairs into the body of the dread and rounding the whole thing off. This technique doesn't cause any damage to the dreads but it's positive effects are also debatable. Most visible progress made by palm rolling will be undone once you wash the dreads again. So by all means palm roll, but don't stress too much about it!

Clockwise rubbing:

you take the base of a dread between your thumb and forefinger and rub the dreadlock against your scalp in a clockwise motion. This technique definitely has pros and cons. Some people feel that it helps knot up the roots better. But on the down side it can give you a sore scalp and possibly break hairs at the root, which you really don't want. Roots will lock up by themselves given time and patience, the best thing to do is leave them to it for the first few months!

Crocheting:

another really popular one here which has pros and cons. You punch the really thin crochet hook through a dread, grab some loose hairs on the other side and then pull them back through into the dread. It can also be used to blunt the tips of a dreadlock. Many people use this method for attaining very neat locks, the problem is that it is very easy to over do it. Every time you crochet your hair you are punching tiny holes in the dread, now while the really thin hook will push most hairs aside, you are still running the risk of breaking hairs inside the dread. This can, overtime, weaken the dreadlock, which needs to be strong to hold up all that weight of wet hair!

Rubber bands:

 

I have some more information on loose hairs, dread roots and dread tips in my - Loose Hairs, Roots and Tips section.