I got this question from akchili as a submit and because I'm inept I shall answer it here :)
Can you give me some advice on how you started your dreads? They're amazing! i want to grow my own :)
Firstly, thank you! I will say straight off that they aren't all mine, half of them are extensions but let me explain.
I have very curly hair, crazy curly, and it always went into super ringlets when I'd go in salt water. So anyway I dreaded it up using twist and rip. I'm not sure if you know what that is but in case you don't, just google it and there is info galore! So my dreads were pretty long and going really well until I went swimming in the ocean one time and they shrunk to about 4 inches. They were all weird, curly kind of turd looking nuggets and it was horrible. I know they're meant to shrink but not like that, let me tell you! I think it was partly the salt water and partly just the curly insane nature of my natural hair that was to blame.
So what I did was buy some extensions and have a girl attach them permanently using a crochet hook, but first she had to crochet the hell out of my dreads to get them straight and looking like real dreadlocks again first. Like it seriously took her about 11 hours, it was hell.
So in a really, really long answer to your question, I originally started my dread with twist and rip and I wouldn't have done it any other way. Maybe with straight hair they would have worked better and I wouldn't have had to resort to a load of crocheting and extensions, but I love them so hard.
If you have any other questions please message me. I can be more helpful I promise! I can't recommend dreadlocks enough. I could talk about them forever but I won't but message me any time!
Thanks for your question too :) Peace xx