I'm close to 1.5 years and most of my dreads are mature, some are locked but not mature yet and some small strands of hair are still in the process of forming. Every dread has its own timeline and that is very cool in my opinion! It seems that i am in a growing stage right now. My hair grows so fast at the moment like never seen before, its amazing!
I hope it goes well I actually have three dreads that I had to tnr and it seems like they are very slow to shrink and mature. So patience is definitely key lol.
I guess you are right with that. I think the stiffer hair gets using a method, the longer it takes to shrink and mature. Freeform is the loosest way so shrinking and zigzags and loops come early and it matures kind of fast.
Worst case is crochet, everthing is so stiff that it takes forever to recover and start to dread the "normal" way
I am unsure if I want to separate the hair at all, honestly. I like the idea of free form, but I worry about extreme matted clumps. I probably will ahaha.
you can make that decision later on when parts start to knot together. Personally i like fat dreads, i separate just a bit after every wash and allow small dreads to combine. My hair needs 5-6 hours to airdry at the moment, so i keep on separating to avoid getting giant locks and a tremendous increase of drytime.
Hey Harley, welcome on here! Starting the journey with short hair is not bad at all, it takes a little longer, but on the other hand you don't lose
much length and separating might be a bit easier in the early messy stages of natural dreading. I'm happy that i have started my journey with short hair!
very nice! Seems that you don't have to deal with much shriking at the moment, or am i wrong? Reaching the one year mark was a big step for me and you are very close. Good luck for your journey!
crochet was a fail for sure and did a lot of harm to your hair. Neglect or t&r is the way to go and everything will turn out fine. You need patience, no matter which method you pick! Good luck for your restart!
washing is very important and will help your hair progress a lot. Don't be too gentle about scrubbing your scalp with the finger tips, it feels great and helps to also loosen dead skin. Rinsing after it with cold water is very good too and your hair gets less oily. Use a good dread shampoo, scrub your scalp and rinse out everything well with cold water, that's the trick!
very nice! I guess it will probably shrink some more the following months! Mine has stopped getting shorter (or staying at the same length for months) after a year. Then the growing will kick in, which is great!
very nice dreads! They look nice and round, do you also have flat ones?
no, i quit fb a while ago...
