I’m not sure any of you remember my hair braiding incident earlier this year, but it really got me to thinking about hair styles and more importantly… experimenting with mine. I have a long standing agreement with a good friend of mine that before I cut my hair short the next time I will wear a mullet for at least a week and be sure to go into the office of wherever it is I work for at least one meeting. The corn-rows got me to thinking about another style that I want to try out before I cut off the length (from the front) of my hair. Why not dread locks?
Dread Locks Research
The first thing that I needed to do was some research. I found this site, which had explanations of all of the commonly held myths about dread locks (i.e. “you can’t wash your hair”, “you are going to stink”, “it’ll destroy your hair”). That wasn’t my only resource but it gave me a good starting point. I quickly found out that not only was I eligible to dread my hair as a white dude with straight hair, but there was a ton of information on exactly how to do it. There are quite a few different methods.
Next I found a good place for the supplies I’d need to get the job done. DreadHeadHQ has not only videos and tutorials on how to dread your hair but they have products to do it as well. I went ahead and sprung for the Ultra Dread Kit, which arrived yesterday! Of course, if you read my post from yesterday you’ll know that I have to run a half marathon this coming Saturday, November 28, 2009. So I will NOT be dreading my hair this week. And actually my wife is going to be doing most of the work.
Reactions
This is somewhat of a funny topic and a little confusing to me personally. I first started talking about dreading my hair right after the corn row incident. From that point to now the reactions of most people I tell is almost the same, “Don’t do it!!!” I mean coworkers, friends, family… all just about the same reaction. Some more adamant than others. I could understand this from my wife because she is married to me and has to live with me, but I’m not real sure I understand it from other people. Is it because I just look so dashingly handsome now that they don’t want me to change? lol – yeah right!
Well, to all those neigh-sayers I say this, “it’s just hair!” It’s not like I’m converting to Islam or something. It’s not even a body piercing or something that would affect me permanently… it’s hair. If I don’t like it I can just cut it off and start over. So relax and get used to the soon-to-be new me, because it is going to happen and hopefully before Christmas. 🙂