Tidbits: Dreadlocks and Felting

A few times each month, I will post some random hair-related information, which I’m calling “tidbits”. I spend hours each day writing responses to questions I receive on this blog, so it is a nice change of pace. This one came from guest writer, Dr. Jim Arnold…

Many rastafarians and others with dreadlocks notice that hair which is not in a dreadlock never grows as long as the dreadlocks do. If you have ever examined a person with dreadlocks, you would have probably noticed this yourself — the “dreads” are longer than the the rest of their un-cut hair or beard.

The occurance is related to felting. Felting is the phenomena of hair (or fur as in the making of hats) matted together in a complex entanglement which is almost impossible to separate back to individual hairs. It occurs as a result of the scales on the exterior of each hair. All the scales point in one direction, back toward the follicle. In entangled hair, the rearward pointing scales allows each hair to easily move forward but not backward. With the hairs moving in only one direction, the mat gets tighter and tighter. Beaver hair, which is fine, demonstrates this phenomenon extremely well which is why beaver pelts were of such great value in making hats. Some hats, especially American cowboy hats, still mark the quality of a hat with the amount of beaver fur in the hat, ie “Beaver X” for a little, and a high quality hat having more X’s such as “Beaver XXXX”.

By Dr. Jim Arnold