MEET hair fanatic Asha Mandela - whose 55ft locks are longer than a London BUS. But despite owning a world record, the 47-year-old wants to go BIGGER - even though doctors warn she could PARALYSE herself. Asha refuses to cut 'her baby' though - saying it has helped her overcome cancer, two strokes and two heart-attacks. Her hair weighs almost three stone - the weight of a reception-age child - and takes two days to wash and dry. She also worries that someone with a 'hair fetish' will cut a chunk off when she is not looking. However, there is one area it has not affected - her love life - and three-times married Asha even claims it adds 'a bit of spice'. Guinness gave Asha the title of world's longest dreadlocks in 2009 when they were 22ft long. But a new unofficial measurement this week (Aug 10) puts one particular lock of hair at 55ft 7ins.
Her early days in the U.S., She settled in Brooklyn and worked as a Nanny. Soon after she found that perming and styling my hair only to be in parks and playgrounds was not working for me anymore. That’s when she decided to find an easier and more natural way to cope with my stressful hair days. After careful thought about growing my hair natural, she decided to start growing “locs”. Obviously this did not sit well with my family, especially my mother…she said it was going to look like a riff-raff mop and she did not raise me with a mop head.
Nevertheless, she started growing my locs and at first she was not sure if I really liked them since they looked spiky, but she gave it time to grow some and pretty soon she was loving every aspect of it. Especially the all natural look. Before she knew it, time had flown by and my hair was getting longer and longer. She became very over protective of it and started referring to my hair as “my baby”.
Filmed by Inertia Films
Producer: John Balson / Ben Churcher
Editor: Joshua Douglas
