Saturday, June 30, 2012

Thirteen Weeks/ Three Months

So yeah, I missed a week. Been kind of busy. And last week was my birthday and everyone wanted to spend time with me. It was fun.

But yeah, by three months I was hoping to have full dreads, and it looks like that is not yet the case. But I'm trying not to worry because the most recent Lock-Up Date said that if you go for thinner dreads like mine, it will probably take longer for them to lock. Like only a few will probably be all nice and firm. Which is rather where mine are at.

So trying not to worry. And now I need to teach myself how to use the Loose Hair Tool because I hadn't been using it because it was too big for my dreads, but now I have a tiny version and have no excuse not too. I also think I need to go back and rewatch some of the videos on using the various tools. Get a refresher.

Note, I got the tiny loose hair tool through a sweet deal from DreadheadHQ. They offered a deal where I'd get the swag pack and a loose hair tool just by buying some stuff called Dread-Licious. Brand name, of course. It is spray-on scented stuff that helps nourish your hair. And makes mine smell like vanilla. So I was planning to buy that eventually anyway and I got all this cool stuff to go with it!

But onward. I was prepared for negative attention when I got dreads, like stereotyping, staring, and odd questions. I wasn't prepared to be receiving complements for the first time in my life from random strangers. I had someone honk at me and yell "Hey, sexy!" I had a guy today say something about me or my dreads looking good and give me a thumbs up from his car. Another guy waved in passing. People will just say out of the blue, "I love your hair!" And they do ask questions. Another person didn't seem to think much of them in comparison to his friend's until he found they were only two months old.

Basically, all this attention is a little bizarre. Because my hair is different. It isn't like my old hair was bad-looking, just bland. Entirely normal and uninteresting. And now it's fun and different. I said I didn't think I'd do it again if I somehow lost them... but I look at my old pictures and think how boring my hair was.

And now my relatives are warming up to it as well. Mom thinks me wearing a headband is really cute. My Aunt Cindy was quoted saying it was cute, and apparently even my grandma told my mom "it's just hair, Dar."

Things are looking up.


Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Eleven Weeks


















That is me. That is my hair. Cool, huh?

That was this morning. I have more wax in it now. If I could only get all the palm rolling I plan on getting done, done. I think the problem is that The Voice is out of season. It was a lot easier to palm roll when watching an episode of The Voice.

By the way, The Voice was awesome, Juliet Simms was awesome, and I can't wait for the next season to come out. You really should watch it.

Really. If you don't have cable (like myself), it airs on the Internets the day after.

But anyway, I'm at eleven weeks. Coming close to three months. Which I find rather worrisome, because I don't know if a lot of my dreadchilds have progressed to three months. Some are still rather pathetic. Thankfully, you can't tell looking at me. 'Cause really, I look awesome.

But maybe I'm worrying prematurely. After all, I did opt for thinner dreads, and those tend to take longer. I comfort myself with thoughts of vacation next year and how they are going to be all locked up and sweet and I won't care at all about getting my hair wet, cause skinny dreads dry fast and they will no longer be prone to the ends falling out.

See yah there!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

10 Weeks

Sorry I am late on this post. I am currently in Branson, on my phone. And the Internet didn't work for my phone the first couple of days.

Want to know how my vacation is going? I am having a blast, but I've also been stupid. I am not fragile, not a China doll, just stupid. Like just going along doing normal things wouldn't have put me in the spot I'm in.

First off, I burnt my back. No biggie, just some time at the pool, but it was burnt and somewhat painful. Then, Tuesday, I went out on a boat ride. I went because I wanted to feel the wind in my dreads and the speed of the boat... not sunbathe. I had no idea we'd be out there so long, otherwise I would have put sunscreen on. And the cool breeze tricks your mind and makes you think you aren't getting burnt... my legs went from white to red. And on fire. I was begging for aloe vera by the end of the day. Aside from my legs, burnt my face, arms, and chest.

So yesterday, I took precautions against the sun when we went out. 50 spf, and I stayed in whatever shade I could find. I probably wasn't in the sun more than fifteen minutes. Turns out the sun wasn't my problem. First time I jump off the cliff, it goes fine and I hit the water feet first and slide right in. One of my ears begins to ache on the way back up and I spend a little time trying to determine if I busted it. I think I still have water in it. Second time I agreed to go with my scared sister-in-law, me jumping from the higher spot at the same time. I count down and I jump... and look over to see myself falling alone. So I didn't have time to get in position after looking before I hit. I dog paddle back to the cliff so I can restore the feeling in my left leg before swimming to the boat. Now I have a pretty impressive purple bruise up my whole thigh.

My point being, all these things were avoidable. I could have used sunscreen. I didn't have to jump twice. I didn't have to jump from the higher cliff. I am not accident prone, just a bit daring and a bit stupid. Thankfully my acrobatics on the zip line didn't hurt me.

Oh, you wanted to hear about my dreads? That's a bit of a sad story. Yes, I still have them. My step-father-in-law offered the zipline guy 50 bucks if he could comb them out.

But the sad part is that I went and blunted all my ends. So not all of them are locked in. And I've been swimming. Swimming pulls out pretty much all of your loose hair. I had to redo around 10 to 15 ends after I swam the first time. I stuck what bands I had with me on some of them, and now I have like five ends I have to redo every time I go under. I was really worried in the beginning, but I'm at peace now. I'll just put them back together as they come undone.

Pics? Not sure how they work on the phone apparently. I tried to attach one, I'll have to check and see what it looks like when I get back on a computer.


Sunday, June 3, 2012

Nine Weeks/Two Months

Hey y'all, it's the third and I finished backcombing April 1st... So that's two months! And like, two days.

So I went ahead and blunted all the ends. It took forever and I had to do it over several different sessions. Basically what I was doing was taking, or breaking, the rubberband out of my hair. I was uncomfortable to find some wax had accumulated under the rubberband, but I suppose that's to be expected. I mean, I knew they were prone to doing that. I just don't like wax in my hair. So anyway, I'd try and pull the paintbrush tip out so I knew all of it that wasn't knotted, then I used my Lock Scuplta, that tiny crochet hook, to try and pull the loose tip hair into the tighter knotted body of the dreadchild.

The knotted bit was often quite knotted and didn't really have room for all of the tip, so it was hard and took a lot of work with the Sculpta. I went at it so long, I developed a blister on one of my fingers and my hand started cramping.

But the tips look awesome. For the longest time I've felt like apologizing for my hair and I'll look into the mirror and worry, and wonder if my dreadies will ever look like actual dreadlocks. But now I look into the mirror and think I look pretty cool. I still have the bands at the roots, and I'm thinking I'll wait another two weeks to actually take those out. This next week is a B week, and then after that is A Week and vacation... so maybe after vacation. Maybe after the B week, I don't know.

I know not all the tips will stay blunted the first time around. But I think the self-esteem that came from blunting the tips and what they look like now will help carry me forward a little bit.

I still have those problem ones. There are a couple in the front that could fit in a drinking straw and don't seem to be maturing, but I'll worry about all that later.


















[May not look all that different to you, but the nice blunt ends instead of miniature hair explosions make me feel so much better.]