Problems with wax:
If you go to a website designed to sell you dreadlock products and specifically “dread wax,” you’ll be told that you absolutely NEED their “dread wax” to make nice-looking dreads. On the other hand, if you REALLY start doing research on dreads, you’ll see mixed reports on how effective wax is to creating and maintaining nice-looking and healthy dreads.
Fact is, waxing newly-forming dreads is nothing more than one particular method. It’s not necessary. Some people will say wax is absolutely necessary and nothing but helpful, others will claim it will cause nothing but problems. Others will insist it’s neiter particularly harmful nor helpful, just unnecessary.
Here are some common problems I’ve seen reported with using wax in dreads:
Also, don’t take my word on it, I don’t have dreads yet, I’m still learning a lot of shit but this is the conclusion I’ve come to from reading other sites, considering my own knowledge of hair styling products and looking at photos and drawing my own conclusions. Experiment with wax if you feel like it, just keep in mind that no matter how nifty the company is, their main interest is selling you a product. Maybe they’ll use good reasons (like company ethics) to try and sell you that product or maybe they’ll just try to make you think that you NEED this product for whatever reason and through whatever means they can aquire; it’s also possible that they’ll do both.
I like the company ethics that Knotty Boy claims on their site, so I link to them and suggest use of their products (though if you have hardcore evidence [ie: not hear-say] that they don’t adhere to these ethics like they say they do, by all means, tell me so that I can remove their link and stop supporting them in other ways), this does not mean that I feel using their products is necessary for creating dreadlocks, just that a) I like their company ethics and b) I think that their products offer one way to create dreads. If you use their products, you could end up with great results but over-using their waxes may prevent knots from forming or could cause build-up to the point that your hair is breaking off cos it’s too hard and heavy. If you don’t use their products, your resulting dreads could end up looking just fine or they could end up looking like crap.
I can’t speak from expierence on this at the moment, so if somebody has some advice to offer on the topic of dreads, I’ll be more than happy to publish it.
