Soliel185
New Member
A Modern Day Rapunzel..? Could You Handle Hair This Long?
We always see Caucasians or Asians going for the Guinness Record so I thought this was a nice change of pace.
(GEORGE SKENE, ORLANDO SENTINEL / October 18, 2008)
Asha Mandela lets her hair down Friday in Longwood after her dreadlocks were measured at 8 feet, 9 inches. She hopes to win the Guinness record.
Nobody has hair like Asha Mandela has hair.
Mandela is to hair what Paul Bunyan is to tall. Her hair is like Medusa on Miracle-Gro.
Mandela's dreadlocks, which she started growing 20 years ago, are longer than she is tall. She cradles her locks in her arms like a baby. She wraps it around her neck like a scarf. She lets it hang down her back and trail behind her like a bridal veil.
Asha Mandela, of Davenport in Polk County, has world-record hair. Or so she hopes.
Mandela has submitted her hair to Guinness World Records as the Longest Dreadlocks, the first entry in a new category. To meet the Guinness requirements, she had to have her three longest locks measured and verified by witnesses.
Ryan Spinella, executive assistant to Longwood's city administrator, was one of them. He watched the unfurling and measuring of Mandela's hair.
"I couldn't say what to compare it with. Just a lot of hair," Spinella said. "You don't believe it until you measure it, really."
The longest of her locks -- which would have been 11 inches longer if she had not accidentally stepped on it and broken a piece off -- was 8 feet, 9 inches long. She carries the broken strand in her purse.
Mandela's hair is impressive. But it's not as long as the tresses of Xie Qiuping, the Chinese woman who set the record in 2004 for the world's longest hair: 18 feet, 5.54 inches. Mandela's dreadlocks are, however, quite a bit longer than the world-record holder for longest leg hair or nose hair.
Originally from Trinidad, Mandela started growing her dreads when she decided to stop using chemicals on her hair while she was living in Brooklyn, N.Y. She cut it all off and, as it grew back, began corkscrewing it into curls that in turn were twisted together into dreadlocks. Before her dreads were long enough to hang down, they stuck out from her head like long black fingers.
She sent her mother a picture. Her mother said not to send any more.
"She said, 'I took such good care of your nice curly hair, and this is what you are doing with it?' " Mandela recalled. "She called it a mop for five years."
Mandela's hair is her pride. It is much like a child she has raised from infancy for 20 years. She even calls it her baby.
But like a child, eight feet of hair is both a blessing and a burden. It takes one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of conditioner every time she washes her hair.
She wrings out the water as you would a wet beach towel. When the days are hot, and she takes it out by the pool in the backyard, it takes two hours to dry. When it's humid and cloudy or cool outside, it might take all day for her wet hair to lose its dampness.
"I try not to have any errands that day," said Mandela, 46. "I used to wash it three times a week. Now I do it once a week. It's very tiring. Sometimes I don't have the energy."
It might take a few weeks before Guinness verifies that Mandela's dreadlocks are world-record worthy. And then she'll have to defend her title against all those other people -- heretofore unknown -- with superdreads. She fears the Rastafarians of Jamaica the most.
She has thought about cutting her hair. But if she becomes the official Guinness Record Holder for the World's Longest Dreads, it would be kind of hard to go back to being just an ordinary person with long hair.
In that respect, Mandela is a prisoner trapped in her own hair.
"As much as I love it, I get frustrated with it," she said. "But then I realize I'd feel naked without it."
We always see Caucasians or Asians going for the Guinness Record so I thought this was a nice change of pace.
(GEORGE SKENE, ORLANDO SENTINEL / October 18, 2008)
Asha Mandela lets her hair down Friday in Longwood after her dreadlocks were measured at 8 feet, 9 inches. She hopes to win the Guinness record.
Nobody has hair like Asha Mandela has hair.
Mandela is to hair what Paul Bunyan is to tall. Her hair is like Medusa on Miracle-Gro.
Mandela's dreadlocks, which she started growing 20 years ago, are longer than she is tall. She cradles her locks in her arms like a baby. She wraps it around her neck like a scarf. She lets it hang down her back and trail behind her like a bridal veil.
Asha Mandela, of Davenport in Polk County, has world-record hair. Or so she hopes.
Mandela has submitted her hair to Guinness World Records as the Longest Dreadlocks, the first entry in a new category. To meet the Guinness requirements, she had to have her three longest locks measured and verified by witnesses.
Ryan Spinella, executive assistant to Longwood's city administrator, was one of them. He watched the unfurling and measuring of Mandela's hair.
"I couldn't say what to compare it with. Just a lot of hair," Spinella said. "You don't believe it until you measure it, really."
The longest of her locks -- which would have been 11 inches longer if she had not accidentally stepped on it and broken a piece off -- was 8 feet, 9 inches long. She carries the broken strand in her purse.
Mandela's hair is impressive. But it's not as long as the tresses of Xie Qiuping, the Chinese woman who set the record in 2004 for the world's longest hair: 18 feet, 5.54 inches. Mandela's dreadlocks are, however, quite a bit longer than the world-record holder for longest leg hair or nose hair.
Originally from Trinidad, Mandela started growing her dreads when she decided to stop using chemicals on her hair while she was living in Brooklyn, N.Y. She cut it all off and, as it grew back, began corkscrewing it into curls that in turn were twisted together into dreadlocks. Before her dreads were long enough to hang down, they stuck out from her head like long black fingers.
She sent her mother a picture. Her mother said not to send any more.
"She said, 'I took such good care of your nice curly hair, and this is what you are doing with it?' " Mandela recalled. "She called it a mop for five years."
Mandela's hair is her pride. It is much like a child she has raised from infancy for 20 years. She even calls it her baby.
But like a child, eight feet of hair is both a blessing and a burden. It takes one bottle of shampoo and one bottle of conditioner every time she washes her hair.
She wrings out the water as you would a wet beach towel. When the days are hot, and she takes it out by the pool in the backyard, it takes two hours to dry. When it's humid and cloudy or cool outside, it might take all day for her wet hair to lose its dampness.
"I try not to have any errands that day," said Mandela, 46. "I used to wash it three times a week. Now I do it once a week. It's very tiring. Sometimes I don't have the energy."
It might take a few weeks before Guinness verifies that Mandela's dreadlocks are world-record worthy. And then she'll have to defend her title against all those other people -- heretofore unknown -- with superdreads. She fears the Rastafarians of Jamaica the most.
She has thought about cutting her hair. But if she becomes the official Guinness Record Holder for the World's Longest Dreads, it would be kind of hard to go back to being just an ordinary person with long hair.
In that respect, Mandela is a prisoner trapped in her own hair.
"As much as I love it, I get frustrated with it," she said. "But then I realize I'd feel naked without it."
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... But hehe whatever, I'm just nitpicking. I like the article.
Supposedly, the myth of Medusa actually was inspired by a woman with dreads....but yeah, he coulda left that out all the same, as she has nothing but negative connotations now a days.
Long dreads - longer than she is tall? 
