Hey guys, ive been growing my hair for a year now and its about time i finally dread my hair. im just wondering how long it will be and how exactly to make them nice and neat looking. my girlfriend has a couple and theyre started to get loops poking out from them, im hoping to prevent that. this is how long my hair is right now... :afro: sorry if the pic is kind of big
Its quite difficult to prevent your hair from doing anything, especially with your type of hair. you probably shouldn't get dreads if you aren't prepared for them to do their own thing. crocheting will prevent loops but damaging, choice is up to you really. and how long as in time or length of hair?
The dreads will be somewhere between 2/3 and half the length of your current hair, there are lots of variables like hair type, sectioning size, starting method and how the starting method is executed that all play a role in how long they are at the start. As far as neatness goes, you can create neat sections but they'll still be messy, wild and have loose hairs when they're young, it's just part of the process. Loops come about when the hair shrinks, as the dreadlocks get older and more mature, the hairs compress and the dreads tighten. Unfortunately not all parts of the dread will shrink at the same rate and that's when you get loops, lumps and bumps. There's really not a lot you can do about it apart from going really hardcore with the crochet hook, which has it's own downsides. Since you have wavy hair your it should lock faster, but also be more likely to have less uniform dreads. I'm not trying to shoot you down or anything, just trying to make sure you're aware that the messiness and loops are just part of having maturing dreads.
my initial thoughts - you need to research them more. dreads WILL loop and go wild and have crazy lumpy bits, its part of the process. neat and nice looking either takes a very (very) long time or a lot of maintenance..
Take a good look at what your hair is now... Now look at your "ideal dreads" and get comfortable with the fact that they will not look like that! I had an image in my head, and they did nothing like what I wanted them to do. Honestly, I learned to love that. Dreads taught me patience and being okay with the way nature took me instead of forging my own path. I just went with it, and I was much happier while I kept that up.
