Watch the Knotty Boy How to Make Dreadlocks Instructional Video,
or continue reading for the same info!

 

 

Welcome to the first video in our series on How to Make, Maintain and Remove Dreadlocks - the Knotty Boy Method. This same How to Make Dreadlocks Step-by-Step video is now also available on DVD, offering the convenience of being able to view this video from any DVD player, seriously increased video quality and DVD-only hilarious outtakes of our Knotty Boy stylists that make it worth every penny.

Or, simply enjoy this free version of How to Make Dreadlocks Step-by-Step with our compliments, for your viewing and learning pleasure!

 

Stuff You'll Need to Start Dreadlocks

• Three inches of hair or longer to start dreadlocks using Knotty Boy Dread Wax. (For people attempting to start locks without it, you will need hair at least 6 inches or longer and a lot of luck and patience for the next few years. See the Knotty Boy Dread Wax page for more about that.)
   
• A good, patient friend or two or five to help you start your locks. You CAN start them yourself, but having help makes the job go much faster and easier.
   
• A jar o' Knotty Boy Dread Wax or one/two of our Knotty Boy Dread Wax Roll-Up Sticks, depending on how much hair you gots to lock.
   
• A strong comb with closely-spaced teeth. The best are our Knotty Boy Professional Locking Combs, but a good strong plastic comb or a pet flea-comb (NOT used on your pet, dum-dum.) will work pretty well, too.
  
• Old towel to wipe goopy hands on.
   
• Hair claws, clips or elastics to keep the other sections of hair out of the way.
   
• All the Bob Marley records you can find or borrow to play during the first hours of your Dreadlock Holiday. (May we recommend a Knotty favorite, Catch a Fire, for this most important event?)
   
• A camera for taking your Before and After pictures to send us for a coveted place in the famous Knotty Boy Happy Nappy Dreadlock Gallery.
   
• And time, patient time for the starting of your locks!
   

Some Additional Notes

• For people with hair that has little to no texture (ie. bone-straight ), the night before locking up we highly recommend stripping all oils and dirt from your hair with either the Knotty Boy Dread Shampoo Bar or the FREE Knotty Boy Bee Washed Pre-Dreading and De-Waxing Soap found in every Knotty Boy Dreadlock Starter Kit (with the exception of the Simple Starter Kit). No conditioners! Then towel dry very well and braid the hair slightly damp into a few tight braids. Sleep with braids in overnight, then the next day before you begin dreading, take out the braids and brush/blow dry the hair to make it as dry and frizzy as possible. This will help the locks take to your hair much better. Tip! You can also use an '80's style crimper on dry, washed hair to achieve the same effect when time is an issue.
   
• For all other hair types, to strip the hair of all oils and dirt we recommend washing with either the Knotty Boy Dread Shampoo Bar or the FREE Knotty Boy Bee Washed Pre-Dreading and De-Waxing Soap found in every Knotty Boy Dreadlock Starter Kit (with the exception of the Simple Starter Kit). No conditioners! Then blow dry/let dry overnight, brush the hair out to make it as frizzy as possible and get locking!

 

How to Make Dreadlocks: Step By Step Instructions

Step 1

Put on the Bob Marley record of your choice. If it's Catch a Fire, you and your friends may take the next three minutes to put on your flashdance ass-pants and shake your bootay to "Concrete Jungle". Also while you're at it, please take a moment to snap a Before picture of the soon-to-be-locked victim so you can upload it along with an After pic for our Happy Nappy Gallery! Hey, tune's over! Get back to work you dirty, good-fer-nothin' hippies!

Step 2

To start, you can either section the hair into uniform sections, or just start at the back and work forward, grabbing locks that are about the size of your index finger or as desired. (Note that the shorter the hair, the skinnier the lock must be. Fret not, they will grow together and get bigger as time goes by.) If you chose to make uniform sections, try to section in a brick-lay pattern, so the sections are staggered making each one slightly off-center from the section below and above it. This makes the locks look more pro and uniform and minimizes naked scalp-gaps shining through. However, it does take a bit longer to separate them all out. No biggie, you're gonna be here for the next four or more hours anyway. What's another 15 minutes? aHAHAHA!

We also recommend that to avoid the blinding part down the middle of your head, grab sections randomly from either side of that part and lock it up like that, criss-cross style. Jump! Jump!

Step 3

Take the first section of hair, and with your locking comb, back-comb the hair like crazy starting from the very scalp and working your way down to the tips. Back-combing is the process of combing the hair TOWARDS your scalp. This process will tease and tangle up the hair. If you are unsure of this method, just ask older Moms out there about back-combing and the response you get will be, "Oh my, like we did back in the 60's with the beehives! Let me get out the photo albums. Oh, I remember when Drexel Murdock, that devil, asked me to the Junior/Senior Banquet..."

It's actually very important to make sure the hair is good and knotted at the base, next to your scalp, because that is where the locks must start to come together on their own when your hair grows another inch or so. This phenomenon is also known as those #!@*! roots. See the FAQ page of the website for everything you ever wanted to know about those roooots, bloody roooots that never lock. PLEASE DON'T e-mail us about them, just read the FAQ section about them. That's everything we know right there, promise.

Update! We've found a really good way to keep the roots tighter for longer is to braid each section a few times tight against the scalp before beginning to backcomb, then the root is braided and doesn't get loose as fast as without the braid! woo!

Anyhoo, do this back-combing thang a couple of times from scalp to lock tip until you feel it's sufficiently knotted and tangled, then twist that lump of hair into a semi-dreadlock. You may be surprised to find this lock is a lot shorter than the rest of your unlocked hair, especially if you have quite fine hair. Don't worry, you're doing everything right. It's normal for dreads to end up about 1/3rd shorter that the length you originally started with. 

Another thing to note is this process of pulling and back-combing may cause occasional scalp discomfort. Hey, no pain, no nappy dreads, baby!

Step 4

Now, open the Knotty Boy Dread Wax and remove the dust-cover. Breathe in the delicious aroma of clover fields and fresh beeswax. Soon your whole head will be swimming with this fantastic fragrance and you might even fall down. What, it could happen?

OK, pay attention. If you're using a jar of Knotty Wax, the surface of the Wax will appear hard and smooth, so take your fingernail, tip of your comb, spoon, whatever and just break the surface in, using your fingers to start softening the Wax up, making it more workable and pliable. It may take a bit of muscle to get it going at first, but it's better to have the Wax this way than a product that is too soft and greasy and gets all over your face when you sleep at night. Mm yum!  If you're using a Wax Roll-Up Stick, its as easy as rolling a little of the Wax up and you're ready for the next step.

Step 5

Now that you've got your goop ready and your new lock knotty, if you're using a jar of Knotty Wax, take a small blob of Wax on your finger, working out any little clumps. If you're using the Wax Stick, you'll start at the root and just run the Stick lightly down the length of the lock once or twice. It's better to start with less than you think you need and add more a little at a time.

Next, massage it into the tangled hair starting from the scalp and working down to the ends. Take more small blobs of Wax as you need it, waxing and twisting as you go down the lock. Only use enough Wax to bind the loose hair together, ie. don't use so much that it would be a sticky mess in your friend's hand if he were to give your new lock a playful tug. Gross. REMEMBER, less is more. Use your good judgment about how much your locks need to keep them together in the beginning stages!

Step 6

Once you've got your new lock sufficiently backcombed, waxed and twisted, you want to give it what we call a palmroll. The technique known as palmrolling is done by taking the new lock, and you guessed it, rolling it quickly between your palms, thereby getting it tighter, more knotted and shaping it into a very nice-looking, well-groomed dreadlock.

Step 7

Now you just keep repeating the backcomb-wax-twist-and-roll process the whole live-long day! Well, it won't really take all day... actually, yes, it will... well, about 3-5 or more hours of it anyway... but hey! The coolest thing about locks is that 9 people out of 10 are SO excited about how different and great it makes them look once they're done it just doesn't even matter how long it took to get them. Don't worry, it won't be long now...

Additional Secret Tricks!

• Run a blowdryer over your new locks once they're all in to help melt Knotty Boy Dread Wax into the core of the lock, where it'll bind all that loose hair together and do it's job to get you locked up faster and tighter.
   
• If you want your locks to have blunted tips rather than wispy ends, take the loose hair at the end of each lock and roughly pull them apart, thereby drawing the knots up into the bottom of the lock, making the ends tighter and breaking off the stray hairs. Don't worry, it may not feel right to intentionally damage your hair like this... but... remember that time you backcombed your entire head? You can also 'scribble' the end of the lock into the palm of your hand in a circular motion to ball up the end hairs and make the tip more blunted.

All done? Well, hot dang...!

 

Welcome to the Knotty Family!

See the five-year dreadlock progression of our littlest Knotty Boy, Ozzie, here!

Congrats, newly nappy Knotty brother or sister! Them dreadies are finally done! Now read on for some other really useful tips about immediate dreadlock after-care, and don't forget to snap an After photo of your new locks to submit to our Happy Nappy Gallery!

 

Tips for Immediate Dreadlock After-Care

Rewaxing
For the first 6 weeks or so after locking up, sit down and check over your locks every few days to see how they're holding together. If some are falling apart, backcomb, twist and use a little more Wax here and there to get them back in line. Once again, LESS IS MORE. Use your judgement and don't over-wax. You will notice that after applying Wax things will feel a bit tacky and sticky up there, but as your dreads start to lock and aren't as soft anymore, they dry out a lot. After they've started to form into real locks (anywhere after about 2-6 months), you can use a little Knotty Wax to get the loose hair back into the main locks and give them a bit of grooming whenever you feel it's necessary. When you're at that stage, the waxiness lasts for only about a day after you reapply it.  Some people will also use their comb to backcomb the loose hair into the locks again and others find continuing to palmroll their locks to be very helpful. Do whatever works best for you and your hair type.

NOTE: You never, EVER want to apply Wax to wet or damp dreadlocks. Doing so seals in the moisture, which in turn begins to start a colony of mold and mildew growing inside those spongy locks. Know that wet-dog, old-musty-towel smell eminating from some dreadheads out there? Yep, you guessed it. That's either coming from locks that have not been allowed to dry thoroughly between washings, waxing over wet locks or both. More about this on the Ongoing Dreadlock Care page.

 

Lovely Laura walks you through her dreadin' experience. Check it out! »

Sleeping with Locks
Also, a very good thing to do for sleeping after you've just waxed is to either find an old pillow case that you don't care about to put on your pillow for the next while, or pin a towel to the pillow. Knotty Boy isn't slimy or anything, but it may get your pillow a bit waxy after just having put it in your hair. If you're hair is long enough, tie it back, and if it's short you can always wear a Knotty Boy tam or hat, or nylon stocking to keep it away from your face when you sleep. Doing this will also help keep them from rubbing apart and getting really fuzzy when you sleep.

 

 

 Continue on to the Ongoing Dreadlock Care page...

 

Be sure to also check out our massive FAQ pages for even more help with starting and maintaining your new locks. And send us pictures!!! Yeah, yeah, yeah, add your Before and After pictures to the Knotty Family Album of the Happy Nappy Dreadlock Gallery. Please don't be shy if your locks are short, skinny or new! You'll be an inspiration for other new dreadies out there to see that you're going through the same normal stages that they are with their own baby locks. Send us your artwork and we'll use it to decorate up our Art Gallery, too!