new dreads and lots of questions

hi there. first i wanted to say thanks for all the great info i have already gotten from this site but now that i finally have my own dreads, i have lots more questions. My dreads are only about a month old so i know they will change a lot. they are backcombed in and my friend spent forever on them--my hair is very long, but i think they are looking pretty good for being this new. after two weeks i went to the beach and the water made them shrink and loop up. i wanted to know how much shrinkage i should expect? might my long hair come above my shoulders, or is that not too likely? also, how fat will they likely get? when we put them in, i didnt realize they fatten up so much. i like them the size they are now. do some ppl have dreads that dont fatten up very much? i read that some get to the size of the actual hair section. is that true? they will be huge then! i have one at the nape of my neck with a double-sized section (see photos in my profile page--i tried to post here but they wont upload), should i seperate that now before it gets massive? how do i seperate? thanks in advance for the answers and thanks for this great website!

updated by @nomad-delight: 01/13/15 08:51:36PM

here are the uploads

they indeed will be the size of the sections u do not want sections bigger then an inch

they can shrinh from waist to ears but typically 1/2 to 2/3 is normal but like i said a 90%$ looss in length isnt unheard odf but 50-75 is more normal

i dunno if redoing em or splitting em is the best answer its always best to start giung natural and use the hairs natural sections as a guide

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

ok its hard to see the rest of the section sizes but that 1 looks about the size of my forarm that could be 4 or 6 or more dreads easy

the rest i cant tell but count emm if u have over 30 id say only that 1 or a couple of real big ones are too huge

that 1 tho unless u want an arm size dread there id say that needs to be redone as 4 or more dreads.. no less then 4 u cant split it in 4 u gotta redo it

if u have any more that big id concider redoing any that are too huge

im guessing yiur freind had no experience doing dreads?

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

oh but other then that they look good (dont want u discouraged they do look good other then the odvios issues)

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

thanks fot the super fast reply. wow, thats a lot of shrinkage. and a LOT of fattening,. does everyone end up with dreads as big as the sections?so, do you think that one by my ear is going to get too massive? so if i want to split the ones that are larger than an inch, should i take em out and start over, or would splitting them be better. how do i split?

ive never split 1 but ive hewad u start at the roots and split it towards the tiops personaly i think it would be easier and better to redo em at least the huge 1 i dont think u can avoid redoing that 1 since it needs to be 4 or more umm if u crochet or o=interlocks they wont be as thicjk as the section because they get way way too tight and are 1/3 the size they should be and look weird with huge gapds betweeen

but a healthy dread will be the size of the section (roughly cause sections can be iregular like 1/4 inch by an inch wuill average to lil over 1/2 inch dread the dread wont be as long and will be lil wider i mean it will be the average size of the roots if theyre iregular shaped

there can be some variation but its pretty much the root section determines the dread size

how bigs the 1 by your ear

how many dreads u got total

if they average 1/2 an in ch to 3/4 u should have round 50ish or so

a few around an inch isnt bad at all but when u got 1 thats 4 inches thats a problem

id start bt redoing that 1 into 4 or more then decide what ui wanna do about the ear 1

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My new book Ban The Taboo Vol 1

the fatty is about 2 inches by 1.5 inches so not sure i can make 4 out of it but i will take it out and make at least two. how do i split it without taking it out? i have about 40 dreads. there are a few on the top that are about one inch by one and a half so i am going to take those out and make two. rrrgghh. and yeah, we didnt know what we were doing. lots of places online say how to make dreads but not many tell you they will get so fat later on. wish i had known...