How To Make Dreadlocks

My experiences are with Caucasian hair so these methods will be appropriate for those with similar hair. I will list various methods for attaining dreadlocks and the pros and cons of each.

Common to all methods

What all the methods share in common is the requirement for time and patience. Regardless of what you do to your hair, you will still need to wait for the hair to begin to lock and 'mature' on it's own. Repeat application of backcombing or twist and rip will just slow down this maturing process. The best thing you can once you've got them started is leave them alone and forget about them! For months after I started mine I was worried about all the loose hair and how messy they looked - then I stopped worry and stopped caring about them and before I knew it, they were locking by themselves.

Until they've matured they will not lock by themselves so you can end up with loose unlocked hair at the tips and at the root. This is completely normal, leave it alone! it will sort itself out, I promise. Palm rolling or further twisting and ripping is counter productive to the maturing process. I never touch my hair now, the only maintenance I do is washing and drying. Washing keeps them non-greasy and drying roughly with a towel and blow-drier helps them knot up. My roots and tips sort themselves out and so will yours if you give them time!

Also all methods will result in vary degrees of shrinkage. I.E your dreadlocks will be significantly shorter than your straight hair and will take longer to grow. This is because the hair in dreadlocks are all bunched up rather than growing straight downwards. So be prepared for that.

Methods other than the natural/freeform method will include sectioning of the hair. Sectioning will determine the positioning and thickness of the dreadlocks and there is more info on that "HERE".

Neglect /Natural /Freeform

The neglect method is the first which I shall touch on. This method requires you to do nothing... nothing!. If you leave your hair along for long enough it will in fact form deadlocks. To use the neglect method successfully you simply need to stop brushing and conditioning your hair.

Pros: 

• This method will create completely 'natural' dreadlocks. Their appearance will differ from those attained by other methods because the hair will not be constrained to any predetermined root pattern. 
• This is obviously the cheapest method because you don't need to buy anything special or pay anyone to create the locks for you.
• This method doesn't require any hair or scalp work so you will not experience the sore scalp that some of the other methods immediately result in.
•  This method doesn't require any products / no waxes or gels are required for this method

Cons:

• This is in some ways the slowest method for attaining dreadlocks. While all methods will take 1 year+ to mature, Neglect dreads take a really long time before they even look like dreadlocks.
• You have very little control over how they look. The other methods have a vary degree of control over how thick or thin the dreadlocks are because you create them from the root upwards and therefore the dreadlocks will always be as thick or as thin as the root pattern you used. In the case of neglect dreadlocks you are leaving them to their own devices and this can result in very uneven looking dreadlocks. You will have to periodically pull the matted sections of hair apart yourself in order to stop them forming one huge dreadlock, but that's about all the control you will have.

Backcombing /Back combed

This is probably the most common way of creating dreadlocks outside of neglect. This is the method that most salons will use. It is advisable that you get someone else to do this for you as it is particularly hard to do it yourself. This method involves dividing up the scalp into sections, the size of the sections determines how fat or thin the dreadlocks will be. The backcomber then takes the section of hair and using a fine steel toothed comb will begin to brush the hair from the tip inwards towards the scalp. This causes the hair to go frizzy and knotty and begin to take dreadlock form.

Pros:

• This creates hair that looks instantly dreadlock shape.
• You have control over the thickness by controlling the size of the partitions you use.

Cons:

• Most salons use wax to hold the backcombed lumps of hair in place and stop the knots from falling / washing out. Everyone has a different opinion on wax, but my own opinion from my own experience and the opinions of those I've met who have also experienced wax is - try to avoid it as best you can.
• The backcombed locks are very stiff at first so they will stand on end resembling the hair of Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. Over time the dreadlocks will flatten down and tighten up making them not as fat though, so don't fear.
• The initial locks formed by the backcombing have a different tougher texture to the locks that will form from the new growth. The backcombed parts are more solid and less bendy.
• Backcombing is painful, it involves someone pulling at your hair and scalp for as long as it takes to cover your whole head, which moves me onto my next point....
• It takes a long time, it can easily take 4 hours or more to fully and properly backcomb a full head of hair into dreadlocks. It will depend on how thick and long your hair is....
• Because it takes a long time it can be very expensive at the salon (if you choose to have a salon make the dreadlocks for you). So a lot of pain, for a lot of time, that you have to pay for.
• Without wax they can fall apart and wash out quite easily and look quite a mess. But with wax they will feel greasy and the wax will stop them from drying properly and stick to dirt.

Twist and Rip /T&R

This is a method that is becoming more and more popular as an alternative to backcombing. It requires the hair to already be in a dreadlock encouraging state - dry and unconditioned.

This causes the hair to become static and knotty and increases the friction, so whereas normal conditioned hairs will just rub past each other, these dry unconditoined hairs will knot up. You need to take two sections of hair and twist them together. You twist the two sections of hair around and around until you reach the tip. Then you pull the two sections apart causing the two interlocked sections to rub past each other. As you keep pulling and then relaxing they will rub and knot together.

Pros:

• Not quite as rough or painful as backcombing and it's possible to twist and rip your own hair.
• You don't need any special tools, just a wool jumper and two hands.

Cons:

• Twist and rip dreadlocks fall out even more easily than backcombed dreadlocks. So while they might look dreadlock shaped to begin with, they will look like knotted hair once you start washing them and therefore it will still take the 1 year+ like all the other methods before they mature and lock properly on their own.

Dread Perming

This is where your hair is treated chemically to make it very dry and frizzy and then it's partitioned and one of the previously mentioned methods is used to actually shape the dreadlocks, this differs depending on who is doing it.

Pros:

• This is all differs from salon to salon but the chemicals are able to make the hair very frizzy and therefore very 'dreadlock' friendly.

Cons:

• This method is usually by far the most expensive and will still take up to 1 year+ before they start to mature and lock properly by themselves.
• The dread perm can be damaging to your hair.
• This method still usually relies on backcombing or twist and rip to form the locks and their cons are mentioned above.

Extensions

Obviously you can have dreadlock style extensions added to your existing non-dreaded hair or attached to the end of your backcombed or twist and ripped dreadlocks.

Pros:

• They will look like 'real' dreadlocks from the start.
• You won't lose any hair length / you can gain length.
• You can take them out if you don't like them.

Cons:

• They're expensive.
• After a while they begin to fall out.
• Depending on what they're made from and how they're formed, they can retain water / be harder to dry and therefore can smell like wet dog overtime if you're not careful.

Other Methods

Completely crocheted dreadlocks is another method. I don't know much about it because I've never spoken to anyone that has actually done this across their whole head, so I don't fully understand how it works. I know it's popular among people with asian-type hair that is usually very very straight and otherwise very difficult to dread. Crocheting involves making all the knots yourself, it's very very time consuming, requires considerable skill and because of all the maintenance  I am doubtful the locks would ever get chance to mature on their own. The dreadlocks have a very distinctive texture that is unlike dreadlocks formed with any other method, they tend to appear very 'processed', in the same way that a Big Mac, though still technically a beef burger, doesn't look the same as a home made ground steak burger.

I've heard of various other methods but they all tend to be a variation on one of the above methods and will all still take time, there is no quick-fix.