How to Care for Mature Dreadlocks

Video Transcript

"So after you've had your dreadlocks for a while, usually around 6 months to a year, depending on how well you take care of them - if you don't take really good care of them, number one, they are not/you are not going to look to good. Number two, it is going to take a lot longer for them to lock up. So after they have locked up - and also like if you are white, as I am, your dread would take a lot longer to lock up, because black people's hair, it locks up a lot faster and if you see black people with dreadlocks, usually they can have perfect dreads. They don't have any whispies, but really, if you are white, you're just going to have to deal with the fact that you are always going to have little things hanging off. And you know, I'm fine with that, so if you are okay with that then it shouldn't be a issue. After they have locked up and you will be able to tell because they get smaller and they are hard. After that they kind of generally take care of themselves. You still need to kind of keep a eye on them and make sure they are not you know trying to stick together. Wash your hair about once a week or you could do it more than that, if you're into head washing. It is pretty important to use the dread shampoo though because other shampoos leave a residue and if you use regular shampoo your going to get this nasty scuz on your scalp which is gross and you know you don't want that. But yeah, you just generally let them do their thing. The cool thing about dreads is that they basically grow themselves because your hair is all twisted up. Like when you back comb it and get it into the dreads it's all twisted up. So it grows kind of interweaving and locks so they grow themselves. You don't have to after you get them dreaded up. They just naturally form dreads. Now your hair grows a lot more slowly but, you know, that's pretty cool. One thing that could happen is they can, especially when they get longer, you have the possibility of them breaking. That is because they get dried out. So what you want to do is after your dreads have locked up. You generally should not use conditioner on your dreads because basically the dreads lock because of friction, so conditioner is the opposite and that could cause them not to lock up. But after they have matured they have reached their maturity and they are looking good you could use conditioner occasionally. As long as you rinse it out really well - that keeps them moisturized. And so it could prevent breaking, but you want to not put it on your scalp. Just apply it to the actual dreads and then kind of work it in because your dreads are basically like little sponges, and you need to get in there and then rinse it really, really well. Make sure you get all that conditioner out, because you don't do that for the health of your dreads and so they don't stick. You want to make sure that anything you put on them gets washed out completely because they are like little sponges and so they do kind of absorb anything that they are expose to. "