In the beginning...

It was just a simple idea between a couple of friends with fresh dreads that created the first 'spiralock'. Helen and I were close friends, living in the same remote town, first falling pregnant at the same time, sharing the joy of our sons being born only a couple of weeks apart. Then sharing a market stall selling our homemade craft, closely followed by sharing a passion for dreadlocks.

It was all these events that led us to the making of the very first spiralock.

I had a this head full of dreadlocks, but a constant struggle to find a suitable band to tie them up. Regular elastics were too tight and caused headaches, or too loose and slipped out. Thick elastics where great..but only for the first week or 2 before they stretched and stretched and stretched no more, becoming just a thick stiff band.

Helen and I love to be creative, so now that we both had dreadlocks, we would often spend afternoons together decorating them by stitching in shells and handmade beads, while our children played.

It was Helen who gifted me with a cute little felted wire coil she had created to wrap around a single dread as a decoration. This little creation soon became what is known as Helen's 'minilocks'. From this little 'minilock', the evolution began and the spiralock was born.

I began using this little minilock to wrap and hold a couple of dreads..then a couple more, until it could hold no more. I wanted Helen to make a bigger one, so I could use it to tie up all my dreads in a pony tail. The little minilock just wasn't going to hold up to the challenge, even if it was longer...the wire just was not strong enough.

And so the search began for the materials......the best wire...the best way to felt onto the wire...the best length to make...the best way to wear it. We spent many afternoons together playing around with different materials and trialling different designs. Soon we had a big bundle each of these wire dread ties we were using everyday, often comparing colour combinations we had felted and dread hairstyles we had achieved. Over the months of constant use and amazement of how great this little dread tie was, we knew we had to share it with all other dread heads. So we went about making little batches each and brainstorming a 'name' for this handy little product. 'Spiralock' was what we decided to call it.

We took this little invention to Facebook in late 2011 and started a business page. It was such a buzz to get our first orders and get feedback from customers describing our invention as a 'game changer' and 'the best dread tie ever'. A lot of our early customers are still customers today, which has been a special part of our success. Never could we ever have imagined the success that would have come from spiralocks and the adventure it has taken us. We are so grateful every day and I often wonder in disbelief how it has even happened. Thank goodness I decided to take the dreadlocks journey way back then...