Dreadlocks have always been a protective hairstyle that requires little upkeep for medium and long hair. They are a terrific alternative if you want to keep your hair out of your face, make styling simpler, and help your hair grow faster with less breakage and shedding. But, how to do dreadlocks yourself? Many people get this hairstyle by visiting a hair salon. Yet in fact, it does not too complicated to create dreadlocks as you may think. You can surely DIY at home with the right instructions.
There are numerous ways to get yourself a dreadlock hairstyle. Which technique you use will depend on your hair type, hair length, lifestyle, and the size of locks you wish to achieve. Below are our guides.
What type of hair is suitable for dreadlocks?
Any hair type can be styled in dreadlocks, but kinky and coarse hair works best. Ringlets quickly create lovely, cylindrical, rope-like dreads when they are tightly curled and start knotting around one another.
For straight hair, it is more difficult to dread straight hair. Yet, it’s definitely doable. You just need to pay a little more patience since straight hair doesn’t have the natural spiral shape, you must handle the hair to grow into cylindrical knots and mats.
How to do dreadlocks yourself?
Prep your hair
- Wash your hair: Before you start creating dreadlocks, you must prep your hair by washing it first. Compared to moisturized and conditioned hair, clean and unconditioned hair has more texture and is simpler to dread. Therefore, you should use a clarifying shampoo to wash your hair and remove the dirt, oil, and product buildups.
- Dry your hair: Dry your hair partially so that it’s damp but not wet
- You can use a locking accelerator to spray your hair. In this way, your hair will be more easily tangled and knotted to make the process of creating locs a little faster.
5 methods to create dreadlocks
Back combing
- Part your hair into smaller sections: Using any comb or your fingers, divide the hair into square sections beginning at the nape or front hairline. Each section can range in size from 1.5 inches or bigger.
- Twisting your hair: This is the most important step when making dreadlocks. Start two-strand twisting your hair section by section. To hold your pieces in place, use a rubber band or hair tie at the root of each section.
- Tease your hair: With a fine-toothed comb, gently tease each twist upward. Pull the hair ends apart as you tease each twist. Twist the ends into a two-strand twist after that to speed up the locking process and provide the appearance of dreadlocks right away.
Finger coils
- Use a rat tail comb to divide your hair into as many square sections as you wish. Each segment will be a loc. The size of the dreadlock increases with the thickness of the section. Make smaller sections if you want smaller locs.
- Spray the first section with your spray bottle until it is damp.
- Apply a tiny amount of coconut oil (or any oil of your choice) to the roots, working it all the way down to the ends of this hair section.
- Twist the hair in one direction until it creates a coil, then pull on the section of hair and let it snap back upward
- Clip the coil into place at your scalp
- Repeat all of the instructions on the remaining sections
- After letting your hair dry completely, take out all of the clips.
Palm rolling
The most efficient method for producing a dread on your own is called palm rolling. With this method, you need to dry your hair completely before starting. Below is how to do dreadlocks yourself using the palm rolling technique:
- Rip apart each tied-off section of hair
- Apply some dread wax to each section.
- Roll the section between your palms until it forms a dreadlock.
Make sure you do palm roll once each day to keep your dreads defined. While rolling your hair once a day is essential, avoid over-rolling because this increases the risk of the dreads unraveling.
Three-strand braid locs
This method is simple to do. You just need to know how to braid your hair. Especially, this technique is a choice for those with short hair. It can be used on hair that is 2 inches or longer. Below is how to create dreadlocks with the three-strand braid technique:
- Section your hair
- Part each section into 3 pieces and start braiding. To keep your hair damp while working, you might need to mist it with water.
- Use a small elastic band to secure each braid tightly
- Repeat the same steps for the remaining sections
For the braids to start matting and developing dreadlocks, you’ll need to keep them in for a few months.
Three-strand twist
This method is ideal for creating the foundation for locs, which are a little more difficult to do than the three-strand braid technique. The three-strand twist is similar to the two-strand twist, with one more hair piece added.
Similar to braiding, three-strand twisting also involves twisting the strands that are being braided. Although it can also be used on wavy or straight hair, this technique works best on kinky, curly hair. This is how to do it:
- Divide your hair into smaller sections
- Divide each section into 3 strands and twist each strand in the opposite direction that you’re braiding
- Twist the strands to the left and cross them over the other two peices all the way to the right side of the twist as you work from left to right. Twist each part as far as you can. If your hair starts to dry out too much while you’re working, mist it with water.
- Secure each twist with an elastic band
- Continue until you complete all the rest sections
With these above 5 techniques, you can now know how to do dreadlocks yourself. We hope that you will get a stunning look with the hairstyle. And don’t forget that BigG Hair is here to supply you with high-quality human hair extensions at the best price. Thanks for reading!
