Wow. Things are looking pretty crazy! TONS of bumps and twists and knots -- way cool.

Method: natural/neglect. Never did anything else except separate (and do that much less often now that the dreads are taking form.) Wash with soap daily, and do a BS/ACV rinse about once a week. Hair is sooooo soft. I love it!

Started with waist-length hair. It's now just half-way down my back.

Question: What comes next? Do the dreads get thicker? Do the crazy turny-turns in my hair do something different, like knot up? Just wondering

Thanks for reading!!!!!!!

Well... it's been almost two months. I had a set-back after the first couple of weeks, and inadvertently conditioned my hair (UGH), and was back to square one. It took me a while to get started again, but here we are.

So, things are going okay. I still have tons of questions and wonder if I am doing this right. It seems that my sections are really small. I try not the let the sections get bigger than 1-1.5 inches on my head, but the dreads are soooooo skinny. But, they are also REALLY weird shapes with all their twists and knots.

Also, I wonder if I am separating too often (every day). If I don't, the dreads all team up and join in with dreads clear across my head!

Also, my hair is dreading in the middle and at the ends, but not near my head. I think that is okay, but should I be putting in beads or anything like that?

Finally, it seems that my head does not want to section in nice "circular" ways, but rather it sections in lines. No matter what I do (try to coerce the sections to be shaped better), it seems that my head would rather have long skinny sections. Does that make sense? Do I need to be worried that my dreads won't be round (or round-ish) but rather they will be flat?

Here are some pictures:

And here is what the majority of the dreads look like. They seem kind of skinny to me (1/8 to 1/4 inch thick in most spots), and they make crazy twists and turns, but I like them! Will they get fatter? Also, I "play" with them all the time. It just feels so cool to run them between my fingers. Is that bad to do? I don't know if I can stop!

FYI, I am using the neglect method. I have not twisted and ripped or anything like that. I just separate. I wash with BS/AV every other day, but I don't really keep the BS in for that long. But... I also go to the ocean a few times a week, so the salt water stays in my hair for a few hours before I wash it, so I'm thinking that might have the same effect .. ???

I will try to give an update next month around the same time. Bye for now!

I have been thinking about dreadlocks for quite some time now. Recently, I have been taking breaks from brushing my hair, just tying it up. However, once the back becomes too matted, I break down, put massive amounts of conditioner in it, and spend the hour-plus combing it out.

I had dreads for a little while in college...not entirely on purpose. I just didn't brush my hair for a summer, and basically lived at the beach and didn't care too much. In looking back at pictures, it really looked pretty cool! But my hair was a lot shorter then (shoulder length pre-dreads).

Anyway, I went online to get information on dreadlocks and found TONS of sites that advertised for salons that "dread" and all of the products that are available for "dreading" your hair. But, truth be told, any of the photos from these sites seemed a little off . There was something about the dreads that didn't look quite right, and I thought to myself, "If my hair/head is going to look like that, I am not interested." They seemed sort of fake... well, they just weren't what I was picturing and didn't look anything like what my hair looked like back when I let my hair go.

Then, I came across a youtube video about Natural Free Form Dreadlocks and it pointed me to this site: dreadlockssite.com. THANK YOU!!!! This is exactly what I was looking for!

I have the summer off. I am committed to not brushing my hair for the next 90 days to see how it goes. I have read the entire section on Dreaducation, and I am real excited to start this journey. (I have a wedding to go to in August, but I figure I can just put my hair up if it is too much of a mess at that point.) I still have a lot of questions though...

1) What should I do to prevent the "matting" that goes on in the back of my head? I have been finger-combing my hair, but should I be?

2) My hair has REALLY bad split ends. Should I get it trimmed?

3) My hair is quite long (almost to my waist). Is it too long?