KNOTTY BOY E-ZINE   |   MARCH 2004

From the land of Knotty Boy, the Land of Perpetual Spring, the Land of 10 Degrees Warmer Than Where Most Of You Are (that’s right, fabulous Vancouver, the banana-belt of Canada) - welcome, welcome, Knotty Ones, to the March 2004 edition of the Knotty Boy DreadStuff eZine!

Even though over half of you are still most likely buried under six feet of snow, you can tell the days ARE getting a little longer, every once in a while the sun peaks through the grey, and Spring just feels a little closer - THANK GOODNESS.

For some of you, that also means PROM is coming up and school is almost finished for good! Wahoo!! Well, until you get shipped off to college, that is. *mwahaha* But for now, we’d like to turn your little Vitamin D-deprived brains to more fun thoughts involving some very creative ways to wear your beloved dreadlocks for your extra-special day, and special days to come!

BUT FIRST! We are thrilled to announce some new super rad-dad additions to our dread bead and adornment selection! Knotty Boy Dreadlock Coils are now here in shiny copper and sterling silver, featuring simple swirly styles or with glass droplets in large and small sizes - all hand-crafted by Gemma Designs here in Vancouver. Also be sure to check out our monthly eZiner Give-Away below and see how you can get one of these fabulous dreadlock coils for free!!

Less talk, more rock - lets get down on it, dread-styles!

As many of you may have heard, Jervais of Hairoine.com fame has dreadfully joined forces with the Knotty Boy crew to lend us her dread services expertise and knack for excellent tips and tricks involving dreadlocks.  Jervais has joined us once again here in this eZine to bring you some great ideas for spicing up that nappy head of yours for whatever special occasion you may have coming up - or just for fun, everyday!

Take it away, Jervais!

So Prom season (and Spring, too) is creeping closer, and you're probably starting to wonder how exactly you can wrangle those dreads into a stylish little coiffure. Have no fear, Hairoine is here!

Get ready to become dreadfully fancy! The possibilities for doing something nifty with your dreads are endless - your imagination is really the only limit...

My first tip is to be creative. Go through your jewelry boxes, drawers, tickle trunks, hit a thrift store or two, or go rummage around in your siblings’ stuff. Your mission is to find lots of different things that could potentially work to make your dreads really shine. You can literally put anything in your hair, if you do it tastefully! Here are some things to look for:

- elastics and stretchy things of all shapes and sizes

- long strips of fabric

- sashes from dresses, scarves, thin belts

- dreadbands

- necklaces, strings of shells, pearls, etc

- pendants, charms and coils

- sea shells, feathers, grasses, twigs

- flowers

- ribbon

- barrettes

- lengths of flexible plastic, ie. Rexlace

- beads 

- anything else that you can think of that might work or look cool

 

Now that you've finished your little scavenger hunt, let's get to the hair styles. Before your start though, bear in mind that even though you've gathered up a ton of stuff with which to adorn your dreads - less is more. You don't want to look like you're hosting a garage sale up there!

Below are a few 'do's you can try, but remember, these are simply base-styles - you can add or modify as you see fit. As always, whatever works for you is best!

Dread Bunches - This is a fairly simple ‘do for both girls and guys, and is SUPER cute. (Boys can substitute cool bands or fabric for the ribbon.)

  

To begin, part your dreads down the middle, or to the side if that suits you better. Lift one side up to the height you want it and holding it firmly in place, wrap an elastic around the bunch until it feels secure. Do the same to the other side - try to make sure they are even and not all lop-sided and wonky! Remember Red from the Fraggles? That’s what you’re shooting for! You can also pull each bunch part-way through the elastic to create more puffy bunches, keeping the ends tucked in.

In the pictures we took, we added green ribbon by simply tying it around each bunch. We also took a threaded necklace and wore it as a tiara to add a little fairy magik to it. This was just our version, but you can do many other things using dread bunches such as adding beads, bobbles, flowers or wrapping them up in fabric.

A great variation of this is wrapping the hair around the base of the bunch until you get something like this (think Sailor Moon) . . .

Dread Buns - Okay so, I look more like Sailor Moon gone wrong, but you get the point! Moving on - once you've wrapped it around the bottom of the pigtail, wrap an elastic or two around the base of the bun to secure it. You can add in flowers to the buns or ribbon or pull a few dreads out to get that neat-o dangly effect.

Next! How could we not include the ever famous Bjork buns!? This 'do' may not work so well for those of you with super firm dreads - your dreads need to be a little bendy to pull this one off. How do you do it? For some Big Time Dreaduality, grab 3 - 4 dreads (depending on the size you want the buns) and twist them around until they are nice and tight, slap an elastic or two over it and, presto-chango, you have a bun! Repeat until your whole head is done.

As you can see, we were digging feathers the night we took these pics so they've been added to the front, then looped strings of sequins around the buns to create that Midsummer Night's Dread effect. You can change it up by wrapping ribbons, string or grasses around them, or you just add cool elastics. Give it a try, see what you can come up with! Very cute on boys, too!

Dread Pony - Another one that can have many variations is the simple pony-tail. You can leave it loose, or pull all your dreads up into a pony tail and pull the bunch half-way through the elastic, again creating a puffy bunch of dreads. Leave as is or pull out a dread or two on the top of it to create some movement (see the picture below)!

As you can see, we added some flower elastics to Sarah's hair in the first version, and ribbon and chopsticks to the second version to spice it up a little. To do the ribbon thing, simply choose a ribbon that matches your spiffy ensemble and weave it through your dreads until you find the pattern you want.

Other variations of the pony-tail/half pony-tails are to add a scarf or headband. In this example we also added some seashells and our brand-new dread coils to add to the fancy shmancy effect. In the second set of pictures, we added some feathers and wound in a thin, baby pink scarf. It's all about experimenting with different accessories - try it, you’ll see!

The next updo is one of my favourites. - it's very simple and is the same method used in the previous styles, just a lower pony tail and a few dreads at the back of her neck were left out. We then added the scarf, pulled a few dreads out of the pony tail, added some turquoise flower elastics and viola! Prom, here we come!

Nature-dreads - Watched Lord of The Rings one too many times? Looking for something a little more natural or even Elvish? Check this one out - Galadriel will have to deal with not being Prom Queen this year . . .

To create the look above, we grabbed the front/sides of the hair and secured it in the back, leaving the majority of the hair hanging down. We then tucked in any loose hairs or ends of dreads and added some chopsticks and a tiara (another strand of tiny sparkly beads). Adding some flowers, feathers or shells to this look creates a really natural looking dread-do, not to mention it's super pretty and elegant.

The look pictured above is also great for guys looking for a more formal look. If your dreads are long enough, just grab all the dreads at each side of your face, tie them back in a knot - add twisted grass, dandelions, twigs, leaves or feathers, if you like!

Short dreads - As you can see, our dread models are limited to showing what you can do with long dreads, but short dreads can be super-fun, too! Spike them up or back by wrapping fabric around your head or with a dreadband, or dress them up with a natural-looking tiara or crown made from twigs wound with sparkly strands or au-natural.

- Cut holes in a hat and pull some dreads through the top - looks crazy cool with the
  right hat and outfit. Especially goth-looking top-hats. Ohhh, top-hats and dreads!
  YUM.

- Go to craft stores, they are a gold mine for cool dread accessory ideas.

- Check out plastic coated wire as an awesome way to make your dreads stand up
  in virtually any position. You can get all kinds of different colors, too. Cut off a piece of
  wire, wrap it around a dread and then curve the dread into the position or shape you
  want (just make sure not to poke your date's eye out!).

- Look for scarves and cool old costume jewelry at thrift stores - you can pull them
  apart and add them to your hair, and is a cheap alternative if you know you'll only wear
  them in your dreads for one night.

- Tie in some yarn for that Cabbage Patch Kid look. You can even tie it in and then
  braid the yarn to make it look like weird braided dreads, plus, it adds a burst of color to
  them!

- Try super-knotty dreads - take two dreads and tie them in a single knot at the
  base. Keep tying knots until you can’t anymore. Repeat this until all of your dreads are
  tied up in knots. It sounds funny but can look supa-fly.

- Be careful using sparkles and spray-in colors - you may never be able to get
  them out again and could be showering sparkles for the next year or end up with
  stained dreads in a bad, washed-out color!

So we've dealt with the esthetics of your dreads for Prom... time to move on to smell! Goodness gracious, don't forget about how they smell! (Tip: People with funky smelling dreads don't get asked to dance!) Grab some Peppermint Spray before the big day, spray those dreadies and make sure you shine those dancing shoes up!

In conclusion, the point I am trying to get across is this: just take your favorite dread-style and spice it up in whatever way suits you. Even if it's just having your dreads hanging down loose, adding cool accessories can create a totally different look. Dreads are so unique and beautiful - don't be afraid to make the most of them for Prom, or any special day at all.

Here's hoping you all have lots of dreadful fun, and don’t forget to send us pictures of your Prom Dread 'Do's for our ever growing Dread Gallery! We'd love to see what you do with them!

Over and out!

Your dreaded super hero,

Jervais (aka Hairoine)
www.hairoine.com

Nice! Hopefully that helped give you some ideas that maybe you'd never thought of, not to mention Jervais and Sarah are cute as a box o' babies in those pics! We had a ton of fun dressing them up and making their dreads look amazing.

And now, as always, last verse same as the first - it's time again for everyone's favorite part of the eZine:

Yippy skippy! Here's what's up for grabs for the month of March:

Buy a bottle of the amazing and hugely popular Knotty Boy Peppermint Cooling Moisture Spray or Concentrate to cool down that hot head and make your dreads smell sparkly-minty-fresh, and receive one of our wicked new Dreadlock Coils to make your dreads look more original than ever - FREE!! This is a crazy good deal - don't miss out!

To claim your free Dreadlock Coil, upon order check-out, enter into the 'Comments' section of the order form the following line:  'Gladys Stoatpamphlet Goes Quantity-Surveying' is a great book. Give me my free Dreadlock Coil with my Cooling Spray purchase! PS. I'm an eZiner.

That's it - that's all - easy as cake. Mmm, cake.

And that's also it for us for another eZine! We really hope you enjoyed it as much as we enjoyed putting it together for you - and please, do tell us what you think! Just go to our Knotty Boy Five Second Survey page and take a moment to tell us if you are enjoying these eZines, if there's any way we can improve, and what you'd like to see covered in upcoming issues in addition to anything else you'd like to suggest or comment on about the rest of the website, too!

And stay tuned in a few weeks time for the April edition where we'll be celebrating Earth Day and all kinds of other fun stuff!

Take care until then, Knotty Ones!