Giant Nest'o'Hair

But...it doesn't mean that I'm wrong...just gotta add that. but...I REALLY would love to see what your hair does when it is figured out what is messing with your hair and making it not happy...

updated by @star-gryphon: 07/11/15 11:58:58PM

Off topic but your hair is just so beautiffulll. My hair used to be that long ! Also, Im nowhere near an expert, but I have to agree with some of the other suggestions madeabout doing Twist and Rip

Thanks everyone for the ideas so far!

It's definitely because your hair is so long. There is another timeline that shows someone with hair this long. I think it's featured... but yeah, the same thing happened to them. Long hair speeds up the process A LOT. Usually people see sectioning/a little knotting in the first month, but your hair is probably equivalent to like 3+ months of dreads.

I'm wondering if you are separating too much? Wait until your sure it's all knotted and then rip apart. You'll actually be tearing the knots apart. The webbing of the hair when you pull it apart is what is leading me to believe it hasn't knotted.

So yeah, my advice would be letting the nest mat up, then ripping it apart into sections.

I'm really excited to see the progress!I worry about the weight and comfort of letting it all mat together for a while. Then the time and energy and effort of tearing it into sections after. It could get very discouraging and frustrating.@Star, I'm wondering the same thing about washing. I agree 100% about going back to the old familiar way of washing. But what is her hair going to do during that time? And what to do sort of 'control' it a bit so she doesn't end up with one massive dread with beads and wrap sucked into it?Have I made you feel kinda like a science experiment yet Alicia? you really are going to have some amazing dreads!

Oh definitely don't let it mat so far as to being like one big mass! That would not be good lol. Just make sure it IS knotted before trying to separate.

I agree with the washing ideas. Washing more often will speed up the progress and you don't need anything that speeds up the progress! So only wash as often as you see fit. Maybe more oils or something, like Star said?

To keep everything from getting all sucked into everything else.... I dont know... Do you think it would be easier to separate everything if there was someone helping you do it? It's not like you can see the back of your head while you're doing it.

I also started with sorta long hair, and I had the same problem. I think it has to do with how your hair naturally falls, not a length specific thing since I've always had issues with that part to get it under control even when it was short.First off, you separate too often. I did that too in the beginning after not separating for a few weeks (beaver tail...). After that I freaked out and removed all knots and then separated daily for awhile and it was going nowhere. The hair needs to be able to form dreads, by separating too often you're destroying knots and the hair stays in that beginning dread phase of knotting and tangling rather then forming actual dreads. At a certain point I didn't separate for awhile and a beaver tail formed really bad, after some painful separation I had well formed dreads at the back of my head.Also, when you separate you need to make sure you don't shift the knots to the roots. New hairs get tangled up in there too and that forms the bird nest. I pretty much handled it by having someone else do a very good detanging and separation session every week, making sure no knots stay on the scalp (I mean hairs being pulled horizontally over the scalp, specifically). At a certain point the dreads decided to "hold" and not get up in each others business. For much of the time I had a massive dread form there and eventually I separated it (painful!) and I had pretty thin dreads again, and the birds nest tangling stuff completely stopped.Now it is actually a problem for me because I want to get the dreads to congo but most of them refuse to. Some congo's form solidly over a week, I tried to get some to form over 4 months and then I thought they were solid and pulled on it and found out they were connected by a single hair and completely separate otherwise.

Hahaha that's something I hadn't thought of. How the separating is being done. Separate from the scalp down. If you're pulling hair from bottom to top, that's going to create a nest of knottiness at the roots.

What I do is I just pull them apart from the tips. From the roots doesn't work for me, but maybe it does for others. Just too painful.After I separate them there's usually a part near the scalp that doesn't separate because you can't pull it far enough apart (due to it being connected to your head and all). Some connections between the dreads survive and these cling to the scalp and cause the whole birds nest thing. It's very hard to do this yourself, so I ask a friend or my mom to separate and make sure there's no connections near the scalp left.

I didn't think of that! I separate from the roots down as well. but...I have a different hair type...and my hair started dreading from the tips...and worked up. So...I dunno. or...a few hairs would form together...in the little loopies and tangles...and...I'd just baby those...

I don't know...everyone's hair is different..and my beginnings were so long ago I've forgotten a lot!