What Exactly is Maintenance?
There are many different methods of maintaining your dreads. At Dreadshop, we use our own developed crochet hook method. Maintaining your dreads means that we use a crochet hook to tighten the hair at your roots, and hook loose hairs at your roots and hairs sticking out of the dreads back into the dreads.
Maintenance of New Dreadlocks
In the first few months after your dreads are installed, you will notice that your dreads look quite messy and frizzy; loose hairs stick out of the dreads; loops and bumps can also form. This is normal and part of the maturing process of your dreads.
It is helpful to have your dreads maintained after about two months so that all the loose hairs are hooked back into the dreads, making your dreads look neater and aiding the process of making your dreads firmer. After maintenance, you can clearly feel that they have become firmer.
To help the firming process and encourage loose hairs to stay with the dreads, we also recommend using a tightening product, such as Tightening Spray or Tightening Gel.
This makes your hair stiffer and helps reduce frizz. Using a tightening product along with palm rolling your dreads forms a good basis to help your dreads become firmer in addition to regular maintenance. Using a satin pillowcase also helps to prevent frizz.
Maintenance When Your Dreads Are Older
Even when your dreads have passed the initial phase and have become much firmer and more compact, it is important to regularly maintain your dreads.
Your hair will continue to grow, and the hair at the roots will not form a dread by itself. How easily your hair at the roots will tangle and form a dread naturally depends on your hair type.
For dreads that are several years old and well established and compact, little to no attention will be needed for the lengths of the dreads in terms of maintenance. The focus will mainly be on maintaining the roots of the dreads.
Risk of Breakage
For all hair types: when you go a long time without maintaining your dreads, the risk of your dreads breaking increases. You lose 80-100 hairs daily, and these hairs remain in the dreads but become loose at the scalp. Additionally, new hairs grow back, and the new hairs in the middle of the dread section will often naturally tangle with the dread. But the hairs growing around the dread are more likely to remain loose.
How easily your hair at the roots naturally tangles can vary greatly by hair type. Generally, the straighter and finer your hair, the less easily it will naturally form a dread.
The result is that your dreads will hang by an increasingly thinner section of hair.
So, the longer you go without maintaining your dreads, the thinner the section at your roots will become, and the greater the risk of breakage.
Dreads Growing Together
The more regrowth you have, the more loose hairs you get at your scalp, and the greater the chance that the loose hairs will join with surrounding dreads and your dreads will start growing together. This can make it harder for your scalp to get the oxygen it needs. Washing will also become more difficult if your dreads grow together; you can’t easily reach your scalp to keep it clean. A healthy scalp promotes hair growth.
So, regular maintenance is also very important for keeping your scalp healthy!
How Often Should I Maintain My Dreads?
This depends a bit on your personal preference; do you prefer a neat look, or do you like a more messy look? If you want your dreads to look neat and well-maintained, we recommend maintaining them every 3-4 months.
If you prefer your dreads to be less tight and don’t like a super neat look, you can go 4-6 months between maintenance sessions.
When your dreads are newly installed, we recommend having them maintained after about two months. In the first six months to a year that you have your dreads, they will change the most, and there is the most chance of shrinkage and loops and bumps, so it’s helpful to have your dreads maintained every three months.
Where Can I Have My Dreads Maintained?
In our Dreadshop salon, of course! ;) Do you live far from a dread salon and want to learn how to maintain your own dreads? Then order our online course where we show you step by step how to maintain your dreads.
Conclusion: dreads need love, attention, and care to stay beautiful and healthy!
