2006 saw the long-anticipated launch of the outstanding Knotty Boy All Purpose Shampoo Bar (our first offering in the new Knotty Boy Natural Essentials for Every Body! line) in Spearmint Tingle, Patchouli Love and Fresh Cut Grass scents. These have been wonderfully popular both with you Knotty ones online and those buying through retail locations - especially the All Purpose Shampoo Bar Variety 3-Pack. The little yellow soap box was also introduced as an additional bonus of storage-pleasure for those purchasing the Variety 3-Pack, allowing for handy transport and safe-keeping for your Shampoo Bar. You can stand on it, as well, and make a little speech if you feel so inclined. (y’know, cuz it’s, like, a soap box? get it? a soap box? hee hee) Watch out for more luscious fragrances coming soon!

The year 2006 brought so many new stores carrying our extraordinary products it’s hard to even list them all (read: more places for YOU to conveniently find us all around the world!). Here are just a few of our latest Knotty Boy resellers:

Dreadmaker - Sao Paulo, Brazil
Braids By Denight - Austin, Texas USA
Wallflowers, A Salon - Portland, Oregon USA
Whole Foods - West Orange, New Jersey USA
Whole Foods - Santa Rosa, California USA
Abantu - Burnaby, British Columbia Canada

Welcome, all, to the big ol’ Knotty Family! And remember, if a reseller still isn’t located near you yet, find out here how you can get $50 worth of FREE Knotty Boy gear by hooking a location close to you up with the Knotty goodness.

The Knotty Boy Eco-Packaging/Child Sponsorship Fundraiser was seen as another great success in 2006, with enough money raised, $1 at a time, by your contributions to sponsor a total of four more children with food, clothing and education, and raising our little family of sponsored children to a grand total of 11!
 

That’s right, as of December 25, 2006 - in fact, early Christmas morning, to our absolute delight - enough funds were collected to add yet ANOTHER child to our sponsorship effort. We are so pleased to introduce 15-year-old Daniel Sathiyawell from Sri Lanka to our growing family! This handsome fellow is in the eighth grade this year, and lives with his father, mother and two sisters. Because Daniel’s father suffers from paralysis, his mother is only able to work part-time as a housekeeper while also caring for her family, bringing in only approximately $60 per month income. This is in no way enough to provide food, clothing and education for all the children, so with your help, we are able to supply the funds to sponsor Daniel for these things.

Overall, this fundraising project has been a truly remarkable endeavor and we’ve been so overwhelmed and heartened by everyone’s contributions to these kids. Just by choosing to help the planet a little, you are helping these children a LOT by giving them education, food and shelter so they can grow up and hopefully, in turn, help change their own worlds.
Thank you, once again!

Kandia, Indhumathy, Larissa and Daniel - all sponsored in 2006 by your donations!

News Flash!
This just in: Little Larissa in Brazil has been adopted! Hooray! We now have been given another sweet little girl to replace Larissa at the Lars de Meninas Children’s Hostel.

3 ½-year-old Estaphany and her family were homeless when she was removed from her drug-addicted parents by Social Services and brought to the Children’s Hostel to give her a more loving and nurturing home. We are told Estaphany is very happy here and wants to say, and has now been enrolled in preschool. Thanks for enabling us to help care for this little girl – and cute as a bug, too!

The Knotty Boy Lock Shop and Salon was witness to much great excitement last year, starting with some renos resulting in four brand-spankin’ workstations, thanks to our marvelously talented carpenter-friend Dan Flemming! But our new stations wouldn’t be complete if they didn’t also come with comfy new salon chairs to better cushion your aching behinds (you’ll be glad if you’ve ever had to sit in one of the old chairs for more than four hours!), not to mention a new couch, and personal DVD players and movies in case our stylists’ DAZZLING personalities and astounding wit still aren’t enough entertainment for you. Speaking of our stylists, they, too, are now enjoying a lovely new colour-mixing room in the back, complete with stainless steel sink, counter, cabinets AND a headless, rippling male torso mannequin (who should be dressed in one of our fabulous Knotty Boy t-shirts but isn’t for some strange reason…). ahem, where were we? Ah, renos! Yes, these are just the beginning of our continued salon upgrades to better accommodate our loverly clients over the next year, and mucho muchas gracias to Josh, too, for all his hard work and entertaining use of the English language whilst he drilled, hammered and wired that sink room together. Infuriating plumbing obstacles are no match for this General Manager/IT wizard/Salon-Reno genius! Also, the Lock Shop itself has been super busy all winter, and we want to say THANK YOU to our clients for helping us sail through what is often a slower season for salons. Because of the steady increase in bookings over the Lock Shop’s (almost) three years of business, we must also mention the recent and excellent addition of not just one, but two – TWO – new stylists to our Knotty team of fully licensed hair stylists and loctitions. We warmly welcome Vanessa and Kris to their new jobs and look forward to a rockin’ 2007 with them!

If it used to be a tree, we recycle it around here at the Knotty Boy DreadQuarters, and in 2006 we diverted enough paper waste to fill – good gravy! - 11 full-sized pickup trucks.

The Knotty Boy Lock Shop, not to be outdone, is also now recycling all plastic containers from shampoo and other hair products they use. That’s right, someone call Al Gore cuz we gots it goin’ ON up in here. Read more about what makes us do what we do on our Vision and Values page, if you haven’t checked it out before.

Either we’re blowing them out or we’re able to make them cheaper due to sheer popularity - either way, they’re a screamin’ deal.

• The Return of the Orange Crush and Frog! Ever see that documentary about the Cane Frogs in Australia? Now there’s some crazy filming. Not sure what that has to do with anything, but it’s your last chance to pick up our gorgeous, custom-made 1” Orange Crush hand-blown glass dread sleeves and Frog Peyote-Stitch dread sleeves, on sale now.

• Girls spaghetti-strap camisoles in brown with 70’s style KB logo are also on sale for $10 - great for layering throughout the unpredictable early spring, or cozying down for a disco-nap before strapping on your roller skates for a night at the rink. Dance fight!

• Keep the wintry sun (huh? where?) off your face with a navy or black Knotty Boy visor, now on sale for $14.

• New price for the big, bad and ever-popular Wrecking Ball, now only $3 from a previously head-aching $5.

• LAST CHANCE for adorable Dreadlock Winter Pilot Hats. These will be gone before the next eZine (early April) so no more reminders! Pick one up soon to guarantee colour selection and avoid Fear and Loathing in Las NoPilotHats until next year.
 

Recently KnottyEmma (official title: Punk Rock Princess of Knotty Customer Service) responded to two interesting customer questions via email. We thought, ‘hm… our eZiners would probably love to know this, too!’ so here we are passing it right along to you. Aw. Hey, we all know colouring dreadlocks is a SERIOUSLY huge part of having fun with dreads. Seriously.

Q. Firstly thanks for maintaining such a fantastic site. I use your products exclusively on my dreads (they’re only new, 5 weeks) and have a question regarding maintaining dyed locks. I regularly dye my hair black, and was planning to keep my babies said colour. However, over the last few weeks I’ve noticed a significant amount of fading, which I’m thinking might have something to do with the lime juice in the Knotty Boy LockSteady Tropical Tightening Gel. I figure that as you can use lemon juice to naturally bleach hair, lime would have the same effect. Am I right? Should I stay away from the Tightening Gel, or are there other ingredients in the Knotty Boy Dreadlock Shampoo or Knotty Boy Peppermint Cooling Moisture Spray that might contribute to the fading, and is my best option to go lighter?

A. The use of colour can be negatively affected by any hair care product. The gel could potentially impact the color due to the pH level (pH neutral). Generally, hair care products that are designed to not affect color are Acidic, around a pH of 4, which shocks the hair follicle and closes it to prevent the color from getting washed out during shampooing or bled out during styling. Knotty Boy products are kept at or near pH neutral so they are non-irritating, as acidic products that are left on the hair, like the Tightening Gel, can be irritating to the scalp if the user already suffers from any irritation or dryness. People with locks sometimes suffer from scalp irritation already due to the nature of the style, so maintaining pH neutral in all products is best for the majority of our users.

It is also possible that some of the color in the hair is being absorbed by the beeswax in the Knotty Boy Dread Wax, which I am presuming you have in your hair, as you have newer locks. As your locks mature and your use of additional wax decreases, it is possible that the color loss will minimize and you will only notice the normal level of fading that is typical with any colored hair. There is nothing in the Knotty Boy Dreadlock Shampoo that will make hair color fade any more than normal. Bear in mind that if you are dying your dreads AFTER you put them in, you will need to use a little more color, working it really well into the locks, and let it sit for a little longer than usual. Then rinse, rinse, and rinse some more. Dreads are like little sponges, so make sure there’s no colour sitting and eating away at the inside of your locks!

Q. I've bought a Knotty Boy Basic Dreadlock Starter Kit, but I haven't got started yet because I'm not sure how things will look, due to my grey hair. I've dyed my hair dark brown/black for years and it grows back grey/white at the roots. Regular coloring obviously necessitates regular washing, which I don’t think will be ok for new locks. I chose Dark Wax in my Kit, in the hope that might disguise my grey new-growth. Any hints and tips you could offer would be great!

A. I’m not sure the Dark Wax will help disguise the grey, as it’s only lightly tinted and not designed to make another-colored hair appear to be brown. You can keep on coloring hair when you have dreads once they are strong and together enough to handle the ‘abuse’. Coloring dreads won't hinder the locking process and often seems to help as it tends to strip and dry the hair out more, thus facilitating the making of knots in there. And yes, washing your locks after the first 2 weeks is very important, once or twice a week. This will also help knots to form and keep your scalp clean and healthy. See the Knotty Boy DreadCare page for more info about that. When dying your locks, use a little extra colour, work it really well into the knots and let it sit a little while longer than normal. Then rinse, rinse, RINSE!

Alternatively, you could consider the additional change of not only having dreadlocks for the first time, but perhaps also embracing a more natural crown of magnificent silver dreadlocks, which can often be truly stunning!

If you have an interesting question to ask KnottyEmma that ISN’T already answered on our website (again, please check the FAQ section of our website before emailing like madpeople), do feel free to visit our Contact Us page and ask away!
 

Announcing the new call-out for the next batch of Knotty Boy Sponsored Kids! Submission deadline is March 1st, less than one month from now, so go on and send us a package allllll about whatever it is you do that the whole freakin’ world deserves to know about, and that YOU deserve to get tons of Knotty loot for. We consider everything - from sock makers to cooks, rock stars to rock climbers. Check out all the details here.

New Kids will be announced next eZine!
 

To help you ring in the New Year, we’re giving you your very own Knotty Boy copper bell to ding-dong-dangle from your dreads – for free! For ANY amount spent (before shipping) at KnottyBoy.com within the next four weeks , we’ll send you a free copper bell with wire for easy attachment. To claim, once your order is complete and you are ready to Check Out, copy and paste this text into the Comments area of your online Order Form: "I got a fever… and the only prescription is MORE COW BELL! One copper bell for me, please - I’m an eZiner!” Ahh, good old SNL, unfailing fount of silly one-liners.

Well, Knotty ones, that’s all from us for now for this Spring addition of the Knotty Boy eZine! Tune in next time for even more gripping news, dreadlock tips, freebies and action-packed adventure in the magical land of KB. Stay warm, kids, and remember… if you ever feel alone, just head over to the Knotty Boy Dreadlock Gallery or MySpace page, and visit your many, many friends! Hey, just in case you forgot, you ARE a part of a huge and unique family. When you think about it, there are literally hundreds of thousand of people out there, just like you, that have experienced both the frustrations and joys that come with having locks and wouldn’t change them for the world (and who most likely could also use a little of your love and understanding right back at ‘em, too!). Aw, it’s just one big ol’ Knotty love-train, ain’t it?

See ya next eZine, and don’t forget to let us know all your thoughts and suggestions for us by filling out our Knotty Boy 5-Second Survey! Thanks!

We love you guys! Until next time…

The Knotty Crew