Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Patience is Not (My) Virtue

Yes I have another opportunity to learn the joy of patience .... and it isn't really happening surprise, surprise lol.

After years of wanting, yearning and dreaming I have taken the plunge and have started to dreadlock my hair. I do confess that before I started it all I did check I could take them and that I should avoid washing them for as long as possible (about 5 or 6 days) out but that was about as far as my investigation went - apart from knowing that I wanted them to be fatter versions of Whoopi's version.

So on New Year's Eve day the awesome Aleena volunteered to section and backcomb for a few hours. New Year's Day I jumped out of bed all excited that I would never have to brush my "almost long enough to sit on" hair. I think that was my last moment of actual excitement.

Things I have learned since that day:

Number 1 - they take about 3 - 6 months to fully come together - depending on how much work you put into them.
Number 2 - instead of the daily routine of washing my hair, followed by a brush and a tousle (no other work involved) to get dreads happening I have had to spend a good hour or two each day rolling or crocheting the little lovelies.
Number 3 - although you can avoid all of the commercial products that oh so many companies want to flog you, there does need to be some hair product if you want to leave the house without a hat - at the moment I have conceded to use mousse and gel.
Number 4 - Wendy is great at enthusiastically encouraging me to stick with them - and spending a few hours neatening, tightening and generally fiddling.

So my hair looks closer to the non-Whoopi photo which is so NOT what I want. I did threaten to shave everything off tomorrow if there wasn't some improvement, hence the use of hair product - and the improvement  over the last week (slow but sure improvement).

Now my brother's wedding isn't until the first week of July so I have plenty of time in that regards, and I live in a village that is full of hippies (and yuppies and farmers and arties with the occasional surfie thrown in for good measure) so no one is going to care if my hair is messy but I WANT IT TO HAPPEN NOW!

Sigh ....

2 comments:

pita-woman said...

Oh my, not quite sure how to respond to this one.
Why not just cut your hair shorter so that there is less to muss with? I wear mine so short (when it's not shave completely off for St. Baldricks), that it only takes a few seconds to "style" and I'm done. No hairbrush needed.
My husband's cousin put her hair in dredlocks(sp?) and honestly, none of us can hardly stand to hug her when we see her because her hair (or maybe it's her scalp) smell so bad. Fortunately, we don't see her very often, so the issue doesn't come up but once every couple of years.
However, if it's what you want, go for it!

Unknown said...

There is no need for bad hygiene just because she has dreads - she can still wash them regularly (daily if she wants) .... oooh I don't like poor hygiene at the best of times and the thought is making my lips curl lol

And I want to give them a go - and they I will have short hair and let it grow long again as the years go by lol