Three weeks locked life!

Nothing much to update, three weeks ago I started my lock journey through a combined method of interlocking and palm rolling for shape, they were professionally started but I will be maintaining my locks myself. Three weeks in and I haven’t washed or touched my hair really at all. I have started researching when I should stat maintain on my hair at about the 4-6 week mark so soon I will have more of an update. I am hoping to find a good natural product to apply for moisture on my scalp and hair. I am looking into rose water or natural oils so if you have any suggestions I would love them! I forgot about how real the frizz gets in the beginning or in between maintenance for baby locks so I am working on embracing the frizz look! But overall I am still in love with how they look and I can’t wait to see how they mature!

-Rae

Rae with the Loc’d hair!

 

75 Starter locs

Let’s start this journey

I have always loved doing my hair, okay that is not true I have loved doing my hair for about 6 years. Since I decided one day to chop off all my hair and go natural. One day I had shoulder length relaxed hair and one big chop later and I was rocking a teeny afro an I loved it! Since then I have found so many ways to do my hair, but that was really the last time I let anyone else do my hair. I never found anyone I trusted with my natural hair and to be honest I didn’t even really know where to start looking. So instead of searching and potentially letting someone else mess up my hair my hair became my hobby I studied and learned how to do my hair. I had never had an example of how to do my natural hair I was raised by my single white mother in a very small town. So I learned I became a youtube student and I practiced on myself. I would spend my weekends doing my hair, marley twists, crochet braids of all kinds, box braids, twist outs and braid outs galore. I loved it all, I learned so much and slowly became more comfortable with my natural hair. All of that learning was leading me here a few years ago I put in faux locs and I was instantly in love. I loved the way they framed my face I loved how they hung down and yet still showed off my natural texture. So I started researching real dreadlocks. How to start them and maintain them? What were the benefits and drawbacks that came with them. So I thought I  was ready to jump in, I started a set of locs myself using the instant loc method. But I truly didn’t have the knowledge or will power to start them correctly. I had no true grid and I didn’t understand how they locks would grow and mature over time. I ended up combing them out before they fully matured. But I never stopped wanting to dive into this journey.

So here we are again, locking my hair. I decided to have my hair professionally locked this time I was able to get the size and grid pattern I truly wanted and understand how my lock will mature overtime.

But even as I was sitting in the chair for what seemed like an eternity, I missed the freedom that came with doing my own hair. So I am ready to learn about the process of maintaining my starter locs on my own. I can’t wait to share this journey, the ups and downs the frizz and the crazy teenage stage but overall I can’t wait to invest in my hair and dive into the loc’d life!

-Rae

 

Bye Bye Boring Hair!

The other day a coworker who I have worked with for about 8 months  asked my what my hair was like when I interviewed at my current position. See I interviewed in November and didn’t start till January because it was a cross country move, so she did not see my during my interview, when I explained that I had straight hair over my locs, and then proceeded to explain the whole crochet braids process because she had no idea how that was possible, she went . . .

” I cannot picture you with straight hair AT ALL!”

And in that moment I knew one thing. . . my hair had gotten BORING!

Before I moved here I had a new hairstyle every month or so, even when I locked my hair I would install twists and crochet braids I Would get bored and change it up regularly. After I moved here I stopped, now I don’t know if that was because I was just more content with my hair style, or because I live in a REALLY small town now and don’t feel the need to impress anyone, or because of the same small town that I don’t want to have to go through the process of explaining my hair changes to people, or maybe because I would now have to order my hair online. . .

Well anyway I don’t know the reason but for the past 8 months, my hair has been pretty much the same, I had loc extensions and then I took them out but either way my hair was locked, and it just looked like I cut my hair. Nothing crazy there. When she said that it was like I snapped to attention, wait, why am I not changing my hair more often?

So I did.

I bought FreeTress 3x from Amazon, I bought two packs just to be safe and I ended up using about 1 and 1/3 pack if that.

Now my locs are quite thick now and that was the only problem I have found so far with this install is that the top does not look as natural as it has in the past. the braid is just too bulky to blend in well. Now I think the solution next time will just be to do smaller braids, I only did 5 braids this time, since that is what I would do with my unlocked hair and be fine. Learning the difference in unlocked and locked hair I think I will need to split my top two braids into 4 next time. And I am working on reducing some of the bulkiness around the top but my fear of thinning my own hair is making it so I only do a little at a time!

But over all I am happy with the results and plan to keep them in for a couple of weeks at least, and the coworker ran up to me saying how much they loved it. So there it is, I still got it, the hair envy queen can still change my hair up at my own whim!

All pictures taken in my classroom in front of my lovely filing cabinet.

-Rae

Sometimes I think my hair doesn’t grow. . .

Ever since I cut off all my hair and have anxiously been watching it as it grows back. I found the habit of length checks I first found them on Just Grow Already (http://justgrowalready.com/) when I wasn’t sure if I was transitioning or just stretching out my relaxers. The periodic picture check of visible growth helped with the million of other days when my hair felt like it was standing still, or worse the days when it felt like it was creeping back into my head.  So randomly I would stand pull my hair over my shoulders and compare the length of my hair to my tattoo on my back!

Looking something like this. . .

Then I decided to loc my hair and it really felt like it was creeping back into my head, let me tell you the shrinkage in those first few months of locked life is real! And for the last year and a half I have pretty much felt like I am trying to make up for lost ground, work back to where my hair was before. But then today on my time hop it showed me a picture of my hair in a snapchat selfie exactly a year ago, and I instantly remembered why I loved those length checks! They show you that it is worth it, patience the frustration and all the retwisting was worth it because look . . . 

My hair it grew!

So be patient,  take pictures, keep retwisting, learning the ways that your hair works best, keep it up because it is all worth it!

-Rae

Dear Hair. . . Just Curl Already

Now that’s something I never thought I would say!

 

Growing up my hair was always a source of frustration, whether it was that it wouldn’t lay flat like my friends or that I couldn’t wear my hair down whenever I wanted to. As I grew up my hair became more of a hobby, I would cut it, color it, straighten it, curl it, whatever my heart desired at that moment. And it became pretty damaged as a result.

 

So a little over 4 years now I cut it all off and started again. I had just started looking into natural hairstyles for black women and I wanted to be able to wear all of them so I did a big chop. Then again over the next 3 years my hair became my hobby but in a new fashion. I wore twists, faux locks, braids, I wore wash and go’s, braid outs, puffs, crochet braids anything I could think of and I loved it. I also loved writing about it sharing the different styles whether I loved them or hated them, how long they lasted and the trials of perfecting each one.

But then something happened, in November of 2015 I put in a set of faux locs. . . and fell in love! I left them in far longer than any style I had previously had and when it was time to take them out I went for the real thing.

I locked my hair!

So a year and a half later I love my locs! They are maturing and wonderful. But I could not for the life of me get them to curl!

Starting a couple weeks ago I tried Bantu knots… .nothing.

Then came a twist out. . . after a week in twists my locs barely resembled a curl.

So then came loc knots… I knotted my locs up and rocked a head scarf and short hair for a week, pictured here. 

And waited. . . could I get my locs to curl?

I had seen it done on my countless youtube searches, I knew that locs could curl. But the problem was that mine were always thicker than the ones pictured by the beauties on youtube.

See I only have about 60 locs, compared with people who have hundreds, I have way more hair per loc to force into a curl if I want that to work!

So I waited. . . and took countless snapchat selfies with my cute head wraps. 

Then after 5 days, I decided it was time to take them down, I was going out that night and let’s see if I would have popping curls or if they would fall short again.

Well, here it goes. . .

Popping curls if I do say so myself!

So I guess patience and finding the right way to work with the hair I have will always be something I am working on when it comes to the hair on my head.

If you have any tips for curling and keeping curls in thick locs I am all ears over here!

I am going to try and post more hair updates here again, just because my hair is locked doesn’t mean it can’t be fun!

-Kelsi Rae