"Attack of the Teenaged Dreadlocks!" (aka how to survive when your locs get frizzy, awkward and 'ugly')

"I’ve always said locs are a journey that teach you many lessons, and if nothing
else they teach you patience." -- Jocelyn Reneé

As discussed in a previous post, locs go through stages no matter how you start them.

After the 'baby' stage and before the 'mature' stage, they of course go through the 'teenaged' or adolescent phase.

Your teenaged locs can become wild and unruly, and you'll notice a big gap between what you feel should be their ideal behaviour and their all-too-real misbehaviour. They get super, duper, uber fuzzy and increasingly independent of you and your desire to control them.

You will need to have a lot of patience and faith. Everything really will turn out alright in the end (so I have been told by everyone with lovely mature locs).

That is if you don't panic and start experimenting with rumoured so-called "fixes" for their unruliness and seeming lack of ability to behave, such as pruning the fuzzies (DO NOT EVER DO THAT, please -- you need the fuzz to eventually lock into your hair properly).

A lot of people call this the "ugly stage" or "the awkward stage" -- but it's just what they go through on the way to maturity.

Hang in there, they'll grow up eventually: