Side by Side

I wanted to show you guys a side by side comparison. It seems like my hair is gaining more width and less length. I tried to put a hat on the other day and I had too much hair! My hair just seems to swell and get bigger. I am noticing more bunching than I did when I first started the process. Anyone has any idea how to undo bunching? The pic of me with the red glasses was taken 8 months ago. The other one was taken last week. As you can see I have a lil more length but to me it seems like width.


It takes longer to retighten my hair. There are sometimes when I just want to jump of the chair and come back another day. I can’t imagine how long it will take once my hair reaches shoulder length. Also my hair takes a very long time to dry…there use to be a time that I could wet my hair and roll it at night and it will be ready to go by morning. Ummm that is no longer the case; I can’t tell you how many times I woke up with wet hair.

Like I said before the compliments are coming in and I hope I inspire others to go natural. Yes there is a time when you go through the “crazy” look but it is apart of the process. Some people elect to wear wigs but I say what is the point of going natural if you must hide behind a wig.

My hair is much softer than it was when I relaxed my hair and it now I place product in my hair about 2 times a month. I mainly use water. Oh last month I did make a mistake and revert to my old ways. My scalp was itching so I thought it would be a great idea to grease my slap…………..WRONG. The oil got really goopy in my hair and every time I scratched my scalp my finger nails were filled with grease. I used some Cream of Nature product and it did not work well for me. I had to wash it out because it was creating a mess.

Update

Hello Family and Friends,

I apologize for my lateness in updating my blog. Well my hair has been changing up a storm. One of the very first things I noticed was the length and the the massive number of locks on my head. It seems like my hair grew over night. One day I looked in the mirror and my hair was slightly touching shoulders. I cant put it into a full ponytail just yet but it will happen soon. Now never counted my locks but when I try to style my hair there seems to be so many different strands.








It may be the weather but my scalp stays dry. I need to keep my scalp oiled or I will start flaking. I actually feel sorry for my loctian because she has to do the up keep on my hair. It seems to take longer now that my hair is growing to get my hair re-tighten





I normally dye my hair black but the black has washed out and my hair is turning the ugly reddish brown color that I hate. The texture is really thick and full. I have buds on all of my locs. It took almost two years but finally I am fully loc'ed






My hair has gone through many stages and some of them were terrible. When I first started locing I looked like a scared chicken by the head. I had a lot of straight ends and many people questioned what I was doing. But now I get compliments all the time. So keep in mind that sl's takes time and plenty of patience. What can I say...it's a process







I normally dye my hair black but the black has washed out and my hair is turning the ugly reddish brown color that I hate. The texture is really thick and full. I have buds on all of my locs. It took almost two years but finally I am fully loc'ed.
So far I still love my hair and happy with the way it's growing. But locing is not for the faint of heart.

NO MORE BRACES

Long Time, No See!

It's been quite sometime since I last posted. Well life has a way of getting in the way....if you know what I mean. Well my locks sure are growing! The are getting thicker and maturing nicely. Some are longer than others, some are thinner than others, some are hard at the end, some have balls on the ends, and others are still open........but never the less I still love them! Waking up in the morning and giving them a spritz of my home made concoction is all they need to fall in place and look fierce.

It is not always a love affair. Last week my stylist was off with a cold and my hair looked like a baby afro with locks sticking out. Man if I could have placed a scarf on my head and went to work I would have. But generally there are few times that I am disappointed with my locks.

As they grow out people are starting to ask me more questions about my locks. Of course in the beginning the compliments were few and far between and who could blame them looking like this








But now people are like.......girlllllllll I love those locks.

Holiday Post

Happy Holidays Everybody,


How y'all good folks doing out there. Well I just started my Christmas shopping today.. and I'm done. Yeah I know it's the day before Christmas but that is when all the good deals come out. Anyhoo, my sisterlocks are really growing. It seems like every time I go for a retighten my hair is longer. The pic above is a pinned up style I did for my job's holiday party. It turned out pretty good. Now the other pics show a great deal of texture and how the locs still look so individual. What I love about sisterlocks each lock is similar to a strand of hair and it is very versatile.



I wanted to discuss an article I read on What Tami Said at www.whattamisaid.blogspot.com. The article was entitled Colonization all over your face...and hair . The article talks about natural hair and how it rebels against the "perceived" standard of American beauty. What found amazing is the many factors sistahs must consider before going natural, such as...What will my boyfriend think, how will the people on my job react, what will my family say and will I still be considered cute if I get my hair locked. I must admit there is a great deal of weight placed on how African American women wear their hair. Many of us were forced to put chemicals in our hair at an early age to "tame" our bad hair. Lord knows that I regret my mama put a Jherri Curl in my hair at the tender age of 6. My hair was considered to be bad... not to mention I was tender headed. I hated pressing combs, I cried when my aunt would braid my hair, because she was heavy handed and she always braided my hair too tight. So Mama decided to give me and my brother a Jherri Curl. I wore my hair in Jherri Curl for 6 years then I transitioned to a relaxer.



Because I had chemically treated hair most of my life I never knew what my natural hair looked like or felt like. I got a relaxer every 4-6 weeks like clock work. I was only exposed to nappy roots... could only see my natural hair in baby and kindergarten pictures. I think black women are the only women on earth who do not see their natural hair and purposely keep it chemically treated until the day they die. Of course this does not apply to all black women.....just a majority. Do you think we have been brained washed?

When I got my sisterlocks I did not fall in love with them on contact. I felt exposed..I could no longer hide behind the bouncy weaves and long angled bangs. I kept looking at myself in the mirror thinking how horrible I looked. I could not believe that I spent such a large amount of money to look crazy. It took me some time to fall in love with my locks. I was tired of being a slave to the chemicals yet I did not feel as beautiful with the relaxer. I often had to swallow the feeling of being inferior or less cute and hold my head up and march out into the world. Slowly my confidence came and I began to feel that my beauty was internal not external and that if I wanted people to accept me I had to accept myself first.

Natural hair is not for everyone...and chemically treated hair is an option for all races. However, beauty is in the of the beholder. Let's not let the main stream determine what is beauty. Better yet,,, don't be a follower it may be hard but do what is true to you.

My Routine

Locking my hair has truly been a journey. It has taught me that my hair does not rule me, my hair is beautiful in its natural state and patience is truly a virtue. I've always had a love/hate relationship with my hair. I've purchased so many products from beauty supply houses, I could probably give a review on each hair product in the market.

However, locking has freed my from being an intense product junkie and allowed me to take notice of my hair's personality. See some parts of my hair is real coily and other parts are really straight. When I first got my locks I did not use any products for the first 9 months. No really... the only thing I put on my hair was water mixed with a lil bit of tea tree oil. For 9 months I would wake up each morning and spritz my hair with a water and tea tree oil mixture. I was really afraid of slippage so I wanted to use a minimal amount of products. Plus I did not have a problem with dandruff or flaking so in my mind the mixture was great. Because I did not use any products my hair was rarely dirty and which caused me to wash my hair once a month. I usually would use Dove shampoo and condition for dry hair. Dove products worked fine and I had no complaints.

However, my hair was really crunchy. It was always dry and did not feel healthy. So I spoke with my consultant and she recommended newbein hair milk. This stuff works wonders. I have 4b type hair and my hair drank this hair milk like a cool drink of water on a hot summers day. Over time the feel of my hair began to change, my hair was softer. This is a product that I highly recommend. It is made with all natural products and does not cause build up. I use this moisturizer about every 2-3 days. You can order this product from www.nubeing.com. I still spritz my hair with water everyday...I no longer use tea tree oil






I had a credit at Sephoras so I used it to try Carol's Daughters Tui Leave In Conditioner and Shampoo. I love the smell of this product, it leaves your hair smelling do nice there will be no need for perfume. The leave in conditioner leaves my hair feeling soft and flexible. The areas of my hair that is super straight tend to stick straight out if I don't roll it... but the conditioner gives it a lil more bend. However, I'm not that crazy about the shampoo. I like my shampoo to lather up and this product has little to no lather. The upside is that the shampoo is really thick and a little goes a long way. I'm not sure I will continue to use the shampoo after it's gone. I still shampoo about once a month. There's just no need for me to shampoo once a week because I use products sparingly and I do not have any scalp issues.







So there you have it...... my hair routine. It's really simple and cheap not to mention it works for me. I rarely tie my hair up at night and this causes me to have bed head, so it is necessary for me to spritz my hair daily. I wake up put about a small amount of newbein hair milk in my locks, I spritz water in the locks and then I style. As simple as 1-2-3.

IT'S MY LOC-A-VERSRY

I can’t believe that it has been a full year already. I remember the day I discovered sisterlocks online. I saw them on natural website and knew that I wanted them right away. I had quite a bit of relaxed hair and was elated that I did not have to cut my hair off to achieve locs. However, I did decide to cut as much of the relaxed hair as I could stand. Plus I knew once I did the BC (big chop) I would be committed to the locs.

What I was not prepared for was the price. My consultant quoted me a price of 400.00That was like a blow to the chest, kinda knocked the wind out of a sistah. But she lowered the price to 350.00 after I did the BC. Don’t get me wrong 350.00 aint nothing to sneeze at either. Regardless of the price I wanted those sisterlocks. However, if I knew about other locking methods such as braidlocs and nappylocs I would have chosen that route. I love my sisterlocks , but my goal was to be loc’ed I was not that caught up with the method.

Locking my hair has been tough at times. During the beginning there was times when I thought I looked crazy. I hated when co-workers would questioned me about my hair or just give me the look. I started to wear a lil more makeup because my hair was in transistion and was straight on the ends and looked kinda wild at times. When I first started a head band was too big so there was nothing for me to do but roll them on perm rods. But even on perm rods my straight ends still stuck through. Man there were times I just wanted my old hair back. I won’t lie and say I loved every minute of being locked.

I started with 2”-3” of half relaxed hair and about 1.5” of natural hair. The first thing I noticed about my short locks was my face. I could not hide behind the hair.. it was all me. There were times I wanted longer locks but towards the third month I began to accept that locking is a journey and there will be good days and not so good days. Although there were days I felt a bit insecure locking has taught me that I should let my inner being shine through. Taught me to really look at me and slowly I began to love what I saw…regardless of how it looked.