Your locks look great my friend. I would suggest leaving the rubber bands out though. I started my dreads without them and a year later, they're doing just fine. Plus you wouldn't want any getting stuck in there. I've seen what that looks like and it's gross. Your dreads look awesome and I like how they're parted on the side instead of the middle. I haven't really seen that much but I like it. Good luck.

Justin, they look lovely! Beautiful :-D Great pics and even lovelier dreads! Bravo!

I would agree that bands are probably not necessary - I never used them...but I did have a friend who did and she never really maintained them and I ended-up being the one who had to "try" and cut them out from all the matted hair :s Take em out, and yeah, concentrate on working your roots manually...whether it be when you have some free time and can root-rub, or whatever...I always found that the method that worked best for me, was using Dreadhead Shampoo (for some reason it just really locked-up my otherwise very straight hair that was hard to dread), and whilst in the shower for a wash, I would apply shampoo and kinda root rub it in with my flat palm, rinse well etc....then air-dry...and yeah roots locked up AMAZINGLY! Prior to doing this, my roots were undreaded probably 3 inches from my scalp, and yeah, at the end, when i cut them off in March, they were right up at the scalp...I never had to root rub either - the shower trick 'did the trick' lololol

With regards to the tips, I would recommend the rip and pull method (for lack of a better term lol)...it's where you kinda take the tip-end of your dread and pull it apart from the tip up, as far as it will go, like you were trying to separate t into two dreads....when you have got it as far as it will go, put the two sections back together. Do the same thing again, pulling it apart into two pieces, but not using the same two parts of the dread...it's really hard to explain....the second time, you want to do the pull, but separate the dread in a different spot, continue down the dread to the tip (right to the end), using different sections each time...then palm roll nice and hard! This will create the hardened long tips, rather then the rounded tips, though...but I think the long ones look nicer :P

Good luck :-)

they look great. i got the side part too. hurray for the side part!!!!

Hi Justin. Dreads definitely suit you. They look like they're doing really well. I took the rubber bands off my roots after the first time I washed them so I had no problem. I took them off the tips about two weeks after getting dreads. It was a huge pain in the ass. My curly hair was devouring them. I found the easiest way was to use a tiny crochet hook to grab a piece of it, pull it out, and use scissors to snip it. Then use the crochet took to pull it out, loop by loop. Sometimes it took five minutes for me to even grab a piece of the rubber band... Took me a whole weekend to get them out. I actually just discovered a couple of days ago that one is still in there ... almost completely devoured. Weird.

Great dreads, Justin!

With regards to rubber-bands: If you don't dig 'em, by all means toss them...but they work great for me. My locks tend to try to lock together (ripping almost every day to keep them apart), so the bands help real close to the scalp, and I also put them in my hair in stubborn areas and sometimes just for color/decoration. They break & fall on their own, so I can change the color scheme every couple of weeks.

You're dead on concerning wax. It's no good and just mucks things up.

Your dreads look great! They're so neat and tidy. Mine are really fuzzy and there are alot of wispy loose hairs. Dr. Bronners really is great stuff and comes in many scents. The tea tree oil one is my favorite. Peace, Kelly