hair

[hellosunshine]

is it possible to sort of dreadlock short hair into little tufts?or should i act my age n not my shoe size

[Wahine]

I would love to have dreds. the only reservation I have is that in my job I treat a lot of conservative, older people and they might not like it. Word of mouth runs my business so I don't need anyone thinking I'm too wierd. The other factor is that dreds can smell kinda bad but i think that's only a problem if they are longer.

Is it possible to have short dreds? I don't know, never tried. But keep us posted.

[LBTC]

I've seen some pretty short dreads. ick. Once I realized that you get dreads by just not washing your hair, the romance of them completely disappeared for me!

I'm thinking your age wins on this one. Let shoe size win out in some other category!

Hugs and butteflies,

~T~

[Mr. Bloom]

Mark Twain said:
"Clothes Make the Man...Naked People Have Little or No Influence on Society as a Whole"

While they are wonderfully colorful personalities, dreadlocks don't make someone's life easier in mainstream society (unless your last name was Marley...).

I too vote for age over shoe size...

Change of Heart Edit: BUT, I just noticed that you're in a creative field...you can pull this off if you want to!

[Bad JuJu]

According to my hairdresser, whose birthday gift a couple of years ago to her teenage surfer son, was to help him start his dreds, there's more to it than just not washing your hair, especially for blonde-haired white kid. I don't remember the whole process, but basically you have to do something to break down the outer coating of each hair. And I've seen some very cute short dreds.

ANYWAY, I vote for shoe size on this one, if it won't hinder your functioning as you wish to in the circles in which you move in life: work, school, family, whatever.

Here's the thing: will you get to a point in your life when you can't do this thing with your hair and wish you had? After all, it's only hair, and if you don't like the new look, you can always change it back.

[East Hill]

What Mr. Silver said! If you are in a profession which does not rely on conservative looks to succeed, and indeed, which may benefit you to be extraordinary, go for it.

East Hill

[KnottedYet]

Depends a lot on your hair texture.

While I was in college (twenty-mmph years ago) dreds were a fad, and kids with fine straight hair looked REALLY bad with dreds. The dreds grew wimpy and uneven and the scalp that showed just looked....awkward. Some of them just looked like mats. Like matted dog hair.

Maybe fine straight hair can do it with professional assistance.

Now, the kids with thick curly or nappy hair looked great! Their dreds looked right: even and neat and round in cross section (rather than mat-like) and it didn't look like they had huge awkward bald patches on their scalps.

Good dreds look great, bad dreds just look pathetic and poseur. (do people still use that word? Poseur?) And personally I like the look of good short dreds.

I wanted dreds... sigh. Wasn't gonna happen with my hair. So every so often I go for 1 1/2 inch spikes. Spikes work very well on my thin baby-fine hair.

Edit: BTW, I work in the same field as Wahine, but with a different population. They like spikes and would probably handle dreds just fine (just not on ME). Assess your contacts carefully if you think they will be influenced by your hairstyle.