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.

OBAMA..... OBAMA....OBAMA.... OBAMA..

Hey loc famila,

I usually don't discuss topics outside of my locs. But I would like to take a moment and say get out and vote on NOV 4th, preferably for OBAMA. President Obama (yeah I said it) came to STL last Saturday and it was a sight to behold. There was 100,000 people of all shades, backgrounds and religions at the rally. I felt the energy of change in the air... there was a sense of common purpose and oneness.

I saw that many people choose to bring their kids to the rally and I though man why didn't I grab the nephews and bring them down here. Gotta get the kids involved because if they see you all hyped about voting they will more than likely be voters too! If you are undecided... make up you minds or don't vote. But this thing has being going on for two years how the hell you still gone be undecided when there is only 11 days left. Where the hell where you at during the other 654 days. Well I'mma get off that tangent and just say that I had a good time at the rally,


ps. Hair is doing real well, growing like crazy. I dyed in black and it turned out fine. Next month is my official one year loc-a-versry.

Texture Changes

Hello Fellow Loc'ers,

I thought I was looking cute the other day so I starting clicking away with my camera. But what I'm noticing is a change taking place on the end of my locs. It seems like the ends are swelling. Is this normal? The end of the loc seems to be bigger than the rest of the loc. This may be another stage of loc-dom, cuz at first the ends were open (which some still are) but now they appear to be closing but swollen. Also my hair is changing colors.

The day before I got my locs I dyed my hair black.It did not take long for the dye to wear off. Now my hair is brown with red/orange tips. I think the sun turned the tips but I still wondering why the dye did not last. I think I ill dye it again next month after my loc-a-versery. That's right next month will be a full year of loc-dom. I still love my locs, but if I had to do it all over again I probably would have started with braidlocs. I love sisterlocks, but I got sisterlocks before I knew about braidlocks. I could have got the same look for a few hundred dollars less. As you can guess, I'm not all hung up on the brand of locs, just the end results.

I've Been Tagged

The Rules:
1) Link to the person that tagged you. http://luvlockd.blogspot.com/
2) Post the rules on your blog.
3) Share 6 non-important/habits/quirks about yourself.
4) Tag 6 random people by posting links to their blogs. *** I was only able to tag four due to my lack of time
5) Let each of them know they've been tagged

Six non-important/habits/quirks about myself:

1. I love the rain. Some people are fond of sunny days... but I pray for rainy days. When it rains I like to be by myself and listen to the rain hit the roof. I've been known to open my door and run around in the rain. The rain can also be a very reflective time for me, I get in deep thoughts when it rains. I especially love the way it smells after the earth has been drenched. The clouds look like fluffy fat pillows.. Long story short I love the rain.


2. I am a nature freak. I love every aspect of the earth, each season has a specialness to it. I adore the way the sky turns red, orange, pink, purple and dark blue as the sun sets. As fall comes in I look forward to the gradual turn of color the leafs take. Ohhhhhhh don't get me started on the ocean, I can stare at it for hours. My goal is to visit Maine during the fall to take in all the changing foliage.


3. I'm a secret make-up junkie. I did not take a liking to make-up until I turned 32 now its one of my favorite things. I teach myself different make-up techniques. I love looking glammed up and knowing I did it by myself.


4.Smells are really important to me. If I'm at a person home, I don't mind if it's junkie as long as it smells good. Bad smells make me physically sick. It sticks in my nose and I smell it long after its over. One time I filled my house with so many plug-ins I got a major headache. It took me awhile to discover that the purfumey smell was causing my brain to spasm.


5. My granddaddy is my role model for an ideal good man. He was kind, generous and loving. You always knew where he stood on issues important to him. He always made me feel like he would never let harm come into my life. And I always knew as long as he was around I would be okay. He just had a presence about him that made the world seem like a better place as long as he was in it.


6. Walking clears my mind. I walk as exercise but it also is
an outlet for my thoughts. When I walk it's early in the morning, it may be a bit nippy outside and there are few people around. During that time it's me and God, I can talk to him about what's going on in my life. It's also a time to sort out my problems in the cool fresh air of the day.


The people I tagged: Nubeing Becomings: http://happilynappilynish.blogspot.com/
Cassidy: cassidyssisterlocks.blogspot.com/
Naturally Free: http://freenaturally.blogspot.com/
Brown Suga: http://mylocsjourney.blogspot.com

Styling and Profiling

I love my hair to look textured. This look above is a braid out. I need to fluff it a bit but it last long and look great. What I love about my sister locks is that it doesn't take a lot of products to create a good style. For example with my relaxed hair I needed all kinds of products to make my hair look good. I needed a product to make it straight, a product to make it soft, another product to make it shine and a product to hold the style. Usually I had so much product build up in my hair, I was forced to watch my hair every week.


With my sisterlocks all I use is dove moisturizing mist 1-2 times a week, water 4-5 times a week and every other week a small dab of pure extra virgin olive oil. I never have product build up! I use to be a product junkie, now less is more.

Now that I am loc'ed my definition of style has changed. What others my view as different... I view as beautiful. Every hair is not required to be tamed, it's a confidence thing. If I think I look good... guess what I look good. When I think I look good I get more compliments


Many sistahs that use the sisterloc method of locking chose to use all natural products. I must admit I am not that caught up on the all natural kick. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I feel most of the natural products are too costly. As a matter of fact, I can make many of the natural products in my own kitchen. So if I choose to use natural products I will most likely be making them myself.