Ok this is the first bit of the 'how to' for festival hair. more will be added as and when i have heads at my house to attack with hair to show you how to put them all in :D
NOTE: THIS IS A THREAD THAT IS TRYING TO EDUCATE PEOPLE ON SOME OF THE THINGS THEY CAN DO WITH THEIR HAIR FOR FESTIVALS IF THEY SO CHOOSE. PLEASE REFRAIN FROM STUPID COMMENTS LIKE 'JUST SHAVE YOUR HEAD' ETC. If you know of any other techniques/ complex hairdos that most people wouldnt know how to do, PLEASE post them :) things like french plaits, etc would be very handy here-i dont know how to do these but would post a guide if i could. pictures welcome of how they look also very welcome!
ok, double ended synthetic dreads. works in any hair over 2-3 inches long (as long as you can put it in a braid, even if small, if its a tight braid theyll hold.
this is synthetic hair. can be purchased online, and most afro carribbean hair shops. dont pay more than about £2.50 for it-some 'alternative' shops will happily charge people who dont know any better up to £6 for a bag of hair that i've seen. I tend to get 7-8 dreads out of a bag like this. for a head with NO undercut, you will need 50-60 ish dreads. obviously with an undercut, less hair=less dreads. depends on the height of the undercut though. For dreads, use 100% KANEKALON. its usually printed on the front like the picture, i say this because this stuff will seal with heat, and you need heat to seal these babies. 100% synthetic can be used for braids however.
just a pic of the hair out of the packet. (yes, a different colour to the first heh)
you want about a pencil thickness of hair for the average dread. split this amount off, and at the half point, anchor it off so you have half the hair hanging down infront of you, half of it out of the way. each half will become one half of the double ended dread so its important they stay seperate, its a pain in the ass later on otherwise :)
roughly how much hair i have there-ive twisted it so you can see better.
BACKCOMB! heh, i use a cheapy plastic comb for this. normal hairbrushes=a bit ...not good for this. combs are much better/effective. you want to backcomb it quite a lot so it starts to feel solid. the shape should be thicker at the top (where its anchored), tapering to really quite thin at the bottom. it will taper because you have pushed the hair that was at the bottom up to create knots.
YOU CAN MAKE DREADS WITHOUT BACKCOMBING. HOWEVER IT IS THE BACKCOMBING THAT HOLDS THEM TOGETHER-AND NON BACKCOMBED ONES SUCH AS THE MANUFACTURED BRAND 'ELYSEE STAR' WILL UNRAVEL VERY EASILY-BAD FOR FESTIVALS!! however if you wish to do this, all you need to do is get the pencil thickness of h air out of the pack and skip to the kitchen part (coming soon)
to see when your dread is backcombed enough, twist it round to make a dread shape. there should be no lumps in it, a fairly smooth transition from thick to thin. there will be lots of messyness and hair sticking out-dont worry, thats good. messy is good at this point.
the whole dread backcombed. yeah yeah mines uneven and messy-5 minute jobbie to show you guys :) you can make them alot better /neater (youll see a pic at the end of some neater ones!)
TO THE KITCHEN!!
NOTE there are several ways of doing this sealing part. as long as it involves boiling heat, it should melt the hair into place. well..not really melt, but youll see what i mean when you do it. BOILING is the method im showing you here-its the method ive had most success with. however you can use steamers, hair dryers and hair straighteners-the latter two only seal the outside of the dread though and dont penetrate into the core to fuse all that together and so doesnt tend to work half as well..saying that, some people have hair dryers down to a T and make perfect dreads with them.
pretty self explanitory :)
ok now find a way to anchor the centre point of the dread to your heavy object (in my case, the brita thingy.) the part of the dread youre sealing first should be over the container now, this will let you re use the water (=less boiling time) and not flood your kitchen ^^
start boiling your kettle :) twist the dread round again so its taught. you should have your dread shape now, hold on to it with one hand. you may not be able to twist the whole thing up in one go (i certainly cant) so i just do a little bit, seal it, next bit, seal it etc. now the kettles boiled, start at the centre point of the dread and work down to where your hand is holding the dread. be careful not to burninate your hand...duh.. XD once thats done, you can use the tea towel under it to dry it a little-it will be soaking. and will stay soaking for some time. switch sides and do the other side of the dread the same.
w00t! you have a nearly finished double ended dread! as i said before-this ones just a 5 minute jobbie to show you so it looks a bit crud. you can get them waayyy neater though. when its try, give the ends a little twist as theyll be very ratty, and hold the ends in hair straighteners, as this melts the ends up and stops them unraveling. then chop off the ratty bits so it looks all neat and purdy :)
heres some i made earlier! hah. ok these are a set of falls, there are 15 double ended dreads in each fall so that gives you 30 single dreads in each. theyre thicker than the scrawny one i made earlier-to get thicker dreads, little more hair and more backcombing. you can add pretty stuff like beads, scoubis, anything else you can tie into them :D
ok so that was double ended synthetic dreads, more shall follow like i say, when i have heads to show you on :)
MOOORREEEE!!! EDIT number 1
INSTALLING THE DOUBLE ENDED DREADS
ok so now youve made your dreads, if you wanted to braid them into your hair rather than mount them on falls to put in each day, this is how. pretty easy.
my little sister was unfortunate to be the first one i could get my hands on. ok so section off the lowest part of hair. i find it easiest to work from the bottom upwards because the hairs ontop can be clipped out the way so they dont interfere. again, you can do this alot neater than i have :D
thicker dreads=bigger sections of your own hair. this is because if you have too much weight on not much of your own hair, it will be painful on your scalp, and will start to pull hairs out...not good ^^
get yourself a smaller section. each section forms the braid for one DE dread, so think about what size you want to make the sections. the smaller the sections are, the less of your scalp/own hair you will be able to see, making them look more natural, and like i said before-help your scalp cope [:-]
split ya section in half. you know when you braid normally, you have 3 strands? well each of these two 'strands' you have here, are two of the three.
lay your dread over the line where the section was split in half. have the centre point of the dread at the top of the section. please excuse how rediculous the size of this dread looks compared to my sisters rather small head
you need to find a way to anchor the unbraided side of the dread down so it doesnt slip whilst you are braiding the other half in (only half the DE gets braided in.)
cross the two strands of natural hair over the centrepoint of the DE. hold it taught.
braid!
once all the natural hair is finished, take a small elastic band and tie it in so it wont slip. these little ****s do tend to snap regularly so make sure you always have a few spare ones on you!
ok now the unbraided half of the dread can be allowed to fall down. the idea of having two dreads in one, is that the half without the braid covers the half with one so you see less of your own hair. i know it doesnt show well there as theres only one, but it looks alot better when the whole heads done.
after youve done that layer the same way as that dread, section off the layer of hair above that and repeat. do this till you reach the top :)
its handy you have smaller sections around your part line. tends to give better coverage :)
*edited again*
another thing you can do, if you feel these would take too long/be too heavy, is my personal favourite-wool de braids! dead easy and fast to make, cheap as chips and teh sex XD
basically, go out and find some wool, yup, the stuff nan knits with, any kind you like really. as many colours as you like.
depending on the thickness of the wool...if its thick wool ill normally use 3 strands of wool per braid, thinner then ill use 6-9strands per braid.
ok, so work out how long roughly you want the braids to be. double that. then add a little more on because you lose some length whilst braiding. say youve got some thick wool, to make a braid, you want 3 strands the same length.
normally ill use 1 strand of wool thats a different colour to the stuff youre using as a 'measuring piece' so that they all end up the same length. ish.
line the ends up of the 3 strands, and tie em in a knot as close to the end as you can get it. here, id normally get me desk, and a paperweight, and put the weight on the knot so its held down to braid from.
braid! till you get to the end, then tie it in another knot at the end...so you end up with a braid thats twice the length you want it, with a knot at either end to stop it coming undone.
depending on the thickness of the braids, ill normally use 80-110 of these in a full head. sounds like a lot, but still WAY faster and cheaper to make than synth dreads :)
some pics of how these look in:
from the front: excuse the myspazz shot XD
that was me download hair this year, and ill certainly be having wool de's in this year again, they were wonderful. however back to pink this year i believe ^^
<message edited by SyntheticPulse on 10 December 2006 21:25>