As a professional dreadmaker I can say that there are a lot of ways of making natural dreadlocks and that there's a ton of conflicting info around. I only use a comb and a crochet needle, no chemicals whatsoever. I'm going to explain some of the prejudices to you.
Rubber bands:
Rubber bands are easy to get your dreads tight at the moment, but after a few days/weeks/months these can have bad consequences to your dreads. Because of the rubber band being so tight around your dread, the hair underneath the rubber band has no space what so ever to dread/felt for itself. So after a few weeks the rubber band will brake off and all that's left is a weak spot that's not dreaded. Because of these weak spots your dread can brake off eventually.
Wax:
Same story with wax. Wax may seem like an easy option to stick the loose hairs back to the dreads. But what happens is that inside the dread the wax keeps on filling loose spots, giving your hair no space to dread or felt for itself. So after a while, you might want to wash all that sticky stuff out of your hair with result that your dread is much weaker and sensitive then when you started them. Also the wax attracts dust that can make your dreads smell nasty after some time.
Felting needle:
Felting needles are easy to use for making dreads, though I strongly recommend you not to use these. Felting needles are extremely sharp and will brake a lot of hairs! At the beginning they may look nice, but they can get weaker and weaker the longer you use a felting needle.
Permanent solution:
Most of the dreads I have seen that were made with permanent solution have grown to be extremely thick. This is because the dreads weren't made tight enough and the hairs had too much space to grow inside each other. With the result that the dreads started shrinking till almost the half of what the length used to be. Also permanent solution can brake of hairs because of the chemicals.
In my opinion I think using a crochet needle is the best method for making dreadlocks.
Dread making Tutorial by Shrijani Dreads (http://www.shrijani-dreads.nl)
What you need:
- comb
- crochet needle 0.5mm
01. Work from back to front so start by making a row in the neck of the customer.
02. Pick a section and start back combing the hair. Check if every part of the dread is evenly thick.
03. Start poking the crochet needle (0.5mm) trough the dreadlock. Make sure the hook of the needle is always pointing from you, so you know which hairs you are pulling inside of the dread.
04. Keep on repeating this in every direction till you are at the end of the dread. You might want to back comb now and then till you get there.
05. You can leave the ends loose or If you want to make rounded tips, just flip the end up and start poking with the crochet needle through the dread and the piece of hair you just flipped up.
After a lot of work (believe me) the dreads should look like this:
Dread maintaining Tutorial by Shrijani Dreads (http://www.shrijani-dreads.nl)
What you need:
- comb
- crochet needle 0.5mm
- crochet needle 1.0mm
01. Work from back to front and start with the bottom row, the rest of the dreads you put in a knot or tail.
02. Start by using the 1.0mm crochet needle. Take a piece of loose hair from the top and poke the needle trough the dread. Pull the loose hair trrough the dread with the hook.
03. Keep repeating this till you are at the end of the dread.
04. As you can see, it looks a bit like it's braided. To take that effect away you get your 0.5mm crochet needle and start poking all the loose hairs of the braided looking part trough the dread. This way you're pulling the hairs one by one into the dread.
05. Keep on doing this till you get the dreaded texture back.
This is how it should look like:
I hope this info can help you start your natural dread adventure!
For more photo's you can view my website: http://www.shrijani-dreads.nl
