Heh, she said “tool”

Here at Seattle Dreads, we heart dreadlock tools. Using a dreadlock tool is a time honored and super-super effective way to keep your dreads tiiiiiight—even at the roots. This technique is great, especially if you want to avoid wax or product or get lazy about palm rolling your dreads to keep them in shape.

Some folks refer to this process as  “crocheting” (using a crochet hook) or “latching” (using a latch hook, you know, the kind kids make craft rugs out of,) to tighten up dreads, and the process is pretty much the same as the dread tools we use—only a dread tool looks something like a giant, mutant, blunt sewing needle (see the Nappylocs store for a general example of what we’re talking about).

In fact, although we here at Seattle Dreads make our own dread tools (and will be selling them soon), we highly recommend the Nappylocs tool if you want to go high end. We make ours out of pure copper to keep the cost down, but Nappylocs are pretty little investments made of sterling silver—a nice treat for your hair (or a cool gift for the dreadhead in your life).

(For the budget conscious dreadie, though, our early prototypes were constructed out of wire we had laying around the house. We made a completely serviceable dread tool using nothing more than a needle nose pliers and a straightened out paperclip.)

Essentially, you use the tool to weave and pull hair through thin or weak parts of the body of a dread, and to pull the dread up at the roots to pick up any slack or looseness. We’ve also found the tool to be super useful to blunt the ends of dreads instead of using thread to “sew” tips in place.

Some things to be aware of: dreads that are tightened using a tool are tight—sometimes tighter, at least temporarily, than the parts of the dread that were backcombed and matured. The difference is noticeable up close, but in our experience, after using the tool, wash and dry them well, and in a few days, the tooled parts blend right in with the rest of the dread.

It’s hard to describe the process, although it’s really, really simple. We dug up a pretty good YouTube video done by Atlanta loctician Syde that does a good job of showing the process.

We’d love to hear your questions or comments about using a dreadlock tool. And stay tuned for the launch of our wee little shop where we’ll sell out version of the super tool (along with some other tasty treats).

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