Cass

if i had 1/1000th of what i have saved people

you know ive seen people spend 25,000 dollars maintaining dreads that way and having them balding

its insane how much some people spend doing severe harm to their dreads and calling it maintenance

we had 1 girl spend 5 grand they did everything so wrong she had another 5 grand in medical bills several surgical procedures and lots of antibiotics all caused by wax infected breakouts

she had her next surgery already scheduled when she found us, then had more dreading in weeks of wax removal then 2 years of the most forceful stupid maintenance ..her skin cleared right up  and the surgery was canceled

absolutely stop the crochet!

its not maintenance its destruction your only fixing the harm your doing

dreads are sooooo easy to care for

wash with a dread shampoo www.dreadlockshampoo.com is a fave around here

wash 1-3 times a week don't towel dry

try not to wear hats scarves or anything ass much as u can

the only maintenance they ever need is separating so they don't grow together..that's it

wash and go... the best part of dreads is they need no maintenance

so considering they were crocheted they don't look 1/2 bad at all though i am kinda an expert at spotting whats been done by how they look  you have just a lil telltale signs ..not bad

you see ho 1 kinda sticks out weird .. that's the stiffness (though its not bad and is exaggerated by the shortness) they are also alil extra frizzy from the broken hairs ..but neither is nearly as bad as typical crochet so you  shouldn't have the 6 month delay in dreading and 3 years to lose the stiffness

they look fairly typical for just backcombed dreads if it wernt for those 2 minor hints that the hook was used

most likely in 3-6 months  it will be very hard to tell.. and usualy i can tell it was used even if just once up to 5 years later

i didn't think thry looked overly crocheted from the profile pic but wanted to be sure ..yes you can see lil hints they were but no its not bad and  shouldn't have a severe impact on the process

i was just about to look at them haha ok give me a sec

ps ..remove the . from your name replace with a space or it breaks links from chat

can you post a more detailed closer up photo  crochet doesn't always take 3 years to recover from 1 use but if they are tight hard and stiff then yes that's what you can expect..its an extremely damaging method that drastically delays dreading properly and the stiffness can take years to go away  (so sorry to be the bearer of bad news wish you found us sooner)

welcome unfortunately crochet is a very bad mistake that can take years to recover from 1 use

welcome to the community