How to Make Dreads

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Lauren. Today I'm going to discuss how to make dreads. First part of making dreads is you're going to want to section your hair into squares. The square is going to be the beginning of each dread, depending on the size dread you want will be indicative of the size square that you actually take from right from your scalp. The best thing to use in order to make dreads is the dread comb. You can actually find them online and it will help make the dreading that process a little bit easier. Another great thing to use which you can actually get at Petsmart is a comb for long hair dogs. You want to make sure that the comb is metal. It will help in the dreading process because basically dreading is a lot of back-combing. I like to use the ones where the teeth are very close so that way I don't have to work as hard in order to get back-combing. I'm going to move the section out and I'm going to start back-combing which is ultimately, combing the hair back. You want to kind of get that more matted look. Now as you're doing this, you're going to want to keep turning that hair like palm-rolling it in order to get the dreaded look. It's a, as you back-comb, you're going to want to use your palm and kind of smooth out that top area. Go back in and do anything else that you need to do in order to. I like to kind of turn it as I go 'cause I think that it helps get that more, that cylinder effect that dread seems to get. Once you work your way all the way down to the bottom, through back-combing and palm-rolling, the palm-rolling you can do with one or two hands but you're literally just going to want to kind of twist the hair, turn it around itself. It's going to help get more of that matted dread look, plus it's going to help it keep the cylinder shape. As you work your way all the way down to the end, you're actually going to want to seal off the end with an elastic and let it sit. What that's going to do is it's going to help the hair, the dread set itself and prevent any of those hairs that are originally going to shed from falling out, which will prevent the dread from actually falling out. You'll work your way around this throughout the entire day or work 'cause it probably take about a day to do it and you'll keep your entire head with these elastic bands until your dread dries. You may want to use some sort of glue in order to keep it in; bees wax has also been used. Again, it is indicative of the size square you have will tell you about the size dread that you'll have. And that is how you make dreads."