[IMPORTANT UPDATE >>Don't Use Dreadlock Wax<< ]

[IMPORTANT UPDATE >>Lock Peppa Revisited<< ]

Let’s see…my final hair-wash before sectioning and dreading was on Monday 23rd June and my dreadlocks were finished at the end of Tuesday 24th.

The general advice on when to wash dreads for the first time is between 7-10 days after dreading, or just as long as you can bear to leave them really. I vaguely hoped to go for about 10 days or maybe even 2 whole weeks before disturbing the precious new creation, since I don’t have very oily scalp and usually only needed to wash my hair once a week. We had plans to go away camping the following week though and I didn’t want to be in the position of needing to do the first wash away from home etc, and in fact by the weekend I was unexpectedly craving a clean head.

I’d recommend setting aside a full day for your first dreadlock wash because there’s a fair bit of re-organising to do afterwards. And since they take quite a while to dry out, and you can’t do any waxing until you are certain there is no longer a drop of moisture hidden in them, it’s a good idea to do the washing the night before your planned maintenance day. That’s what I did anyway and was glad of it. I washed them on the evening of Saturday 28th and then spent most of Sunday sorting them out.

I was really really anxious about washing my dreads for the first time. Even though they were so tight and well backcombed I felt quite sure they’d all just come untangled and basically fall out. Also, I’d seen a few pictures of people’s locks before and after the first wash; it was a bit concerning! I couldn’t find very much advice on this online either, apart from putting a stocking over them to offer some protection during washing.

Here’s what I did:

First, as a precaution, I put an elastic band tightly on the end of all the dreads, folding the tips back up on themselves. Then, because I thought the stocking might make it hard to really get the soap in amongst them, I put a load of dread shampoo all over the dreads first whilst still dry, then put the stocking over and got in the shower. I had the water as hot as I could bear it to help melt out the wax. After the first lot of shampoo was all sudsy and rinsed out, I soaped a couple more times and rinsed thoroughly. I had a peek under the stocking in the mirror and found there was still quite a lot of wax near the roots, so decided to just hope for the best and take the stocking off, and give them a really good rub.

After I stepped out of the shower, a towel went straight on my head; I chickened out of looking for a good while and got on with the usual girly moisturising business. Then…the big moment…towel off, and my first reaction was: total relief They were still there! Granted, they were somewhat altered in appearance, but to me the most important thing was that they were still very most definitely knotted up locks of dreadydread hair - yay!!

Picture time. It’s a really good close-up this one, so be sure to click Full Size and zoom right in with the magnifying glass:

Before and After My Dreadlocks’ First Wash

Post-wash

As I said, a towel went on my head straight after washing. Then I sprayed some Locking Accelerator all over the dreads and put the towel back on. Once the moisture had been absorbed again I removed the towel, sprayed on some more Locking Accelerator, and gave the dreads a good going over with the hair dryer on hot. I did a bit of palm-rolling too while they were damp, because my hair is always at its knottiest in this state (previously annoying, now very good!). I continued hair-drying for as long as I could be bothered then headed to bed. They were still there the next morning, all nice and dry and ready for a hard day’s maintenance.

Dreadies’ First Maintenance Day

I was prepared to put a lot of time into this, partly to give my new friends a strong start in life, and partly because I didn’t want to have to worry about them whilst away camping. I was deliberately over-generous with the products since my main priority was not how nice my dreads felt at this stage, but that they wouldn’t start falling apart on a campsite in the mountains.

I used lots of Lock Peppa, especially on the roots and tips (it really is brilliant for making dry hair stick together and knot up), palm-rolling and tip-rubbing each dread until they were all nice ‘n’ tight ‘n’ neat again. And powdery. In fact, everything was powdery. Lock Peppa is so light and fine, it’s a bit hard to stop it going everywhere…nostrils, keyboards, eyelashes. I’m sure I’ve inhaled and swallowed quite a lot of it, with no adverse effects, so that’s good anyway

At this point I also decided that elastic bands look horrible on dreadlocks. I removed all the black ones, replacing only the most essential ones (like on my crappy sideburn dreads) with transparent ones. Aaah, much better

Here’s a couple of pics showing some dreads before and after the Lock Peppa maintenance. The ‘after’ shot is a bit out of focus but you can still see the dreads are tidy again ready for waxing. I find it easier to bunch them into sections so I don’t lose track of where I’m up to.

Before & After Palm-rolling & Tip-rubbing Clean Dry Dreads with Lock Peppa

I finished by waxing and hair-drying my nice tidy elastic band-free dreads. I didn’t use any more wax than when they were first done, and I rubbed and melted it in as thoroughly as possible, but this time they remained really waxy and sticky. I don’t know whether it was the large quantity of Lock Peppa hindering the absorption, or maybe I hadn’t washed them as well as I thought and there was still a core of wax in the centre of each dread. Within less then a day I already wanted to wash them again and was a bit gutted that the nice clean fluffiness had gone away so soon. It was only the fact that I knew they’d at least stay solid through the next week’s holiday and resist any bad weather etc that kept me from going straight back under the shower.

By the end of the second week and the next wash time, my dreads weren’t very pretty at all. Didn’t smell too good either…

[IMPORTANT UPDATE >>Don't Use Dreadlock Wax<< ]

[IMPORTANT UPDATE >>Lock Peppa Revisited<< ]