Backcombing
What You Need:
Metal Comb
Wax
Shampoo
Rubberbands
Stuff that helps a lot:
Clips
Locking Accelerator
Lock Peppa
Instructions:
1. Wash your hair with residue free shampoo and dry it. If you have the Locking Accelerator this is the time to use it. Spray your hair down enough so there is some Accelerator on each section and let it dry.
2. Section your hair into square boxes about an inch by and inch. You can use rubberbands at your scalp to hold the sections in place. If sectioning sounds difficult to you check out the DreadHeadHQ site. It has really good instructions with pictures for sectioning your hair.
3. Once you have finished sectioning it's time to start making the dreadlocks. It is best to start in the back of your head because understanding how to backcomb great looking dreads take a little time and practice, so if you start in the back and work your way forward the dreadlocks that are in the front will be the best looking dreads. And since those are the dreadlocks people see it works well to have those look the best. If you have clips you can use them to hold the other sections out of the way. It makes backcombing so much easier.
4. Backcombing is very similar to teasing hair. The one thing you want to pay special attention to is how much hair you are pushing back at a time. You only want to work with about 2 inches of hair at a time. And you will only push about 10 hairs back each time you run the comb through your hair. It usually takes about 20 minutes to make a dread if your hair is 6-8 inches long. If you have the Locking Accelerator it takes about 12- 15 minutes to make each dread.
5. When you are finished making your first dread put a rubberband at the root and another at the tip. This will keep the dreads together when they are new so the hair is able to lock up.
6. After you have rubberbanded the dread you can go straight to making another dread. You should put the wax on your dreads as soon as you are finished making all the dreads.
There is a lot of good maintenance information on this page.
Websites that help: