Tired of Being Sick.. And Sick of Being Tired

I am feeling a bit frustrated right now. My loctian continues to go MIA, don’t return calls and rarely answers the phone. I drive pass the shop and its empty. My loctian lives in my neighborhood and lives on a main street, when I drive past her home her car is parked outside.

First let me start by saying there is only ONE sisterlock certified consultant in the ENTIRE city of St. Louis. My consultant used to be that one person. However she uses the crochet hook for the rt and the next thing I know her name had been removed from the SL web page as the certified consultant. Shortly thereafter another name was added and she is now the ONLY certified SL consultant. I am saying all this to say that this shortage of consultants is leaving me in a bind when it comes to getting my hair done.

Due to the shortage I have to get in when I can and most of the time it requires me to take personal time off my job. Not to mention the new consultant does fabulous SL but she works really slow and told me it would take 5 hours to rt my head. Now at 20.00 an hours that would be 100.00 . Then I found a loctian that uses the nappyloc tool but she charges 85.00 per hour and she says it will take about 1.5 hours and that will be 127.00. I feel so trapped when it comes to my hair.

Either it will take a great deal of money, or I have to catch my loctian when I can. I am so tired I thought going natural would be more economical. I hate the fact that I have no control over my hair. So I am just going to force myself to learn how to maintain my own head.

This is really my only option. It would finally give me more independence with it comes to my hair. I’ve tried it before and created a few knots in the locs. This time I am going to do research and use the nappyloc tool instead of a plastic crochet needle. I hate for my locs to look unkempt and I hate feeling like I am stalking someone to do my head! If anyone knows of any videos or good tutorials on DYI using the nappy tool let me know.

I am bound and determined to start doing my hair maintenance myself. The whole purpose of going natural was to break the bonds and get more in tune with my natural hair. I am sure there will be bumps and bruises along the way but I gotta take control of this situation.

The natural hair phenomenon has taken hold and have your loc maintained by a stylist can be very expensive. Everyone claims to be and “expert”. God forbid that you are new to natural hair, you will become prey to everything the so called experts say and they will break you financially with all the creams, potions, lotions and styling. Don’t get me wrong there are really some people out there that know their stuff when it comes to natural hair, but there also some vultures out there looking to feed on the natural hair frenzy. I just don’t understand how someone can say they charge 85.00 an hour to locs. That sounds ridiculous to me.


The sad part is I actually love my loctian. She is fair with her pricing, efficient; she is really knowledgeable about natural hair and a great person. I just don’t know why it’s so hard (lately) to get an appointment with her. Whatever that case, (in Tupac Voice) “ It’s just me against the world baby!

Hey Y'all

Hi Friends,

It’s been a minute since my last post. This morning I work up and decided to snap a few pics with my cell. I am barely awake but I just wanted to post a few pics of my hair. It’s still growing but I have hit a wall as far as styling options. I wear it down most of the time… its not long enough for a lot of updo’s. So I have to research some style options. Since my hair has grown out it does not hold a curl like it use to. I rolled my hair on some perm rollers last week. I used some foam setting lotion on each section before rolling it. I rolled my hair Saturday morning and took them out on Monday. On Monday I barely had any curls! I let the hair air dry and I did not want to totally saturate the hair with solution because my hair takes foooorever to dry and I don’t have an overhead hair dryer. I am going to get some loc loops or some other form of them and see if that works

Lesson Learned

The last time we spoke I was frustrated with my hair because I had not had it retighten in 2 months. Let me first say that my hair now grows extremely quick and after two months I look like I have an afro with locks stick out at the ends. But I was in a financial jam and could afford to go when I needed to go, then when I got the money my loctian could not squeeze me in. So out of pure frustration I looked up another certified sister lock consultant. I found one and upon meeting her I really liked her. She seemed to know a great deal about natural hair and although she did not have her hair sister locked her natural hair was healthy and beautiful.

She examined my hair and assured me she would be able to help and could fit me in the following week. I was super excited. I then asked her how much she charged and she replied “20.00 an hour”. I was cool with that because that is the normal rate. Then she said, “It will take about 4 to 5 hours to completely retighten your hair.” I was prepared to spend that type of money. I was shocked because since I had sister locks the most I ever spent on getting my hair styled and retighten is$ 60.00. When I go as scheduled I normally spend $35.00, as my loctian takes about 1.5 hours to do my hair. Plus I did not feel like sitting for 4-5 hours. I knew she was newly certified and probably had not done it enough to be fast, but I did not want to pay for her slowness. When I told her that the certified sister lock consultant that started my locks only took 8 hours to put them in, she said she never knew anyone could do them so fast. Shout out to my original consultant Tashia Kinney in Los Angeles, she can be reached at 310-383-7996 or by email at queentashia1@aol.com, she also does traditional locs…sistah is bad!


Any way I left feeling like a nappy headed lost child who desperately needed her hair done. So guess what. I came up with a really great ideal! I would retighten my hair myself…. how hard could it be. I read on someone’s blog about how they took a plastic knitting needle and retighten their hair. I researched the #4 rotation and was certain that I could save a ton of money by doing my own hair.

I went to Wal-Mart and got a few needles and proceed to do my own hair. I started with the side near my ear. I was doing really good and it felt like I was doing it right. After doing about four of those I came to the front and did the hair closest to the hair line. Next thing I know I was putting knots in my hair instead of retighten, so I moved to another lock and it too looked like a bunch of knots. Instead of stopping I kept going…..before you know it I had about 8 jacked up locks and some very tired hands. I also kept pulling other locks into the rotation. At one point I had four locks all intertwined together. It was a hot mess and I knew I made my situation worse.


There was nothing I could do besides wait on my appointment with my regular loctian. I felt so bad for her because not only did she have to deal with 2 months of naps, she also had to undo the mess I created. One of the locs she could not get the knot out, so she said it had to grow a little bit before she could fix it.

What can I say…another lesson learned the hard way. The pics were taken this morning and it is time to go back to get it retighten again.

Long Time No See

It’s been awhile since I have posted. I have slacked off and I can be very lazy at times so please forgive me. Currently my hair looks like an afro with locs. It has been 6 weeks since my last retighten and my hair grows extremely fast. There was a time I could wait 8 weeks before I visited my consultant, but that is no longer an option. I now go every 4-5 weeks.

My consultant and her daughter was the only certified sisterlock reps in the St. Louis area for years and they had more clients than you can imagine. If I missed/ rescheduled an appointment it could take weeks for me to get back into the shop. Of course this resulted in longer etightening time and more money out of my pocket. Last night I checked the sisterlock web sight and found that my consultant name has been removed, I am not sure why because she most certainly still does sisterlocks. But then again she does not use the coveted sisterlock tool, she uses a latch hook. I’m sure home office probably is not too fond about that, but it does not bother me. I am not a stanch sisterlock representative and was fine with her using the latch hook. However, a new certified consultant has been added to the sisterlock website for my area. I decided to go see her to get a second opinion on my locs? She was warm, pleasant and full of knowledge.


She did not rush me when I rambled on and offered great advice. She did tell me that the latch hook was not good for my locks. I have small hairs with white bulbs on the in that are sticking out of my locs. I was told that the latch hook can break the hair off from the follicle and end up intertwined within the loc. The new consultant told me it would take 4-5 hours for her to retighten my hair. I must admit that my jaw almost hit the floor. She saw the shock on my face and asked me how long it takes my current consultant, I responded, 45mins to 1.5 hours. I asked her how much she charged and she charged the standard rate of 20.00 per hour. I knew that I did not want to pay 80-100 dollars to get my hair retighten. In her opinion it should take a few hours to do retighten the way the sisterlock home office teaches. I just chalked it up to my consultant has been doing sisterlocks for over 11 years, and this youngster just got certified a few months ago. Please let me know if I am wrong. She also told me that I should not be going every 4 weeks to get retighten because she does not believe that my growth is enough for a full rotation. She said the home office says that if you can’t get a full rotation then it is not time to retighten. I did not know this, but I do believe her. I then asked her about the thinning of some of my locs, she said this could also be the latch hook. I don’t believe this , I’ve heard of others with thinning locs and we all are not using the latch hook

Either way I decided it was time for me to learn how to maintain my own hair. The whole point of going natural was to free me from the salon and to do my hair on my terms. So I will be purchasing the nappy lock tool and practicing on my head. I will let me consultant retighten me this last time and I will take it over from that point. I’ll let you know how it turns out

Lost One

(Jay-Z song Lost One in the back ground)

Look at that poor loc… it looks sad doesn’t it? I know losing locs is nothing new for people with sisterlocks but it still disturbs me. Especially because I think this loc could have been saved. My loc-tician should have seen that the root was getting extremely thin and just combined it with the one next to it. I’ve lost a loc before and I know this is not a big deal but…..it is kinda a big deal to me. I’m trying to figure out why the lock got thin in several areas. It’s almost like it developed weak spots. Is there any prevention for this sort of thing?

My locs are really doing their own thing. When I first started all my locs was the same size. As they started to grow and swell some stayed thin while others plumped up. So now some look extra thin and others are medium sized. I’m not sure if I should combine the thin ones or just leave them the way they are. I want my hair to be organic and do whatever it would like to do…. but at the same time I don’t want it to break off. I guess I will have to talk with my loc-tician and we can make a decision together. Have you ever had this problem before, if so what did you do?

Hey Family,



My locs are growing like weeds and I really love them. I rarely think about my hair which is great improvement because before my locs my hair was the center of my world. I would always have to keep my hair in mind and budget. If I could not afford a day at the salon I would need to have a wig or ponytail ready to make sure I look presentable. I won’t mention the countless amount of products needed to keep my hair tamed. Now my kinks are working for me and I only think about my hair once a month when it is time to get it tighten. Isn’t that great!

Products…what products? When I feel like it I may purchase some hair milk but most of the time my hair product is found in my kitchen cabinet. Olive oil works great for me. I massage it into my scalp about once every two weeks and I’m good. I wash my hair once a month because I don’t have dandruff and no build up. To keep my loc’s moist I use 8ounces of water mixed with 3tsp of conditioner. I spray this concoction on my locs every other day and it works fine for me. I love the low maintenance of my hair and it’s healthy. When it’s raining outside (which it is doing today) I don’t worry about bad hair days. I can sleep without thinking about smashing my hair style at night and wearing a head scarf is optional.

I love my locs but I can not say that I am committed to them for the rest of my life. However, I will say that I am committed to natural hair for the rest of my life. Natural just works for me… I look so much prettier with natural hair styles, like I was meant to rock what God gave me. Plus after this I can never go back to going to the salon once a week and relaxing religiously every 4 weeks, paying the cut AND the style and loads of crappy products…No sir.

So if you are new to the loc world sit back and enjoy…don’t rush the process cuz it’s a journey. If you are considering locs I have one word for you…..research! Know what you are committing to and get as much information as possible and make the best decision for you and your lifestyle.

Hair We Go…..Again.

As most of you know I wear my hair loc’ed. However, there was a point in my life when locing was not an option. People I was addicted to weave. When I say addicted I mean I had to have it. I would obsess about getting my weave done more that I cared about paying my car note. Seriously.

Chile walking into the beauty supply to look at all the weaves made me high. I marveled at all the colors, textures, curly, kinky, straight, bone straight and wavy. I could look at the wall for hours. I just loved it. I would take my time and find the most perfect hair I could find and run out the door like I just copped a big ole eight ball of crack (lol). But if I wanted my hair to be super bad I had to make sure my relaxer was on point … if not I would need to pick up some Elasta QP or hopefully my stylist would have some of that Affirm. I may come out of the beauty supply $50.00- 75.00 lighter but I felt great.

Then I would go home and soak my head with conditioner and glue remover. I would pour half a bottle of conditioner on my head with about two bottles of glue remover. I placed a plastic bag or cap on my head for a few hours. This made the removal of the old hair much simpler. However, sometimes the glue would be real stubborn and I would have to tear off some of my real hair to remove the weave. Once the weave was totally out I would take a wide tooth comb and comb out all the glue. I always placed my weave in a pile once I removed it. I would often look at it like an old friend going on to college or the army and you’re sad to see them leave but hope the best for them.

The down side to the conditioner/weave removal process was the glue would get gummy and stick to everything in sight. If it got on your cloths you can forget it because it was never coming off. If it got on the carpet or walls it would be hell to get out. Needless, to say I had a weave removal uniform…. yes I did. I would wear this raggedy t-shirt with some bleached up jogging pants when I took out my weave. Once the glue and the hair were out I would wash and blow dry my hair.

It’s sad to admit but it was hard for me to look at myself in the mirror without my weave. To me the hair made me feel beautiful and seductive. Without the hair I felt like a bald head ugly girl that desperately needed the weave to feel whole again. I would quickly tie my hair up with a scarf and waited for the next day so I could let my stylist work her magic.


I would show up to the salon at my appointed time and waited with baited breath for her to get to me. But the wait was okay because I would pour over magazines looking for the perfect style to rock my new weave. Once I found the style I wanted I would hold on to that book for dear life. Then I would pull my weave out the pack and look at it, ran my fingers through it, and I totally loved the smell of a new pack of weave. After feeling it and smelling it I put it back in the bag and waited my turn.

Now once I’ve waited between 1-2 hours depending on how overbooked the stylist is I would get my turn to set in the seat. I handed her my book and said I want my hair like hers! Now the transformation began. This normally took about another 1-2 hours depending on how I was getting my hair. I loved to feel the cold glue press up against my scalp. Then I would feel the soft hair fall on my face……….I was in heaven. Then she would start cutting with the razor. As she got further in the process my excitement would be on full blast. She would go over each section with the flat iron. I love smelling the oil sheen and spritz sizzling on the hair as the hot flat irons made each strand of hair more perfect than before.

Finally reveal time… and the stylist turns me to the mirror and I can hear Stevie Wonder singing …Isn’t she lovely, isn’t she wonderful. I would inspect the hair and make sure that it was to my liking and if not ask the stylist to tweak some areas if needed. But when I left I was in full DIVA mode. Before I left I had to put on a little mascara and lip gloss.

In 24 hours I went from feeling like the ugly duckling in the mirror to a full beauty queen. This went on for 16 years until finally I got tired of wasting my money and feeling so damn insecure. I challenged myself to feel beautiful outside the confines of weaves and wigs. I took the scissors to my head and chopped off all the perm. I went to my loctian and said I want locs. Now trust me the locs was not love at first sight. Trust me I did not feel beautiful at all but I was determined to break myself from feeling ugly because something as stupid as hair. People would say little smart remarks or not say anything at all. I don’t think the first 2 months of me getting my locs no one said anything positive about my hair. It felt like it was me against the world, but I was determined to win. My family asked me questions like what are you doing with your hair, friends just did not say nothing or would tell me about someone else with short hair and how THEIR hair looked good. Indicating that mine did not look so good. I did just what Jay said in the song… I brushed the dirt off my shoulders and kept pushing. Now that I am 2 years into the locs people that were hating before say things like… man I wish I had the courage to do that or do I have to cut off all my hair or my favorite do they have loc extensions that I can wear until my hair grows out. I understand that everyone is not into the natural thang and I am fine with that. I am not one that will belittle a sistah for rocking a weave or relaxed hair. Do what makes you feel beautiful… but when your self esteem and worth is connected to hair then it is time to check yo self.