Woman with 55ft dreadlocks vows never to cut her long hair.

 
Asha Mandela has been growing her dreadlocks form her 20s and has kept on for 25years and counting.
Mrs Mandela, who is happily married to her third husband, was born in Trinidad and Tobago.
She began growing her hair 25 years ago following a 'spiritual calling'. She refuses to cut her 55ft long hair despite serious warnings and advice from doctors on health grounds, with the risk of bacterial infection and her weight. Her hair weighs about 39 pounds (17.7 kg) .The 47 year-old mother, who has an 11 year-old son is adamant about keeping her dreadlocks which she calls ''her baby''.Though she underwent a bilateral mastectomy followed by chemotherapy in the late 1990s, miraculously, her hair didn't fall out and she attributes her survival to her hair.
In 2008, she was the first person to obtain the Guinness World Record for longest dreadlocks, and a year later, she broke her own record with a strand measuring 19 feet, 6 inches.But that category has now been retired. Making Asha the first and only record holder.

It takes two days to wash and dry her hair, which weighs the same as a reception-age child, and is even heavier when wet. It can also get easily trapped in doors or snag on bushes.
She has to wind it up into a baby sling when she leaves the house which gives her a greater degree of freedom. But Mrs Mandela worries that 'someone with a hair fetish' will cut off a lock of her hair when she is not looking.

She said: 'The doctors seem to think I have a curvature of my spine and that it's the length and the weight of my hair that's making me curve.
'Some have said my neck has collapsed at the back and that I need to be careful because I could start having spasms in my spine and probably be paralysed.'
Asha claims her hair has helped her love life: 'My hair has never caused a problem with intimacy. I think it adds a little spice on top.'