Monday, July 2, 2012

How to get Product Build Up out of Dread Locs

Clean Dread Locs


 Ok, so you Dread locs have product build up in them and its freaking you out,right? Your pillows are dirty your smelling up the room with the ass-crack smell of your locs, or at least that is what your girlfriend calls them and whats worse is that she is threatening to cut them of while you sleep. So what do you do ladies/gents about this problem.

There are several methods I've tried throughout the years to get rid of product build up in locs, some of them are:

  • Alcohol
  • laundry detergent
  • baking soda
  • ammonia
  • apple cider vinegar

Now, none of these are sex products to use, and most of them are not even suppose to touch the skin, let alone the scalp, but when you have YEARS of build up, it sometime requires industrial strength help to get that build up out.




Dread loc styles

Here are 2 steps method that are not common, and do work .
  1. Boiling your Dread Locs
  2. Using Heated Shampoo
  3. Dawn Degrease Dish washing Liquid

Ok, So let's tackle the first method. OF course this will only work for dread locs that are at least longer than shoulder length. The idea here is to loosen up the trapped wax in your locs by melting it down so it will drain to the surface to be shampooed away.

If you have a big enough crock pot boil some water high enough to get a good submerge of your locs (PLEASE ASK SOMEONE TO HELP YOU), when the water has come to a boil, place the locs in one by one very carefully so as to not cause splashing of hot water everywhere, ( you should do this at a shampoo bowl so your head can rest back comfortably) leave your locs in the hot water preferably for 1-5 minutes when you start seeing the water get grimy you know the waxes are melting out.

***You can add apple cider vinegar to boiling water to increase the grease removal power of the water itself. have someone wrap your locs in a towel as you slowly come out of the boiled water and give each lock a good squeeze to help the gunk come up outa there! Now your ready for the second step.
Dr Bronner's Liquid Castile Soap

Now that your dreads locs are prepped and all the grease is nice and runny and hopefully half way gone, you can now shampoo. I love Dr Bronner's Peppermint Castile Liquid soap. It really cleans locs like a wiz just be careful, if you have color in your locs, this soap with strip it, especially the red tones. But the key step is to heat the shampoo first!
Why Heat?
 Well heating thins out shampoo and it will penetrate your locs better and faster , getting right into the core of your locs were all that funk is, the locs will drink up the shampoo and lift the already loosen grime outa there.
Just make sure to heat the shampoo about as hot as a cup of tea (that you sip on) I would say. How much to use id determined by how thick you hair is and how much buildup is there. Just be careful to coat each loc with a generous amount of cleanser. Squeeze and

Dread loc product buildup
After you've done these two steps just go and do whatever maintenance methods you prefer. But be careful of adding back the waxes you just cleaned from your hair. In my next post I will discuss products that do not leave build up in dread locs.

If you have a question or maybe some tips of your own please share them with us.
















I love natural hair and Loc pictures and advice and I hope u do too. Thanks for reading and share your thoughts!

5 comments:

  1. wow, this picture is severe! yikes! the sad thing about build up is by the time you realize it took root in your hair, it's years after the culprit was introduced to your locks. i wish I could warn the world. great post SR!

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  2. I have massive build up in my locs and have been looking through different ways to get rid of it. This will be something I try at home myself... Thanks...

    @Buddy8705

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  3. Thank you I just cut mine off some to get rid of the build up will try your method next week

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  4. Thank you so much for this! I tried it and got all the gunk out of my hair! Previous to this I tried an ACV rinse with baking soda, regular shampooing, and soaking in regular water. None worked but this did. Thank you so much!

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  5. I should have mentioned in my comment above that I let my locs sit in boiling hot water for 10 minutes and then washed with hot shampoo :)

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