"Wash! Cleanse yourselves!" Isaiah 1:16a
"According to their uncleanliness and rebellion I have dealt with them, and I (God) hid my face from them" Ezekiel 39:24
"When an unclean spirit goes out of a person, it passes through waterless places looking for rest but does not find it." Matthew 12:43
"Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hyprocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish but inside they are full of greed and self indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may become clean too!" Matthew 23: 25-26
"Now the Jewish feast of Passover was near, and many people went up to Jerusalem from the rural areas before the Passover to cleanse themselves ritually" John 11:55

So, the Bible gives great insight to being clean. Given, in the Bible, they are talking more about being clean in spirit and heart than hair and body. However, they do give specific examples of both.

Forgive the soapbox for a moment.

UJ and I went to Buffalo, NY to do work on 3 sets of dreadlocks. All three sets had residue from improper cleaning. One, I can forgive as it deals with serious allergies. The other two, I am not sure exactly why they weren't cared for properly...my suspicion is lack of information.

Consider this your formal education on clean dreadlocks.

Case Study A

This is after one client's deep cleanse. His locs are 6 months old and he had only used over the counter "normal" shampoo. ooh, and cannot forget only washed them once every few weeks.
These pics are AFTER his deep cleanse. So we went and did some actual scrubbing of his locs for 30 min and then did some maintenance.






Case B

Dreadlocks are 6 months old and were cared for with a competitor of Dreadheadhq's products. She did a deep cleanse before we got to her. There was a sour odor that came from her locs. Once UJ and I realized how full of gunk her locs were, we did a massive deep clean for roughly an hour.



Case Study 3

He called me and said he needed work done on his locs. He came over for a consult and his locs were so full of stuff. He said he had been using "normal" over the counter shampoo for THREE years. To the sink we went. Here are the before and after pics from just washing his locs.



Here is some of the gunk.....



Case Study 4

This is a client of Amy (aka the dread queen)'s that used bar soap and a natural shampoo. the only problem is ... the natural soap is totally full of superfat and their website states it is NOT good for dreadlocks.


My dreadlock journey is a very spiritual journey. So for me to not wash my dreadlocks or to wash them with something that wasn't made for them seems a bit ... well, it doesn't make sense in my mind. No where in the Bible does it say "cleanliness is next to godliness" however God makes it very clear that we need to be clean.

For those of you thinking that dreadlocks aren't in the bible....

"All the days of the vow of his separation, no razor may be used on his head until the time is fulfilled for which he separated himself to the LORD. He will be holy, and he must let the locks of hair on his head grow long." Numbers 6:5

PLEASE NOTE: in this scripture, my mom (jennie) decided to grab Strong's Concordance and looked up LOCKS. She wanted to make sure it was about dreadlocks and not a loc of hair. The definition of this from hebrew is: (page 97 of the Hebrew Bible section ... haha, im punny!) reference # 6545 "the hair (as disheveled):locs).

I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves. One thing I would like to stress ... this is more common than uncommon. I hear so many people with locs that state they wish people would stop being ignorant about dreadlocks and them smelling. Sincerely, if everyone washed their locs properly with water and a good dreadlock shampoo, we wouldn't have the connotation that ALL dreadlocks are dirty and smell. If that is the look you are wanting, that's fine. But if you are wanting to have healthy, clean locs ... well, maybe washing on a more regular schedule is best.

If you need to bake a cake and it calls for baking soda and you use baking powder, what happens? Well, your cake doesn't come right. It doesn't rise and has a very, very weird taste. So why not just use what is needed to make the cake delish?

Same for dreadlocks. There are shampoos that are MADE specifically for dreadlocks. Although some have still shown to cause some issues. I have found so far, after trying several other dreadlock only shampoos, that the Dread Soap from Dreadheadhq is by far the best. AND their genius has pulled through again and they now have a new ORGANIC SHAMPOO! ahhhh, it's wonderful.

"Finally he (Samson) told her (Delilah)his secret. He said to her, "My hair has never been cut (or brushed), for I have been dedicated to God from the time I was conceived. If my head were shaved, my strength would leave me; I would become weak, and be just like other men." Judges 16:17

forgive me....but i don't want to be like other people.