dreadlocks crochet recovery timeline

so basically heres the storry

i started my dreadlocks in a saloon when i was 13 because i didnt know better and they backcombed them and used wax but after more or less half a year i realized that it wasnt good at all so i just let them grow for about 2 years and i cut them short occasionally thats what they looked like at this piont

anyway if i look back i think they where pretty cool but at this time i was 15 and pretty unsecure about my appearence (mostly because i wanted to look attractive for girls

so i talked with a few dreadheads and they all recomended me to start crocheting, so thats what i did. At the beginning the looked great and really neat and i was really happy about them but as time went on i felt like more and more hair was braking out and alot of scalp was showing this is what they looked like in the end

I felt that something was going wrong so i searched the interwebs and found this site and read everything about wax and crocheting and i felt like i needed to restart them but at this point i have had them for 4 years and even if i wasnt happy with them i loved them and didnt want to cut them off. so i decided to cut them to half the length and "restart" them going natural

this is a pic i took the week after cutting them

and since then i dont do anything at all

this was after more or less half a year

and this is what they look today (litterally took the pics a few minutes ago)

I wrote this today because now i love my dreads even more than i ever did before in my journey.

And i am very thankfull to everybody on this site for the incredible ammount of informations you can get about how to get healthy dreads and a big thank you to SE for starting this site.

And i also wanted to show that even if you messed up really bad with your dreads in the beginning you dont nececerrally need to to shave them of but with a bit of patience they will sort themselves out, just dont touch them.

again sorry for my english but as i said before it is not my mother language and therefore a bit hard to write without sounding weird.

thanks for reading

bene

updated by @bene: 02/15/15 04:09:06AM

thanks craig

dont worry they will get longer with time

but i think the fact that you surf weekly will make them become mature very fast.

I envy you because i like surfing thought only longboardin because i suck at it, i wish i could go surfing every week

but the sea is too far away

anyway thanks

dudeee they look great. way to represent Deutschland woooo

crocheting is a vicious circle

because if you start crocheting they will look great very fast, therefore the temptaion is really big, but with the time you will need more and more crocheting to repair the frizz caused by the broken hair and the circle repeats itself.

Notice the third pic. with the red jumper, there i have like crazy loose hair thats all the hair that breaks out when you crochet

then i just left them alone and they simply formed new dreads , notice how much more dreads i have got on the last pictures than on the second?

so never ever fall to the temptaion of crocheting :D

to bekki: i think patience is everything dreads dont come over night you have to keep in mind that between the first and the last picture there are probably 4-5 years (cant remember when i took the first one)

they look the best of all in the last picture and by best that includes neatest its funny that all the work to make em look neat didnt work but doing nothing and they look amazing

during the crochet period the ends look way thicker then the roots too

couple more years of that abuse and u might have lost a couple

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

the thing that makes crocheting "dangerous" for dreads is that in the beginning the do look really neat , and it takes a long time before you can see any damage.

this for example is a pic of when i began to crochet them:

soaringeagle said:

they look the best of all in the last picture and by best that includes neatest its funny that all the work to make em look neat didnt work but doing nothing and they look amazing

during the crochet period the ends look way thicker then the roots too

couple more years of that abuse and u might have lost a couple

updated by @bene: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

the damage is there right away and u can see it in just how they hand more stiff

Bene said:

the thing that makes crocheting "dangerous" for dreads is that in the beginning the do look really neat , and it takes a long time before you can see any damage.

this for example is a pic of when i began to crochet them:

soaringeagle said:

they look the best of all in the last picture and by best that includes neatest its funny that all the work to make em look neat didnt work but doing nothing and they look amazing

during the crochet period the ends look way thicker then the roots too

couple more years of that abuse and u might have lost a couple

--
My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1
updated by @soaring-eagle: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

Yay! I love success stories!! Your dreads are beautiful! and stop apologizing for your english! Your English is perfect!! You don't sound weird!

Nice! It only took a half a year for them to grow that much? Ive had mine 3 months and I want to get them to shoulder length, how long do you think that will take?

i honestly dont know

but i found that mature dreads grow much faster than new dreads because new dreads always shrink while they tighten up

plus it all depends on youre natural hair growth speed

Zachary Hakes said:

Nice! It only took a half a year for them to grow that much? Ive had mine 3 months and I want to get them to shoulder length, how long do you think that will take?