Dear Anonymous

Anonymous said...

why don't you just free form?

Dear Anonymous

This is a complicated question. There are so many reasons. Some might seem like excuses. I do see beautiful photos of people with free forming dreads. Their dreads look nothing like mine. Unless they have some secret, this is due to hair type. I envy the people who can free form and just put their hair in a ponytail or wear it loose.

1. My hair does not dread quickly. And it grows quickly. So those two things make a make bad free forming combo. If I did nothing to my hair, it would look like a small afro on my head. My hair type just doesn't do the natural dread thing.

2. I live in a conservative area. People do comment. If I were my own ideal person other people's opinions wouldn't make a difference but it does. The conservative people are the people who can hire and fire people....

3. I am worried about my roots. I never did a lot of maintenance. In year one I would do maintenance once a month. Now I do it whenever I feel like it which is once every 3 months or so. No matter what I do, some of my roots are still thin. About 3 dreads have fallen out. I'm pretty sure 2 more are on their way. That's one reason I want to go to a salon. I want to ask, "why are my roots thinning?"

4. I don't like having to wear a hat or scarf to hide my new growth. When I'm just going out, it's fine but @ work I like to cover it.

I'm sure there are more reasons. #1 is the most important reason. Why doesn't my hair look semi-neat if I just watch and go like the others? *whine* I would love to free form but it doesn't seem to work, if you know what I mean.

PSA - don't 1pt latch

I'm done with that latching stuff. I'm pissed. I'm going to an out of town salon in March. I don't have an issue starting over.

That's that. ;)

1 pt latching

href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDJgzcdyxLhOJHpwBqpFutJBdD4xs1EG1Behlr27LYNBrecN1arjBn8s9CvQxl1sDjkA7Ti67tvEWQpBMhpQy_sqaepgleJIV9QbGV-pf66h2yuBClZIrDH4pzStRfVq7fDkJp2Q/s1600-h/001.JPG">
This was my hair pre-washing and pre-latching. After finally figuring out how to latch my dreads, I did it today! Kinda. Last night I read about how latching can leave a hole in your dreads. So today I did what would be called a 1pt latch AKA playing with your dreads. :) I decided to do it because I didn't like the way some of my dreads were thinning at the root. (Yes I did read that latching can cause thinning - ARGH!!) I definitely won't be doing it for another 6 weeks or so.

What I did was hand latching. I don't even know if it worked. I don't even know what latching is supposed to do to dreads. I was inspired my this video:


I didn't even know hand latching existed at the time. But after watching that video, I knew I could easily do it with all the new growth I have. Later I did find out that this hand thing has a name:

(Thank g-d for youtube!) The lady in the video is doing it right. I only went through each lock ONCE. I hope that makes since. It probably isn't even called latching.

Here is my hair soaking wet after washing with Suave clarifying shampoo. No conditioner this time.


I didn't use any heat on my hair for the first time in a while. I wanted to see if this mattered with frizz (haha - NO). I "latched" my locks right after I watched them. This is how it looked from the top.


Another view:


A few hours later...my hair is about 40% dry. Still frizzy!


The end. Obviously latching can't be (?) used as a the only maintenance technique. When I get back into maintaining my hair, I will probably palmroll. I hate doing it cause it takes so long. And one bad night of sleep ruins it. So what is the point?? Hopefully by then I can figure out a way to braid the extra hair into my locks. I dunno. It took me 3 years to latch incorrectly. :)

random