Dreadlock Installation Methods

How to Care for “Partial” Dreadlocks

Even if you only have one dread, you need to at the very least keep them CLEAN and keep them SEPARATE! Dreadlocks, whether you have one or one hundred, always have a tendency to want to “eat”/suck in any loose hair around them. Unless you want to end up with mega-dreads you need to regularly run your fingers through your hair around the dreads to make sure none of the hair you want left loose is getting tangled into the locks.

Dread Perm*

The dread perm is a technique that was created and made popular by the Hair Police in Minnesota. There are a few different variations of this technique out there. One variation involves perming the hair by wrapping it around perm rods and applying the perm chemical for a set amount of time and then rinsing … Read more

Interlocking*

We can’t recommend AGAINST interlocking enough! It may seem like an easy way to keep your locks tidy-looking, but it usually does NOT work out well in the long-run. When silky, Caucasian hair is twisted against itself (such as with interlocking or braiding) the hair either does not lock at all, or it takes a VERY long time to do so. ecause of the nature of how interlocking is done in some individuals, interlocking will case dreadlocks to split from the roots and, in severe cases, be difficult or impossible to fix. Some also believe that when interlocking is used to tighten new growth that the hair gets pulled too tight and causes too much tension on the hair at the roots leading to potential hair loss or thinning. However, by far and large the biggest issue we come across with dreadlocks that have been interlocked is how unnaturally dense interlocked growth becomes. This leads to the dreadlocks holding a lot of excessive product (soap and/or wax, even if residue-free) and moisture ultimately leading to issues with mold (a.k.a. “dread rot”).

Crochet

Although crochet is more typically used for placement of dreadlocks in conjunction with another method done first as a “base”, occasionally, crochet alone may be used for the placement of dreadlocks. This is most typically the case with kinky, afro-type hair which takes to the locking process very easily and doesn’t require as much “work” … Read more

Backcombing

We do not generally recommend backcombing. Many people use this technique as it is the easiest, most easily learned technique. However, we feel other methods (Rip & Twist) are much better. Backcombing involves the use of a dread comb, as mentioned earlier, to arrange the hair perpendicularly along a central strand of hair (see diagram at left). However, because of this arrangement, over time (like everything else on our planet) it is affected by gravity and the ‘knots’ can, and often do, begin to migrate downwards. This leads to loose, undreaded hair in the middle of a dreadlock or the entire unraveling of a dreadlock altogether. The use of rubber bands can help prevent total unraveling, but not the development