Hillary, you don't need products to help straight hair lock...however, I know the issues involved in trying to dread straight hair..I have very straight hair...and it takes a particular kind of dedication LOL I'm about to go out now, but tonight I'll come back on here and throw some tips and tricks for dreading straight hair your way...xx

Ye, that's basically nothing but hair gel with lots of extras added...all it'll do is build up in your hair and you'll end up with little flakes all over and in your dreads...yucko!

My apologies for the late reply - had an unexpectedly busy night last night! But here I am :P

OK Dreading straight hair is more of a process than dreading wavy/curl/frizzy hair, but there are certainly tricks to achieving great locks...I have spent years of trial and error to find methods to dread my straight hair, and these always work for me :))

* Keep your hair 'dry' as you can, that way the hairs are more likely to frizz, and thereby create their own kinks (and can therefore have something to grip onto each other with)...obviously, you'll need to wash now and the frequency is really determined person to person...but I was at very most once a week (but I often go a week and a half to two weeks inbetween washes)...

* When you do wash, I have found this method invaluable to create root-matting. I used to persist with the root-rubbing, but always found that soon as I washed my hair (no matter what I used, the wash (even though I was gentle) would always result in all of this root-work being lost, it would all un-tangle and I'd be left with inches of undreaded root again...BUT...now I use Dreadhead shampoo, I we my dreads thoroughly, and apply the shampoo to my scalp and wash my scalp (no need to apply it t the length of your dreads, as they'll be washed when you rinse and the shampoo falls over them)...but while the shampoo is on your scalp/roots, ROOT-RUB WITH THE SHAMPOO IN! Give it a good matting-up, and I go in BOTH directions, clockwise and counter-clockwise. I then give my head a good rinse with warm water, then a final rinse in cold (stimulates blood flow and lessens the chance of dandruff and the like). After my dreads have completely dried (I air-dry, so it's usually the next day), I seperate the roots and give them a good palm-rolling. I was amazed, after only the first few times of using this technique, my once 3" undreaded roots became dreaded almost right-up to my scalp! And this was with NO work outside of washing them!! :D

* Loose hairs are also a huge problem with straight hair, as they're straight and very unlikely to ever catch-on to a dread and mat-up. So I sew my long loose hairs into the dreads. I have described this process in many threads in these dread tribes...so I won't re-describe it unless necessary...but I'm sure you guys have already seen me talking about it in a few recent topics..works great!

* Be careful twisting the roots of straight-hair dreads, unless you;re gonna take turns twisting them in opposite directions...I've had a few dreads in the past that the roots have gone all wonky because I've only ever twisted them the same way...this method is great for curly hair, it does encourage them to lock, but doesn't do much for straight hair...but I've found something that works better...can be done on problem roots, or even on lengths of dreads, or even just sections that haven't dreaded-up as fast as the sections around it...

ok you get yourself a bunch of strong (not too thick) Rubber Bands...and I don't mean the dreadlock bands..I mean, Office kinda rubber bands, the ones that are about an inch and a half - two inches in length un-stretched. Regular rubber bands. Now, you put these rubber bands on your problem section, but stretch it out as you put it on, so it looks kinda like a criss-cross pattern, and when you let go of the dread, it bunches that section together like zig-zags (wow this is really hard to explain, hope u guys know what I'm talkn about lol)...leave this in for at least a day (more if you want, I guess)...when you take the band out, your hair in that section will be all kinked, and you give it one hell of a palm-rolling...this method creates some way for your hair to grip together and thereby lock-up.

* Straight hair locks have a tendancy to unravel at the bottom before they mature into really tight locks...and the best way to fix this, or prevent it, is through the rip n pull method. This is where you grab your lock with both hands, separate the lock into two sections at the tip, one section in each hand, and pull them apart, rip the dreadlock in two sections right up the dread, as far as you can go. Put the two sections back together. Do exactly the same thing again, but with two different sections. Continue this over and over. With each time, you will be working your way down the dread to the tip, and creating mats all the way down. If your hair is a particular pain in the proverbial behind, you can rubber-band the tip o stop it unravelling, and give it a chance to lock-up that way.

Well, these are the think I could think of off the top of my head...if I think of any more, I'll be sure to drop em in here later :) Hope this helps!