Dread Trim – 6 Inches Gone

I had planned to trim up my dreads come summertime, but even though it’s still winter, they were starting to get heavy. Especially after bathing, when they’re all wet, my dreadlocks are very heavy. When it’s warm, they feel like wool on my neck. Which is partly literally true – the yarn wraps are wool.

Anyway, after a shower the other day, I decided the time had come, season notwithstanding. I picked 6 inches as the right number. I took each individual dreadlock, measured up six inches, and snipped it off.

Here’s the pile of cut-off sections laid out on the bathroom counter. It looks like a lot of hair.

However, when I gathered it all into a bunch, you can see that it’s not so much in volume overall. I have really thin hair, so even with dreadlocks, there’s not a lot to work with.

I bunched them up like this to take a look at the ends where you can see into the interior of the dreads. Some people when they cut their dreads find that the insides are kind of gross. If they mistakenly started their dreads with wax, there’ll be a lot of wax buildup on the insides. Or there will just be accumulated oil or whatever, especially if they’ve had trouble drying their dreads. I was happy to find that the insides of mine were pretty clean and dry.

One result of the cut is that they look a little more like dreadlocks now. Before, a good portion of that extra six inches was wispy undreaded hair. The full length of each dread is tangled now, giving them a more solid dread-y look.

I still haven’t gotten started on re-decorating them yet. Also planned for this summer is to phase out the dark colored wool wraps and add in some bright colored hippie beads and bright wraps. I’ll post pics of that when it happens, I’m sure!

In the meantime, here’s a recent shot of me, post-cut. It doesn’t show a lot of the dreads, but I think it’s super-cute, anyway.

Tags: Dreadlocks