My journey from 29 inches of REALLY straight hair to lovely chaos :D

Hi everyone!

I planned to do a timeline before but didn't get around yet, so now here we go

Now that I'm 10 months into my completely natural dread journey, I can finally start to completely let go of my expectations. I feel like until recently, I still somehow feared how others would react to my appearance if I left my hair open in public, so I mostly wore it put up in a knot. Now I just let it flow and I feel wonderful and I love my hair more than anytime before.

I started dreading because I felt uncomfortable with the person I had become. I was impatient with my kids, had all kinds of silly expectations of myself and the people I love most, so to me, growing locs is my way back to my spiritual, patient and accepting self. I cant put it in words like I want to, my poor english limits me, but I hope you`ll understand my point

More to come! I plan to update monthly from now on

So this is me shortly before I stopped using conditioner and a hairbrush. My hair was near hip length then, but I rarely wore it open because the little one on my back used to pull it quite a bit

This is about 4 weeks into neglecting... sorry for the pitiful bathroom selfies btw, but hubby just doesn't get it right

Discovered a knot!!!!!

This is about seventh week stage...

...plus a pic hogging dwarfette

Some sectioning at about 10 week stage:

12 weeks, some more sectioning... still no dreads to be found. I was starting to think nothing was ever gonna happen

Wrapped some strands with a few knots in them... just to indicate where I'm heading

Nearing 4 month stage... I did a few tnr using the sections that had formed naturally, but instantly felt bad about it because it felt like I was cheating on myself. Can anyone relate to that? They all fell apart anyway, so no harm done

Sadly I didn't find a single useful picture for month 5 to 9, there was so much going on here that I completely forgot

But I have some really nice 100% knot-free hair to show off because my 5yr old doesnt ever, EVER want to have witch hair like mommy :P

My 2yr old is completely with me, though, and asked me to make her look just like me. Ummm. Doesn`t work yet, so I made here an Em-looks-like-Mommy-doll :D

Now I have reached 10 months, and all kinds of weird, funny, loopy things are happening every day. Most time I look like Ijust had an electric shock, but i love every minute

4 weeks 10 months

updated by @melanie-bar: 02/05/15 10:12:49AM

Your dreads are AWESOME! What do you use to color your hair?? Mine is the same color and I use Henna Hut henna. Your little one is adorable. Keep up the loopiness.... it rules.

Thank you! I use 100% pure henna from the organic supermarket (Im from Germany, it seems I can get pure henna more easily than the US people... also means that I spend a LOT of money when I order from dreadlocksshampoo.com. Ah well...)

Casey Fay said:

Your dreads are AWESOME! What do you use to color your hair?? Mine is the same color and I use Henna Hut henna. Your little one is adorable. Keep up the loopiness.... it rules.

Wow! They look great! I hope i have one or a few dreads with as crazy a loop as that one!

Haha, thank you All of my about 40 dreads look that way, thats my inner weirdo struggeling for freedom :D

Jamison Johnston said:

Wow! They look great! I hope i have one or a few dreads with as crazy a loop as that one!

Another babywearing mama!! I have to put mine up and wrap a scarf around them when I have my daughter up on my back, otherwise she tries to pull them off! She's only seven and a half months so I'm hoping she outgrows this phase. I too had very long straight hair -- waist length and straighter than sticks. It's only to my shoulders right now. I've had so much shrinkage!

Yours look great. <3