Pretty much since the start of our relationship, Antho quit cutting his hair and started growing it out. That means for nearly 4 years now (our anniversary is in July, and he quit cutting his hair sometime in the fall not long after) he's been letting his thick mane of hair grow... and it's gotten long. Very long. It was hitting his elbows when he'd let it down, though he frequently kept it out of his face with Willie Nelson style braids or a bun (it's hair, people, it doesn't have a gender). It's the longest it's ever been in his life, and he often got compliments on his luscious locks from strangers. He has nice hair, and it's a lot thicker than mine, but that also means it was a lot more to handle. I've had long hair in the past and my hair has grown out a lot since I buzzed it off, but we'd hit the point where he felt he was at a crossroads. It was growing long enough to start to be a bit of a hassle: the pain of your hair getting sucked out the car window / stuck in your armpit/ caught under a strap / suffocating on it when you accidentally inhale it or it flies into your face during a gust / the list is endless... but he didn't want to cut it and basically tread old ground again. What to do... how about dreads?
It was one of the only things he hasn't done to his hair previously, and it's an excellent way to keep the hair that he's grown over these past few years but drastically decrease it's overall length while also improving its manageability. We had originally planned to start the process as a group project on July 10th (7/10), but after obsessing about it for weeks on end, and perhaps inspired in part by some of the beautiful heads of dreadlocks we saw at the Bender Jamboree, Antho started with just one little baby dread on the back of his head and then he just kept going until he'd gotten a rough head of them going. From there he picked up some crochet hooks from the local Sally's Beauty Supply and started going to town, sometimes having to untangle and re-section some of the early drafts he'd started. There's a LOT of different methods for starting, let alone maintaining, dreadlocks and it's easy to get lost in a rabbit hole of endless websites, videos, and tutorials. The method he settled on was backcombing to create the initial baby-dreads, then going in with a crochet hook to tighten them and pull in loose hairs. It's made a big difference, though they're still baby dreadlocks at this stage. It takes time for the hair to adapt and tighten, and because Antho's hair is very straight and thick it's harder for the knots to take.
The above was all taken within the first 24 hours. You can see a lot of wispy ends peeking out and the hair is still very long and loose. Fluffy, fuzzy.
These are from day 2, after the crocheting began. It's a time-consuming process, but one that he can do watching tv- though there's been some incidents over the last week where he's stabbed himself with the hook and drawn blood. π· If you look at the ends you can see how more of them are rounded off and the hair has shortened up a bit. Considering the starting length was around his elbows, it's now ending about 4-6 inches higher up.
These photos are from day 3.
The crocheting has brought many of the dreads in and made them much smaller and tighter. The back is still a work in progress but they're coming along slowly but surely. He frequently rolls them while out and about, too, or going through his day.
I'll post photos from later in the project as we go along. We're striving to take a photo a day for the course of a year so we can try to do a time-lapse because we always enjoy seeing them when other's make them so why not try to do one ourselves? Also, given the sheer volume of time and effort involved in creating and maintaining the dreads, it's recommended you try to commit to at least one year with them. It takes time for them to really mature and set, and they'll evolve in the process, so its best to wait and see, so... We'll see. I've already got my goal of having a blog post up every day until January 5th, 2019, so why not add a second daily goal? Let's crush this! π
Thanks for stopping by!
π
XOXO,
NAU
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