First post after stalking the forum for a couple of weeks so figured it should be on a subject I've got some experience with....
I've had dreadlocks for 11 years in total, my first set I had for 2 years and cut off, then immediately started growing the set I've still got today.
A few points to mention:
1)I'm not religous, never have been.
2) my hair (when not dreaded) is straight and a little thin if i remember correctly.
3) My dreadlocks were never a way of "rebelling" as i've never felt the need to rebel.
4) I'm white british with no family members/affairs known of that would've influenced my hair and its suitability for dreading.
5) I clean my dreadlocks in the same way that I'm guessing most of you wash your hair... shampoo and water.
6) My dreadlocks have never been a barrier to employment.
OK so here goes:
First set of dreads I did the stereotypical white-boy thing and grew my hair long, sectioned it off, backcombed it then used whatever wax the internet told me to. They were thick, too neat to look remotely natural, waxy and most probably... smelly. I woke up with a waxy pillow each morning, had dreadlocks that seemed to take days to dry and when I cut them off the hardened wax in the centre of them made me realise the error of my ways.
I did everything wrong and didnt help with the stereotype.
I then cut these off thinking I'd need to to get the job I wanted, got the job and was told I didnt need to cut them off and should grow them again....
This time I grew them from 1" long freshly cut hair, no wax, no sectioning, no backcombing, just letting it dread naturally. 9 years later I still have "the nicest dreads I've seen on a white boy" and in my job working with workers from various african countries I quite regularly get asked by people of various African/Carribean origins (with and without dreads) how I got mine so nice and what they should do to theirs. One of my patients was a rasta as was his family, they asked if I was... I said no... they said "cool locks, nice to see a nice set"
The only abuse I've had about my hair is from white chavs, and a gang (all of which had short hair, girlfriends with chemically straightened hair) who said they wanted their haircut back haha.
So in my experience:
Wax is bad (its designed to hold hair in place... dreads are knots and knots get tighter by being allowed to move)
Sectioning and backcombing usually ends up with dreads that dont look natural (think of the perfect center-parting and uniform thickness)
Dirty dreadlocks are similar to waxy dreads.... they hold moisture and never tighen up properly = dirty smells, dirty reputation.
If you're good at your job... hair doesnt get in the way of that, and a good employer will know that.
Will try find some pictures if anyones bothered... chances are this threads died though so i'll hold back for now.
oh yeah.... Hi everyone 
