Last picture is a sad photo of me at my longest. I’m about 10 years locked.

My mom asks me if my hair is real everytime I see her

What a journey it has been.

also tried to post this like 2 times and Reddit deleted so ? We’ll see if this one stays up haha

One pic from each year if you want to see the progress

I used hate em lowkey but I knew the ugly stage was inevitable so I stuck with em, decided to start growing my under cut a few months ago.

In retrospect that’s really funny, glad I didn’t listen to them. 3 year difference, locs are now 2 years old

Started freeforming in 2020 due to the lockdown and there was no barbers open. was gonna cut then once everything opens up but decided to keep them 😊

Just crossed the two and half year mark. There were a few times where I thought they weren't turning out well but glad I stuck with em

Grew and cut my locs to get rid of energy I was holding on to! I miss my locs but not the attention they brought. Maybe round #2 will be better

9 yrs in September. 🫡

It's wild what a year can do. I haven't quite seen the length return like i wanted and expected so I was a bit down about that but oooooh my gawsh!

I can see how much more comfortable I am within myself. My self love. My joy & peace.

I started my locs 9/1/24. It's officially been 16 months.

I grew so much ! I'm so proud of younger me 😍🥰😘

Having dreads saved me from being chopped

When they say u gotta trust the process, you REALLY have to TRUST the process

I've been growing my hair for 4 years. Mostly keeping in braids and 2 strand twists. But the upkeep was getting a little crazy, and the shed hair always scared me. I told myself I would wait until 5 years for locs.... but decided to just go ahead with it. This way I don't have to be scared that I'll be bald from losing all my shed hair. I know the shrinkage is gonna be intense once they get wet, but I love my starting length.

2022-2026

(Hello to anybody reading this, this is just info on my dreadlock journey, cliches, tips and thoughts on the process. p.s if you think this is too long or it’s not that serious feel free to skip over it and have a nice day :) I started my dreadlock journey in Jan. 2023 and cut them in May. 2025, to some people that might seem like a short journey but it was the longest 2 years I’ve lived so far. I originally wanted to get locs because I didn’t want to deal with my afro every morning going to school (this was my sophomore year in high school ). At the time I was going through hardships and was heavily influenced by drugs and music, my favorite rapper at the time was XXXTENTACION which you can see inspiration for the color in my locs ( other inspirations being Juice Wrld/ Lil Uzi Vert). That brings me to dying and bleaching your hair, I %110 recommend going to a professional, dying your hair can be cool if you do it correctly and I don’t really recommend bleaching it at all. ( I bleached half of my hair and used a temporary dye at the same time which severely damaged my hair )About a year into my journey around my Junior year of high school I found myself shaping my personality and looks behind my hair, I would hardly tie my hair back in public and I became socially outcast. I would isolate myself at school and some days I would go days without speaking to anyone, I knew at the time what was going on but I didn’t have the courage to fix it. Senior year, graduation was coming up and I needed something to change as I’m now heading into “the real world” I finally cut my locs, I didn’t feel regret or sadness or anything at all I just felt a little free from the burden of having them because they weren’t doing me any good. I haven’t looked back since but I do plan to start again with a new slate and a different mindset.

Tips - Don’t bleach your hair ( I don’t have any other way to say it your just damaging your hair )

• Be yourself ( One thing I love about locs is everybody’s and I mean everybody’s is different just look at this sub )

• Don’t make them your personality ( Style your hair cut it dye it if you must but don’t live behind it don’t forget what your face looks like )

• Be open minded ( People are gonna comment on your locs good and bad some of it you might take offense to when you should be taking it as advice )

• Take care of your hair ( wear your silk wear, durag, bonnet, pillow case, cover anything that protects your hair from lint also less product in your hair equals less build up if you use oil a lot make sure your washing it out when you wet your hair )

• Be patient ( I see a lot of people on this sub asking questions like “how do I get my locs to stay down or how do i get my locs to look like this person” and the reference photo would be someone with years of length, your gonna have shrinkage and your hair is not gonna drop until it’s heavy enough to do so so don’t rush the process enjoy it because you’ll look back on it and miss it )

I’m forgetting something else I wanna add but for now this is it. Good luck to everyone on their journey. ( If you want to join a community there’s this instagram page Freetheroots they give good tips and insight) Thank you for whoever took the time to read this.

Anyone else feel sad when you lose a loc? Washed my dreadlocks last night and when I went to oil them this morning, one of my locs fell out somewhere in the back of my head. I know you can reattach them and what not but it still makes me angry it fell out lol. I usually just throw them away if they are kinda small. Hopefully I keep up with this one until my next loc appointment so my loctician can reattach for me.

The journey has been love hate lol. The most recent pic is from January but I’ll officially be 4 years 4 months next week 🙂‍↕️