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Dirty dreads, done dirt cheap

By Kate Kowsh

June 26, 2006

San Diego--Bob Marley, doobage, drum circles, dreadlocks.… Sound familiar? San Diego is inundated with a bunch of hippies! Our great city has more dreaded heads per capita than Jamaica. Okay, so that’s a made-up statistic... But if you look around, it’s not too hard to believe.

More lifestyle than hairstyle, dreads have long been revered as an outward display of an internal belief system. Because of the amount of patience and dedication required to create dreads, their identity is rooted in the process- not the result. But, as more San Diegans look to don the dreads, quicker methods are seeping into the mainstream.

Two Ocean Beach locals out for a stroll (Photo © Deana Zabaldo)

According to www.dreadlocks.com, there’re a handful of ways to acquire dreads. One of them is “backcombing,” which involves tying hair off in sectioned ponytails and combing each one backward. After a few hours and some pretty intense laboring, knots form. “Wool sweater rubbing” involves rubbing a wool piece of clothing in circles all over your head. This method’s said to be pretty painful, not to mention, probably makes you look like an ass. The “neglect method” involves doing nothing at all. The hair can still be washed regularly (It’s encouraged.) but brushing is out of the question.

After three or four years, true dreads form on their own. But, for those who don’t want to wait, there are salons that specialize in yielding professionally tapered dreads.

L.T. Lewis, a stylist at Hall of Fame Coiffeurs salon near National City, is a self-taught dreads guru, with two year-old dreads of his own. Although dreads are typically associated with African Americans and Jamaicans, Lewis say he’s dreaded people of different ethnicities. “I have six white clients I do on a regular basis, I have four Mexican,” he explained. “For me it doesn’t matter. If you want dreads, come to me.”

Some stylists use a chemical component to help make the dreads set, but Lewis says it’s unnecessary. “I use a twist method, where I take their hair and put it in half-inch square partings.”

The size of the partings depends on how large people want their dreads to be. Using his thumb and index fingers, he twists the hair, adding in a little beeswax in the direction the hair grows. The initial process takes about three hours. Afterwards, Lewis instructs his clients to avoid washing their hair for three to four weeks, to let it set properly. “As you’re sleeping, going about your day, the dreading process does itself,” he explained. “It takes about a good 3-4 months or so to really get it locked in to where, when you wash it, it doesn’t fall out.”

But knots don’t come cheap. Lewis charges $95 for the initial visit and $65 for maintenance visits.

Known as the dreads specialist, Lewis says he has a pretty regular clientele of about 20-25 people per month. “If people go to a salon asking about dreads, they’re told to come to me,” he said.

Some dread enthusiasts, however, scuff at the fastidiously tapered, impostor dreads, calling them a crock.

Tom, a 30 year-old musician who’s lived in Ocean Beach on and off for the past decade, has been growing his dreads for more than 16 years. He acquired them by allowing them to form on their own, a process that he says took a lot of patience.

“That [store-bought dreads] takes out the whole meditation aspect of it and the-putting-in-the-time-and-energy aspect,” he said. “It’s cheating all the way.”

Tom bristles at all the misconceptions about people with dreadlocks. “A lot of people have this misunderstanding that people with dreads are dirty and they don’t wash their hair.”

And with the mainstream breathing down his neck, he does what he can to throw off all the insincere imitators who inquire about where he got his. “I’m like, ‘Oh, I got ‘em at Vons--They’re clip-ons.’”

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