BronzeGoddess01 really hit the nail on the head with some important starter loc tips for those folks who are doing it all on their own (click here to see the video). Watching her video led me to summarize a couple of tips that may help those who are considering starting locs on their own. These are things I wish I had thought about in detail prior to doing my twists...
1. Make neat, practical parts. When you venture on a loc journey, you are setting your hair style for years to come. Thus if you like to style your hair with a certain look/goal, it's important to keep parting in mind. Make sure all of the parts you make work with any type of style you may want to try (flat twists, side part, middle part, etc.). I used a triangle method for my parts, when I should have just done straight box parts. This is the main reason I plan on restarting.
2. Make all of your twists in the same direction. This is a big help down the road, and will help the locking process with the added consistency. Coming from 2 years of free-strand naturalness, I didn't even think about this. When I went to re-twist my hair, I realized that some were twisted clockwise, while others were counter-clockwise! When I restart my locs, I will choose one direction and stick to it!
3. Know what size you want your locs to be. Understand that this is not necessarily a one-size fits all kind of thing. Parts of your hair that may be thin (Ex. edges) may have more hair at the root, while thicker parts may have less. Overall, I'm pleased with the part sizes I chose in the front, however I think I did them a little too big in certain parts of the back.
4. Take your time when starting your locs. Be sure to set aside a reasonable amount of time to start your locks. I started my locs out of frustration, AND after I did a friends' hair, at about 1 am. CLEARLY, I was tired when I started them.
Those are the main points I would have really benefited from knowing in starting my own locs a couple of weeks ago. I kind of did it on a whim, but this time I'll be ready to start and not look back. Completing my first re-twist this past weekend, confirmed that locs are the style for me. I washed and re-twisted my hair in ~1.5 hours. I then sat under a dryer for 30 minutes, and let the rest air dry overnight. This means I'm looking at a bi-weekly routine of 2 hours, AND I don't have to worry about styling my hair every time I wash it. Pure awesomeness.
I plan on re-twisting my hair with every wash until my hair is at the teenage loc stage. Due to my active lifestyle - I can't go more than two weeks without washing my hair, and I doubt that I will like the look of my twist/locs without a re-twist. I'll be sure to be gentle on my edges. Once I'm at the teenage stage, I will move to monthly re-twisting, and wash my hair as needed. I can already tell from week 3 that my hair will loc fairly quickly with the two-strand twists. I didn't run into any issues of my twists unraveling or coming undone after a thorough wash. In fact, I'm a little worried about this take-down, but I'm sure it will all work out just fine!
What I'm learning from this post is that even though natural hair is very versatile, there are methods to every aspect of it. I never thought about the tips you mentioned and I didn't realize that people retwisted locs so often and that washing was something you could do at the early stages. I just thought maybe the scalp was cleansed with a product or something. Very interesting. Meanwhile I'll have to wash and restyle my own twists/twist out before I have unintentional locs! You know my hair type. lol
ReplyDelete@Libby - so true!!! You are too funny too talking about your hair - I say the same things..."Ooh, my hair is THICK!" lol
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