Help! Thinning dreads!

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kaytedies
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Help! Thinning dreads!

Post by kaytedies » Mon Feb 08, 2010 1:22 am

On friday I was doing maitenance on my hair- backcombimg andusing a crochet needle to pull in the loose hairs and BAM one of my dreads just pulled right out :(. It was already really thin and I've got a few thin ones in my head (most of my dreads and nice and thick)
What are some tips on maintaining my dreads without losing them in the process? They are about 10 months old and are frizzing out- I do know it takes time to have those lovely matted ones, and mine are matting pretty well with the excepting of the thinning bits. HELP MY POOR HEAD! :(

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Gracey
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Re: Help! Thinning dreads!

Post by Gracey » Mon Feb 08, 2010 10:40 am

On no, poor you! :o

But don't panic.The first thing to work out is why it broke off. Being skinny is not a reason for breakage on its own so I would firstly ask you where the dread broke off. Where on the head and where on the dread.

If it broke off part way down the dread and you can feel similar weak spots in other dreads, it's likely that these bits were a weak spot during the initial dreading of the hair. Over time, these become loops which can be incorporated into a mature dread.

If it was at the root, you could need to do something with the base of your dreads rather than focus too much on the crochet.

Its my feeling that messing with dreads too much in the early stages can inhibit the process. I'm not saying never do it; crochet-needles are the very best way to keep dreads tidy, but don't do it too much.

Do you rub the base of the dreads enough on your scalp? This is the most effective way of keeping the roots from thinning out. Best performed on freshly washed and thoroughly dried hair but its something that you can do all the time. Eventually it just becomes second-nature whenever you have a quiet moment and a free hand. :D

Hope this has been helpful, please post pics if I've totally missed the point. ;) Wouldn't be the first time :lol:
What, that? It's a spade.

Gracey xx
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BloodHoney
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Re: Help! Thinning dreads!

Post by BloodHoney » Mon Mar 22, 2010 11:01 pm

Another thought is- did the hair break off or were they swallowed up by a dread nearby? When I had dreads, it wasn't unusual for the thinner dreads to end up attached to my scalp by a single hair because the thicker surrounding dreads caught up the other loose hairs.
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Taraiha
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Re: Help! Thinning dreads!

Post by Taraiha » Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:29 pm

I've also found with thin dreads that sometimes a fatter one next to it will absorb the loose hairs that should have gone into the thin one and have had to swap hairs from one to the other. Perhaps where you have ones thinning you could check and see if they have a greedy neighbour?
I'm not saying stupidity should be a capital offense. But we could take the safety labels off everything and let nature run its course.

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