Day 1 of my Dread Lock Journey!

These are my little baby dreadies:
I have finally begun my dready Journey! I have been growing my hair out for some time now waiting for when the time was right to dread my head. I decided earlier this week I would use this weekend to begin the dreading process because of many reasons: Its a new year, I feel I am finally settling in and growing my new roots in Portland Oregon. I am looking forward to dedicating more time to creating and taking my art vending to the next level. I feel I have done well, taking steps towards living a life I love….and really that’s key to becoming a more healthy/well balanced person. I have slowly been righting the way I treat myself and the world around me. I stopped eating meat, fast food, stopped drinking soda and started drinking lots of water, started thinking more positively while also making it a point to be a more active/aware individual. The dreading of my hair is just one more step and in a way a symbol of my sacrifices/goals/ of this journeying towards becoming a more healthy/balanced and independent person…much less dependant/expectant and funding of the products/ways of Babylon.
So the process was pretty vigorous. I got up on Saturday around 7:00 and took a shower and washed my hair with a shampoo that would strip my hair of all the chemicals/pollutants/hair care products in my hair and clean it so there would be no residue left. Once I did that I put my hair in braids and drove around town trying to pickup my dreading supplies. I went to the 99 cent store and bought some hair clips and went to petco and got a flea comb since I needed a tight nit metal comb since I was planning on using the backcombing method to create the dreads. I also got little bands to hold my roots and tips once each dread was made. When I got home I paid a local little girl from my apartment complex $10 to section my hair for me into inch squares of hair. Once that was done I put on a good movie and started backcombing away. I started the backcombing process around 1 in the afternoon on Saturday and didn’t finish untill 11:30 at night. The pictures shown are the ones I took immediately after finishing. Now its just a waiting game. I will keep the rubber bands in for at least a month to help guide and keep secure the dreading process. Once I take the rubber bands out my dreads will hopefully have started really bounding and then I can begin to add beads/stones/artifacts and whatnots to make the dreads even more magical. My arms are so sore! I did it all by myself….so I would highly recommend having someone around to help you dread if you are going to go through with it. It is really tiring after awhile and hard on the neck and back at times. I took a lot of breaks and made sure to drink lots of water and so I survived the process and I am now on my way to having my own mane of locks of love!