Hi, I`m Polly. I´m 58 years old and I started my first - and last - set of dreadlocks on 10th May 2018. (It was obvious to me that, at my age, dreadlocks are a lifetime commitment).
Most of my life I`ve had at least waist-length hair and the most repeated comment I ever got about my appearance was, you have really beautiful hair, why don`t you do something with it? I always liked it best loose and free and had neither time, patience nor talent to "do something with it".
By the time I hit 50, the same types of people who had been coercing me all along to "do something with it" were beginning to insinuate that there was something wrong about women over 50 having long hair (it was still waist length and I still preferred wearing it loose). They said, after 50 your hair hair gets thin and it doesn`t look so good. I always said, mine`s not thin, and it wasn`t, it was like a lion`s mane. But by then I`d fallen in love with dreadlocks. For two years I hummed and hawed and researched. I only found two sources of information I liked - yours and a Youtube channel called "Lazy Dreads". Both said salons are bad, both said wax is bad, both said crochet is bad. On 10th May - a national holiday where I live - I twisted and ripped my dreadlocks (very gently). I used no products, made minimal knots and left at least three inches at the roots and the tips free to do their own thing.
I`ve always had a rhythm of about once a week washing, and gave up residue-leaving shampoos about 4 years ago.
Everywhere people are looking to speed up the locking process - I`m looking to slow it down.
Is there such a thing as dreadlocks locking too fast?
After 4 months, every single dreadlock has wild loops and zigzags and most of them are flat.
The right side is about 4 inches shorter than the left side (I`m not sure which side I sleep on, I think I toss and turn).
On the left side, the difference between the shortest dreadlock and the longest is about one foot.
I am not actually that much concerned about this, I think it is normal for dreadlocks which weren`t forced into something with products and salons. I tried to crochet some of the "worst" lumps just once and didn`t like it, actually I have never liked metal in my hair. They were probably still too loose for the crochet to have done any damage, but I didn't like the sound or the feeling of something metal going into my hair, and after the next wash the crocheted lumps were worse than ever so I left it alone. Increasingly I feel that any type of coercion or violence is a bad thing. Probably all hair would form dreadlocks if left to its own devices, which makes me wonder why would-be dreadheads can`t just leave it to its own devices.
Now the people who were trying to coerce me into "doing something with it" are asking questions like, "will you have to shave your head when you don`t want dreadlocks any more"?.
Aren`t people weird?
Dreadlocks for me are not a whim of fashion, they are like a final relaxation into what I always was. Dreadlocks say for me , "I am not civilized".
At the same time, if anyone can tell me how to slow the process down I`d be grateful, because at the moment I`m appalled at what hair can do if you let it.
Or should I just throw all the mirrors out of the window?
updated by @panther: 08/21/18 04:57:32AM
