FAQ: Early Maintenance of Your Dreads FAQs

I’m sorry to hear about all your troubles. You can get your dreads out, or you can keep them! Contrary to popular belief, using an all-natural product like Knotty Boy does not create ‘fake’ or ‘unnatural’ dreads - but rather, it utilizes the properties of natural, earthgrown ingredients to facilitate and speed up the natural process of dreading. Nothing unnatural happens when you use Knotty Boy - it just helps to make better dreads, faster! Here are our tips for getting those dreads out, if that’s what you decide to do.

1. Get yourself one of our Knotty Boy Emergency Dreadlock Removal Kits – its specifically designed for exactly this, and is tried, tested and true.


2. Soak your hair in warm water for 10 minutes – lie in the bath or something, don’t get a head rush from hanging your head over the sink!


3. Wash that hair using the Knotty Boy Dreadlock Removal Shampoo Scrub it good and feel the tingle on your scalp. It will thank you.


4. Then soak it again and get the suds out. Next apply the Knotty Boy Damage Control Deep Conditioner, which is super-rich and will help soften up those matty locks. Work it in well and then start picking out the dreads with a strong comb. It will take a while and you will need patience, grasshopper, but it can be done.


5. Once all of your dreads have been picked out, wash and condition it all once more, letting the conditioner sit for five or more minutes before finally rinsing.


6. Ta-dah! Dread free!

PS. Next time you make dreads maybe try some wax to help you get started. After that you can go au natural if you like, but it will allow you wash your hair and keep the dandruff and itchies away!
If you want to try to restore your dreads, you might be able to get at least your scalp healthy again by washing with our concentrated Knotty Boy Dreadlock Shampoo Bar, specifically for getting rid of dandruff and itchies. Always wash your dreads regularly to keep the dandruff down if you are prone to getting this condition – it isn’t nice and ‘dreads’ do not have to automatically equal ‘dandruff’, if taken care of properly! Then dry those locks thoroughly, get some Knotty Boy Wax and using the How to Dread instructions start again with backcombing, shaping them into proper dreads again.

OK, basically, since it is pretty much impossible to backcomb them (cuz you'd have nothing to hang on to), you have to get them to dread more or less on their own. The best thing to do is to be constantly rubbing the tips between your fingers. Y'know, when watching the tube, reading, etc. Just keep rolling the tips between your fingers, back and forth, knotting them up a little more each time. Some kids have said that it helps to put a little of the wax in the palm of your hand and then take the dread tip and rub it around in the wax until it gets all frizzy and blunt. Don't be shy to use the wax, heck, that's what it's for! And again, don't stress about the loose tips either, everyone with dreads has them. And if you like, once you've had your dreads for a year or two you'll be able to snip off the undreaded part and your dread won't come unraveled.

Knotty Brianna:

"My tips were very undreaded for a long time. One day I started taking the tips, half in each hand, and gently but firmly pulled them in opposite directions, alternating different chunks of my tips. You can even hold/pull the majority of your tip down, and pull small pieces of the tip upwards at the same time, taking different pieces as you go. This seemed to really work and if you spend like 5 minutes on each dread in your spare time, you can really knot them up this way! I began doing this at about 7 months."

Also, Shrimphead had something to say about keeping those tips dreaded:

"I had dreads many, many years ago. And last week I decided I wanted them back. I got your dread wax and I love it. Thanks so much! Now to the tip,(pun intended). My wife wanted the ends to look 'finished' and not wispy. So she hauled out her felting needles and started at them. It sounds weird. But dreads are really just felted hair so she figured that she could just needle felt the ends. And voilá it worked like a charm.
So if you want good round ends try felting needles."

Thanks so much Knotty Shrimphead!!!

Nope, this is normal with short hair. You have to grab onto something when you are backcombing that section, and the hair you're left hanging onto turns into this twisty spike. As your dreads get longer and thicker, that will either go away or you can trim it off. But they won't stick up forever. A quick fix is to throw on a hat (*cough* our tams and softie hats are perfect for this...) or bandana… or just celebrate your new palm tree 'do and walk with your head held high!

You can trim your dreads to any length you want, but if they're still soft and not very tight, you might want to wait till they're more together before you snip so they don't unravel. But if they're pretty good and locked, then try snipping one or two from underneath so you can see what it might look like before you go for the top dreads. And maybe try snipping them at a slight angle, or on either side to form a 'v' so they don't look hacked straight across, if you want.

This problem of flat dreads is very common with new, soft dreadlocks. They are still really just hair glued together with wax, and haven't yet started developing into the tight, matted knots that make dreads. So when they are still soft, they will get squashed and fall apart sometimes. The best thing for them is just patience and backcombing to make them tighter when you have the chance. It's a pain, but worth it. The flat dreads eventually join others and fill out as they tighten up - they will not be flat forever. It's just another one of those little tests of endurance that make you so glad it's all over once they really start rocking. Don't worry about it too much, and just use enough wax to keep them stuck together in the beginning. If you want them to not be flat right away, try palm rolling them back into a tubular shape.

Try wearing a hat or a nylon stocking over your dreads when you sleep. The Knotty Boy Recycled T-Shirt Dreadbands work like a charm for this. If they are long enough, you can tie them back with an elastic and then put a nylon over top. Other than that, you'll just have to have patience until they grow a bit stronger and tighter, and use the wax to fix them up in the morning.

Nope, that's normal with new dreads. Four weeks is not very long for you to have them in, and especially with short, thick, straight hair you can expect it too take a bit longer for them to actually start locking up. Swimming in chlorine or salt water actually helps to get dreads to tighten. Sitting out in the sun afterwards really helps them to tighten up lots, too! But don't worry about them too much, sounds like you're doing everything right - just wax them up again after you swim or wash your hair, after they have completely dried.

You should probably let your new dreads go for at LEAST a week before you wash them for the first time, two weeks if you can stand it. When you first put your dreads in, they will be only made up of loose hair stuck together in locks with the wax, until about 3-6 weeks later when they actually start to mat and dread. So they are pretty fragile in the first few weeks and don't take to getting washed too well. The longer you can wait, the better, but if you have to, it's ok to wash them sooner than that, and use the dread shampoo.

Nope. Using the shampoo bar with dyed hair is no more a problem than using regular shampoo on dyed hair. The point is to scrub your scalp and get it clean, not your dreads really. You want those to hang together, not get all scrubbed and come apart. Some dye will wash out just from the water and stuff, but the shampoo won't strip it. It's totally natural and mild.

What happened by washing them is they became tighter and more dreaded, and not so puffy and soft - which is what is supposed to happen! Washing them is a good thing, helping them get tighter and more together like real dreadlocks, so they may seem thinner and not so fat now... but that is what is supposed to happen. And the good thing is that once they are finished 'shrinking' and getting as tight as they can over the next 6 months or so, they will start getting fat again. You see, your hair, when dreaded, never falls out of your head - it just stays in the dreads and makes them bigger. So wash them more often to make this shrinking happen faster (and to keep your hair and scalp healthy), sit in the sun for them to dry, and this will help to speed the process up a bit and help them on their way to fatness again!

Well, the first thing is... dreadlocks sometimes shrink. This is totally normal and we see and hear about this all the time. Eventually they get as tight as they are gonna, and then you'll notice them growing again. See also the section called 'Thinner Locks After Washing'.

No, that shouldn't hinder the locking process at all - don't worry, it's pretty hard to STOP dreads from happening, really, especially if you are giving them a little help getting going by backcombing and using wax, etc. Have patience, my pretty...

First of all, did you get them done at a salon or did you do them yourself according to the instructions on the website? Cuz the techniques can vary - some salons do dreads by twisting (not dreads at all, they rarely lock that way for anyone with hair types other than Afro-American), and some do the backcombing method. If all they are twists, you may need to do them over again properly with a friend, because they will not dread for a very long time in twists.

You will be able to feel the wax in new dreads for the first few days, and you won't need to rewax them unless you want to. Give them a few days to dry out a bit, keep them back from your face, etc., and then rewax. Just use your good judgment, if you need to get some loose pieces in, use the wax. If not, then don't. And when you rewax, it helps to use a comb to knot them up again, because it's by knotting them up that they become locks, right? If you find that the twists are just coming undone, get a friend and start from the beginning of the instruction page of the website - unfortunately you may need to do the whole process again, just to try and nap your hair up a bit so it starts dreading. Again, it does take much patience and time and weeks of rough-looking hair until it starts to lock, so if you want to leave it and just see what happens, you can do that too.

But seriously, don't give up because they WILL happen, promise. We know it's frustrating; on the really bad days just wear a hat or pull them back and don't worry about it. Love them for what they are and they'll be fine. And see if there's anything else you could be doing from the tips here on the website, etc. Good luck, and don't give up!

There could be a few things that are not helping... first of all, if you have really fine hair, sometimes if the dreads are started too thin they don't look so hot for the first few months until they start fattening up. Perhaps they weren't started tight enough... But the good news is, after about 3-6 months they do start getting good dreadlocks shapes and looking like real dreads. It's harder for some of us than others in the beginning, but have no fear, they will be awesome if you just stick it out. You can easily keep them under a bandana or tam for a while until they start smartening up, without any danger of that hindering the locking process.

Everything you're describing is normal... you should have seen Knotty Andrew's hair when he first locked up at 3". Not only was it sticking up everywhere, but also it was in these crazy Medusa curly-dread things cuz he has really curly hair. It was WEIRD. Anyway, it took a while for it to calm down, and many bad words were said often while he tried to keep them dreaded and together over the next few weeks. BUT eventually, they started drying out and growing longer and staying together and he didn't have to use so much wax anymore. And one day... voila. Dreads! For you, if everything past the roots are staying together with the wax that's in there, don't bother adding more until they start to undo and you need to add more. As for the roots, just backcomb as best as you can, and then don't worry about it too much. Just try and keep them together as much as possible, and have patience, patience, patience. They WILL happen if you just stick it out... promise.

Those are all things that will become clear as you get into your dreadful journey. Wax as often or as little as you need to - the point is to keep everything together so that your dreads can form faster, so if they feel like they're falling apart or getting messy, just add more wax. Most people with new dreads find that they need to wax about twice a week, or after they wash and have completely dried out their dreads. As time goes on, they find they use it less and less, and eventually they’ll just need it for keeping their dreads conditioned and healthy.

Whenever your locks are really tight, together and strong - fully developed - without many loose ends anymore, you can just use KBoy for maintenance after that . Its just for giving them a little help in the first year or two, keeping them together so they lock faster, getting the loose hairs in, etc. You may just want to smooth down the frizzes with it every once in a while, or use it to condition them against breakage and brittleness. That’s a good thing to keep doing, too.

Yeah, it's best to let them dry as much as possible before rewaxing, because the wax is repelled by water. Just let them air-dry for the day, and at night see if they're dry enough. Use your good judgment, you'll be fine.

Ok, here's the scoop. The wax is good in the beginning stages of your dreadies. It's good to start out with the wax and use it for at least the first 3-5 months of your newly formed dreads. Remember, you don't need much wax, just a thumbnail or so per dread, and really work it in. Give your dread a good twist as you're applying the wax so as there are no clumps of wax hanging out in your head. When you think your dreads are ready to stand up on their own and they're starting to grow in solid, then you could consider using our gel. When that time comes, it's still good to use the wax, but not as much as you were before. It's awesome for when you get a bad case of the frizzies. It's good to use the gel after a shower or a swim when your hair's still damp. Towel dry your hair, and put some gel into the palm of your hand. Now, dread by dread palm roll that gel in. You'll notice when your hair dries completely your dreads are already much tighter. Voila!