Dreadlocks/Locks and Druidry?

[mradam83]

Hi all,

I'm currently trying to learn as much as possible about what it means to be a Druid and about living a natural life, and one thing I've wondered about is the role of hair.

I've been growing my hair for a while anyway and I've recently been researching Locking the hair - to me, it seems fitting being a Druid to just let the hair lock and do it's own thing and not comb or use chemicals in any way (obviously it is washed though, unwashed hair in any way seems a bit rank to me).

Has anyone else ventured this way with their hair or something similar? And what is the general consensus on it?

Cheers,

[DJ Droood]

Has anyone else ventured this way with their hair or something similar? And what is the general consensus on it?

Cheers,

Dunno about a consensus, but I've always liked the look of dreads and the less "product" you use, the more druidic....if you want to be hardcore though, you should lime your hair in spikes...I think the old school druids looked more like 70's British punks than rastas....(the current trend of wearing pajama bottoms in public also seems to be very Iron Age)

[mradam83]

Has anyone else ventured this way with their hair or something similar? And what is the general consensus on it?

Cheers,

Dunno about a consensus, but I've always liked the look of dreads and the less "product" you use, the more druidic....if you want to be hardcore though, you should lime your hair in spikes...I think the old school druids looked more like 70's British punks than rastas....(the current trend of wearing pajama bottoms in public also seems to be very Iron Age)

God that is hard core - they remind me a lot of Vikings also.

[Corwen]

Vikings apparently had very neatly groomed hair.

[Lily]

I'm in too much of a formal career that I could afford alternative hairstyles....


your urban druid,
Lily

[Aynfean]

Use dreadfalls!

[Turtle]

I do not have the type of hair that will dread lock and stay put. And not the type of appearance to go with it. I tried not shampooing my hair for a week or two, maybe three after an allergic reaction to a shampoo sample when I was out of my own brand. Oh, the JOY of clean crispy shampood hair!!! Ahhhhhh!!!!!

I must say I have considered dying my hair shocking pink once after a wig in that particular color looked so spectacular on me. I decided against it because my hair dyed that color would never look as shiny as that wig did.

So my fave druid hair philosophy is to keep it as simple and low maintenance as I can. Just a good cut and a good shampoo.

Having said that a friend of mine did some research into celtic hairstyles and found that at some point in celtic history a certain type of tonsure in combination with longer hair/dreads had been the common hair do for men, so he felt licensed to keep his hair long even though he was going bald. Brilliant excuse don't you think ??

Turtle

[Elhonna]

I don't know about the consensus too, but my wife and I are actually trying this way.

She now has her entire head dreaded (by me !), and she's working at using less and less shampoo, through she's cannot abandon it for now.
As for me, I've just the half of my hair dreaded, for I hide it under my "normal" ones during my job researches. As soon as I find one, I lock all my hair ! Oh and I forgot to say that I don't use shampoo anymore since...several months, and my hair just look fine.

As for the maintenance, it's as low as you can imagine, except for the beginning. But in a normal day, we just wake up, look our faces in the mirror and attach our dreadlocks and "ok I'm ready !".

[mradam83]

I don't know about the consensus too, but my wife and I are actually trying this way.

She now has her entire head dreaded (by me !), and she's working at using less and less shampoo, through she's cannot abandon it for now.
As for me, I've just the half of my hair dreaded, for I hide it under my "normal" ones during my job researches. As soon as I find one, I lock all my hair ! Oh and I forgot to say that I don't use shampoo anymore since...several months, and my hair just look fine.

As for the maintenance, it's as low as you can imagine, except for the beginning. But in a normal day, we just wake up, look our faces in the mirror and attach our dreadlocks and "ok I'm ready !".

Once she feels brave enough to do away with the shampoo, then the best thing to do is give Baking soda a try - washing that through your hair/scalp in some warm water will clean hair 100x better than shampoo can and leave no lasting residue. I've done it twice now, and it cleaned my hair do much it actually come up a shade of brown lighter!

[Corwen]

Probably bleached your hair a little. Baking soda is a fairly strong alkali.

[Cynewulf]

A friend of mine from UK OBOD camps once told me that Dreadlocks used to be called Elflocks in England. Elflock was what happened to your hair when you went and lived in the woods as an outlaw. Apparently elves would come down in the middle of the night and lock your hair. Always loved this story for a number of different reasons.

Interestingly enough, Shakespeare talks about Elflocks in Romeo and Juliet. Mercutio talks about them in his speech about Queen Mab.

"She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes
In shape no bigger than an agate stone.......
That plaits the manes of horses in the night
And bakes the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,
Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes."

So there you have it from the mouth of the Great Bard himself! Dreadlocks are most certainly highly suitable for us third millennium Druid types!

[Elhonna]

Wow, I love this new term "elflocks" ! I think we have an english version of Romeo and Juliet somewhere in our house, I'll have to read it quickly .

I almost have my entire head dreaded now, still don't use shampoo, and it looks great ! I don't know if it's a suitable or even a revelant style for a Druid (or Bard or Ovate), but it just seems more natural to me, more "roots" (I don't know if this word is used anywhere else than in france, I guess you understood it).

So to answer to the initial question, we ventured this way and don't regret it. We only did knots, without any chemichals or wax, and I think we spend much more time with our hair now than before, taking care of them, massaging our scalps etc... Finally, this is a very easy and tender way, if we except the hours of initial torture .

[bohemian]

A few of us have dreads, I have, so I'll give my view on my dreads

Oh, just some tips on upkeep... washing them is one a week or fortnight, I used to use washing up liquid, but I've since found something called ' Dr Bronners' which is ethical and all that, which i use. What i've found with greasy hair is that it conditions the hair, so hinders it locking at the roots. Washing it with something that will dry it out encourages it to knot up and tangle, but then leaving it between washes thickens and tightens up the dreads.
In between, use a crochet hook to pull in any whispy loose bits, weaving them in. There are videos on youtube showing you how.

And basically thats it. Its been nearly 2 years since I had a hair cut or visited a barber, and I feel freed somehow, from that regeme of maintaining a kept appearance

On the why... this has developed over time. The initial decision was because I already had long hair, I knew dreading it would be a big decision because if I wanted to change my mind later, I'd have to cut my hair off - but it was a definite decision that i would have them because I was prepared to lose them

I use them spiritually, when in ritual or in other connection with spirit, if i want something, or have a question, or if i want more connection with a place, after introducing myself, I will cut off one of my dreads and leave it there as an offering. I have representations of masculine and feminine woven into my dreads, I have tooth and bone secreted in them. Whenever I use incense, it lingers in my hair for days, when I wash them it takes a day to dry out completely, I feel consecrated and purified

There are lots of elements of my life that keep me 'separate' from mainstream society, and I like that all this is lumped in one way into my dreads, that they are a physical manifestation of my history and my life... yet in consequence, i've actually felt more acceptance from the world at large, there may be something going on along the lines that with the physicality being there, i have dropped some barriers elsewhere, i dont know.

With the upkeep, I do need someone else to help weave in the dreads at the back, once a year, hopefully less, and one thing I've noticed, is that out of all the people who say they will do it for me, something always happens to stop it, they only get kept by myself, someone I am in relationship with, or my daughter. Others have offered but fate so far has always intervened.

Whenever I'm asked about my dreads, I always say they are for personal sacrifice because thats how I use them now... it seems odd how this practice gas developed, out of an initial decision that i would finally try them because I was willing to give up my hair.

I've had no problem with them at work, everyone seems to just see them as a hairstyle. I thought there may have been problems, so the first thing i did was to have bright green fake dreads woven in for a couple of months. That was OK, nobody objected - so if they were ok with bright green dreads, when i took them out, it was nothing to dread my own hair.

[bohemian]

I was once asked though who I was trying to be, when I first got them.. and I just replied "myself" and that was that... I did giggle though, because if i had shaved my head exactly like 90% of the other males at work, in an effort to fit in, I would never have been asked, even if we were all stood in a line with our identical crew cuts.

[wyeuro]

reading between the lines, elf-locks were plaits. if you leave them long enough they become locked. ancient gauls are depicted in hollywood extravaganzas of the mid 20th century as having just two locks of hair plaited either side of their heads with the rest hanging free. love-locks were plaited into the hair with ribbons - the term love probably refers to the god lugh and denotes a whole people. when loki went overseas he took up the foreign habit of wearing his hair in 'snakes' which is what small school children still call their long plaits for a joke.

[Cynewulf]

You make a good point about plaits However, I would have to disagree that all elflocks would come from plaits because, well, I have gone and lived in the woods (and various other uncivilised places) and if you don't brush your hair, then it locks naturally all by itself.

The back of my head is a testament to this, every lock there is completely natural – i.e. I didn't put them in, they just formed. I have the sides of my head shaved (I have what's commonly known as a 'dread-hawk') and the locks on the top I help along with the odd bit of hand rolling (getting a bit of cloth and rubbing it in a clockwise direction all over the top of my head to help the roots lock). But generally my elflocks look after themselves. No crochet needles, no special hair products (I haven't used shampoo in over a year, only water), no nothing – other than the fairies who come down at night to help them on their way.

[jessicat]

If people want to dredd their hair it's fine by me but I'm sticking to my shampooed, combed and dyed hair thanks, my flowing dark red hair reflects my personality and is a part of my self-expression. I don't really feel the need to try and do many things which we believe the ancient druids did, much of it for me does not seem relevant to our lives today. I don't have a problem with using toileteries, though I am working on cutting out ones that use petrochemicals. Unfortunately the bottles are still made of petro-chemical plastics, but hey, hopefully that might change with the development of plant-derived plastics. I use Herbatint dyes, not sure if they are totally petrochem free but are the most "natural" I've found so far, I've considered straight henna but think I'm too naturally blonde to give the look I want to achieve.

[samurai]

Wish I had hair so I could join in!

[Aphritha]

My hair isn't too natural, but I feel its MY natural color. I started dying it blues and greens when I was in middle school and I've kept to it. (I strayed some in my picture here, I was actually trying to dye my hair to match my wedding dress!) I've never liked washing it too much because it fades the color and makes it straw-like, and I've noticed the less often I shampoo it, the less it needs it. I find it only tends to get greasy about every two weeks. Not sure what would happen if I let it go over that.
I've considered dreading but I don't think I could handle being stuck with it...

[Corwen]

I've noticed the less often I shampoo it, the less it needs it. I find it only tends to get greasy about every two weeks. Not sure what would happen if I let it go over that.

This thread might help to enlighten you :
http://www.druidry.org/board/dhp/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=34929