SunshineMama

Yup, they've had an overhaul! :)

I was wondering if anyone would notice the new picture in my sidebar. I figured, just for fun, I would change it up and then see if anyone said anything. Looks like a few of you DID notice. :)

Yes, the dreadies DID get quite the overhaul this past Saturday.

The hubby has been saying that he's wanted to see what they look like blonde.....he thought it would be fun to have a blonde wife. I figured it was an easier fix to dye my hair than to have him go looking for a new wife. *wink* Besides, I'm always up for an adventure. It's only hair. It seemed like it would be fun and my little blondie of a daughter now thinks we're twins. She was pretty excited that we were going to have the same color hair.

I'm still debating on if I want to go over the tips and turn them even more blonde. I think I'm digging the contrast too much to go that far.

I haven't dyed my hair in ages. The last time I did it was probably over 7 years ago. Before my daughter was born. It's been a while. Obviously, the last time I dyed my hair, it was straight and brushable. Everything was dyed evenly. The interesting thing with dyeing dreads is that the outside of the dreads got the dye, but not the insides. There's probably some sort of way to get all the way in there (well, as much as one possibly could considering that they're pretty knotted up and tight), but I just focused on getting the outsides of the dreads. Because of that, and also because this was my first time bleaching out dreads), my dreads didn't get FULLY coated....though I tried as much as I could. The insides of the dreads show through so there's this really cool swirly effect of colors going on. Some of the original brown color shows through and there's a nice contrast between the old brown and the new blonde.

I was a little shocked by how bright my roots came out, especially since they show up the most in the front. They seemed to have toned down just a little since I did them on Saturday and the color has really grown on me. Deciding on which light you look at it in, it either looks bright or it has a reddish tint to it.

When I'm at home, I tend to wear it down....to let them move around and be free. There's a lot of loosies and fly-aways, but I love them.

I was just counting my dreads this morning because someone asked how many I had. 19 total. In my last post, I said I had 21. I either miscounted, counted the two that I combined in the back or somewhere, they got assimilated by another dread. No biggie.....the 19 I have are happy and so am I.

When I'm out, I wear them with two of the dreads in the front pulled back and secured with a little clip in the back. It keeps them out of my face and makes them look not so chaotic....though I DO love the chaotic look.

Well, it's off to bed for me.

Have a lovely evening!

-Erika

Update on my dready-babies

It's been a while since I've done an update on my dreads. It's hard to believe that they'll soon be 3 months old!

Right before we left for Norway in October, my sister and I did some maintanence on my hair. Many of the original dreads that my mom had backcombed had relaxed so much that only the ends were locked up. My sister, Kerri, and I combed most of them out (that was quite the experience). We then redid them with a different method - Twist & Rip. It sounds brutal, but it wasn't as bad as it sounds. It's more like chaotic braiding.

It was a month and a half ago that we did those and they're coming along really well. I stil have some of the original ones in and they're a bit on the loopy side, where the other ones are rounder. They all have a bit of character to them and I love em all. :)

I've got some fun beads in the back and along the sides. I've taken out most of the beads that were in my hair last month. Actually, some of them fell out as my hair tightened. I was warned that I would have some casualties along the way. It's okay, though. I didn't mind getting some new beads and adding some new hippy bling to my hair. The only thing I'm bummed about is that some of my most favorite beads fell off and I don't know where they went. I suppose I should just take that as a good excuse to put some new ones in. :) The bead that you see at the bottom left of this picture has a sun etched into it. It's groovy, indeed. :) There was only one of them at the bead shop, so I made sure to make it mine. Didn't want him to be all lonely there at the bead shop. He needed a dread-friend. :)

Some of the ones in the back are a little on the loose side, but many of them are locking up quite tight. (What is up with Zach's bike in the back???  I didn't even realize that was there until just now....looking at this picture.)

I keep them washed every 2 to 3 days and they love the shampoo bar that I got as a sample from DreadFX. it lathers up so nicely and makes my hair smell SUPER nice. The shampoo bar has Hemp seed Oil, Tea Tree Oil, Peppermint, Green Tea, Rosemary and Lemon grass. I make my own soap and was using my Patchouli soap for a while on my hair, but decided I would give this a try when I got it as a free sample. I love it! :)

I've tried talking my Davycakes into letting me dread his hair, since it was down to his shoulders. Nope, he wouldn't let me. Instead, he asked me to cut his hair a little, just to get it off the back of his neck. He wanted it tapered a little bit so that it wasn't cut so straight across the bottom. It made me sad to cut some of it off, as I ADORE his hair, but he lets me do what I want with mine, and he DID grow his out for me....so I gave his hair a little bit of a trim. I just console myself with the fact that his hair grows REALLY quick and it'll grow back again.

Last week, I spent 6 hours dreading a friend's head. I'll make sure to post some pics of that sometime this week. Her hair turned out SO cute! It suits her perfectly!

Have a wonderful evening, all!