Help with smooth dreads?

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earthymamawitch
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Help with smooth dreads?

Post by earthymamawitch » Wed Aug 27, 2008 6:38 pm

I had a couple of questions for the more experienced dread makers in the community. I have been working on making wrapped dreads on my own head. They have turned out a bit lumpy and bumpy, but that's the way I wanted them to be - I wanted them to look more natural. However I have a couple of people who want me to make dreads for them, and they want the real smooth looking dreads like alot of you make. How do I do this??? What is it that causes the lumps and bumps - so I can keep from doing them in the other sets of dreads? And I'm having a problem with backcombing taking too long, unless I do a real quick sloppy job which doesnt look that great.

I'm on a deadline to make these dreads and I'm scared to death I'm going to muck it up :(

~Jenn~
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IKickShins
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by IKickShins » Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:26 pm

The lumps are created from knots that form when you're backcombing. To get smoother dreads, you need to backcomb so that the knots start at the top and decrease in size as they go down the dread 9so that there's a smooth taper).
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earthymamawitch
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by earthymamawitch » Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:41 pm

my dreads have a pretty even taper. But they have alot of fuzziness to them. The one girl brought me a couple of dreads she had made herself and they had practically no fuzzies/frizzies at all. Which confounded me because I've made alot more dreads than her and they always have some degree of fuzziness to them. She also wants them very "neat" (to quote her) and very smooth on the twisting, almost like what I've seen of elysee stars. Does that mean I shouldn't backcomb them much, and if so, wouldnt that mean they would come unravelled?

~Jenn~
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MissAnthropik
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by MissAnthropik » Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:29 am

This is the reason I am always upfront with people about the type of dreads I make. I think it is very hard to switch style. i wonder why if she can make them how she wants why she has asked you to do them when your dreads don't look how she wants? Seems a bit odd

Anyway, that is by the by... if they look like elysees maybe they haven't been backcombed, elysees are not backcombed. Mazzmatazz also made unbackcombed dreads. I think they take more hair though - less time and more hair, and more sealing! You might want to backcomb a bit, and try really hard to tuck all the fuzzies in when you twist to seal
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Miss Liberty
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by Miss Liberty » Thu Aug 28, 2008 2:38 pm

I would say my dreads are solid and smooth. I achieve this by making sure the entire dread is heavily backcombed, but backcombed evenly.

If there is a stubborn lump that wont play nice along the dread, I have a plastic hair pick I use to kind of stab at it and work it into shape/place. Sorry to explain so shottily, its hard to write out!

When I twist to seal, I twist hard, I mean HARD. Sometimes until my fingers hurt after a full night of it. I find it important as I twist to not just twist horizontally, but in a downward motion as well, smoothing as you go. This seems to push most of the fuzzies into the next twist.

Then, I seal with a steamer, let cool, and snip just a few remaining fuzzies if I need to. You don't want to go hog wild snipping, because some of those hairs are wrapped into the twists and are part of the structure of the dread. Just snip off the ones that are really wiley, or sticking straight out without looping back into the dread.

I have also noticed it depends on the steamer. I was using a pressured steam cleaner that spouted steam. Now I'm using a garment steamer with a steady stream of steam. The garment steamer seems to yeild smoother dreads because its not blowing loose hair around.

I hope this helps!

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earthymamawitch
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by earthymamawitch » Thu Aug 28, 2008 6:32 pm

thanks for all the advice, I really appreciate it. :D
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plum poison
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Re: Help with smooth dreads?

Post by plum poison » Thu Aug 28, 2008 11:43 pm

i have found that if you do shorter comb strokes on the backcombing making the knots tighter there is less fuzziness

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