Hair Updates & Stuff

I'm not sure how much stuff there will be but I do want to include some photos of my hair.  We went from the very stylized crowns to a basket weave with some flair over the last two months.  The first two photos are from April and the last one is from May.  I pulled the hair back in both cases so it's not bugging me cause y'all know I'm weird about hair in my face.  We combined two locs up front to secure the base on one that was super thin.  I've twisted it and secured the ends with thread for now but I've ordered some loc clips to pin that one and one in the back together.  Can I just say I'm loving my hair again.

So for the stuff part.  I watch Youtube videos randomly and felt better to see a few folks say that you will randomly think about cutting off your locs when you have them.  I have no desire to come them but it makes me assured that I'm not a weirdo.  I made a new oil mix to help with the itchy scalp that I should probably use today.  Saw it online and I think I need a dropper but didn't grab one yet.  Something shifted at work but it may work out to my benefit for a few months.  Just gonna sit back and enjoy doing nothing today.  I need to take a nap y'all lol. 

This Whole Adulting Thing wooo

Y'all I had words here, nice lovely words that went away as I was trying to understand Blogger's new layout that moved something was easy to find to somewhere that literally is not intuitive at all.  Now I'm annoyed and I'm not ever sure if we won't end up in the same place in a second.  Okay so I can breathe again.  This time it appears as those the words have stuck so I can just add to them.

I have not been updating here as routinely as I used to do and I can't say it's for any other reason than I've been lazy.  I post to Facebook, which is where most of my friends are, and then I go to bed because life has been hectic.  I will say this.  I love my hair.  I mean I've said that before but I really love my hair.  my locs are healthy and growing and are at the point length wise that my loose natural or relaxed hair hasn't been at in years, decades really.  We've had it up because of a weak loc that is now good to go.  I've put it up the last two months just so it can be out of my way while I'm doing 50 million things and just not wanting to mess with my hair.  A few locs have been combined to make sure they had a stronger base which is good because the back of my hair is a totally different texture than the front and thus don't want to let that loose hair not be able to support the locs there.  It's slightly more uniformly gray now as well which I love but even if it wasn't like I feel like good energy is in them and me as a result.  Anyway, enjoy the Google slides update on my hair.  It goes in order of hair updates so January, February and March.  Hopefully, I'm back on track next month.

So here we are, back where we started

I have been home mostly since mid March.  All travel has been halted, classes were taught remotely, there has been no tennis and I have had no retwist since February I think.  Right before I went to see my nieces and yeah my brother but mostly my youngest niece for her birthday.  I have to drive a bit to get my hair done and the city where I typically go was in major lock down for almost two months.  My loctition appears to be stepping away from doing hair and my initial one is taking over her clients but it's been nearly a month since I got that news and still freshly parted retwisted hair so I'm debating going back to doing my hair again solo.  That terrifies me now more than it did when I just went natural but I'm not sure if it's I'm lazy or that I have to do more reading on my own to be healthy.  On the flip, much like when I was doing my own hair pre locs I get to save a lot of money and I can do my hair on my schedule and no more hour long commutes.  Given the pandemic it may be the best option because there's no way to prevent getting exposed save not leaving the house and not letting anyone in the house.  I'll think it over but you know me.  I tend to make decisions after thinking on it for longer than any human should and asking for input.  That's the stage I'm in now.  I'm also in the itchy scalp and needing to wash my hair phase so I may do that tomorrow regardless of anything else I do.  Hope you are all well. 

Happy New Year, Yeah New Length

Hey everyone,

Super excited tonight for some reason.  I got my locs retwisted and as a coworker would say they are swing.  And as I have been want to do I looked at where I was this time last year and woosah the difference.  I'm having a good day even though it started out with me not feeling so good.  I was a bit annoyed on the drive home because I got held up by a train on the non highway highway and after we started moving again I figured I got delayed for a reason.  And that reason was to listen to Take Me to Church by Hozier loud and sing loud before I got out of the car.  I'm resting right now because in about twenty minutes top I gotta put my Invisalign trays back in.  Woosah they hurt but my teeth will be cute and straight by June. 

Okay here are photos from today and one from last January.

Birthday hair for the almost birthday girl

Hey everyone,

I am now about 36 hours until it's my official birthday and time.  I got my hair retwisted yesterday because I know literally no black hair salon (or really any hair salon that isn't one of those chain operations) that is open on a Sunday or Monday.  Had another person look at my hair and go yep that's what I want someday.  It's nice to be on this end of things even though I still have some unsealed ends and the hair at the back of my head stays unruly between retwists. 

Mom loved it when I got home and so did/do I.  I like that my hair is long enough to do things with and I LOVE still not having to do more than moisturize it and tie it down.  I'm starting to get to the phase where I am worried about fabrics and potential lint but so far so good.  I do need to moisturize my scalp better.  The harsh winter temperatures are drying it out even while the water and oil spray is keeping my locs healthy.  Looking forward to growth over the next year as we slide into the two year mark. 

Here are photos and I have no idea what appears to be on my face in the second photo cause it's not in any of the others.

Wakanda Forever & all that jazz

I didn't forget this time and am ready to talk about my loc update.  I'm 16 months or so into the process and my hair is still growing well.  New hair is starting to come in between the locs along with the standard new growth which is making me happy that my hair is healthy and strong.  Not that I would on a regular basis but I can whip my hair back and forth and it catches in the wind in a different way than my fro ever did.  From where I started to now I'm super excited about my hair and this part of the journey.  The ends are not all sealed of course but if I'm stalking blogs correctly that's normal and different parts of my hair will do different things at different times.  The portions at the end of my hair that I thought would be damaging or that I needed to pull off months ago have settled into the rest of the loc and just show a point where the hair was doing its own thing again.  In short, I'm loving my hair and the process it's gone through over the last year.  I need to figure out how to manage the length under my winter caps and with my clothing.  I tend to wear t-shirts so that doesn't create a snag issue but it's COLD in these parts so the winter sweaters will have to be chosen carefully.  I'm happy that I did this and appreciate that folks helped me find the people who will nurture my hair.

Without further adieu, my new photos.

No Snappy Title

Life has been a bit hectic around these parts since my last post.  I was enjoying life and playing tennis and then suddenly I was playing crash your car with a large green pickup.  I'm okay, the other driver was okay, my car went to the cute care graveyard in the sky mostly because it was old.  My twelve year old car's appraised value was just about the same cost as repairs so no more twelve year old car.  Into a two year old SUV now that I have not taken photos of but will eventually and while I like it, I miss the whole no car note situation.  I guess it's a good thing that it's coming around the same time as my promotion and negotiation for my job but woosah.  Bye bye no car note life. 

June Retwist

I just did the year of change update and there's not a lot to update you guys on right now.  So I'm just going to make this a photo update. Next month is one full year of being locked.  My retwist appointment I think is one day off from when I started the process.   Photos below are before tennis and then after tennis.

777-9311, not really 7 months loc'd

Just had to throw in a Prince song because well why not.  I may be a few days late on this officially but I just had my 7 month retwist appointment and length is what is on tap now.  They aren't super hard yet but for 7 months I'm not sure that I would expect them to be.  So let's do the photos first before I get into me being pseudo-paranoid about taking care of my hair lol.

How many locs and Random Update

Do you know what you do when you get bored because you are snowed in and nothing good is on tv right now?  You count your locs and notice some issues with your nape.  Some hair at the dead center of my nape has freed itself from the surrounding locs.  Where it is I think it was tucked into other locs but doesn't want to stay there.  I go in about two weeks from now to get my retwist so I'll talk to her then about what to do with that hair because I don't wanna be sorta loc'd a year from now because that hair keeps coming loose--to be clear this is the first time I've noticed it so it may just be how I was sleeping and my body generating lots of heat for a while because of weather and illness.  Depending on what we do with that hair I may have more or less locs heading forward.  I've twisted them to keep them from just being loosey goosey until I head back in but the back two rows may be getting adjusted to accommodate that hair. 

So after splitting my hair into four segments I started in the back of my hair and those two bunches, save the loose nape, accounted for 45 locs.  Seems reasonable enough and I wasn't shocked or disappointed.  The front half of my hair took much longer to count and was almost twice as many locs at 77.  The locs around my edges are much smaller than the others and I'm okay with that for now as they will likely continue to be much smaller going forward than the crown and other spots near the edges.  I can always combine them in the future if need be but I'm hoping the growing loc doesn't get too heavy to cause any thinning in the future.  Regardless, I have a count now and can stop wondering.  I'm not in the sisterloc range clearly but for some reason I didn't think I had 100 plus locs.

Anyway I'm going to try not to fall asleep again cause that's all I've been doing since we've been snowed in.

How goes life?

Loc Update & End of Semester Praise Report

So let me start this off by saying as of about 8 hours ago I'm officially done with this semester.  I cannot at all begin to explain how excited that is.  No last minute grading or negotiations with students about their grades.  I was even able to help one out on a paper she needs to rewrite for someone else.  I stayed on top of my grading this term with my two official classes, internship and research.  Proud of myself on that front so yeah do a dance there.  Okay let's move on.

So yesterday was my loc retwist and my hair keeps maintaining well.  As they get longer I can see more closely what size they will likely be as they continue to mature as well.  Loving that.  I'm officially five months loc'd as of today.  I saw someone's locs fresh off her retwist when I was just getting settled into the chair and she's probably six months plus ahead of where I am but around the same size and I was like in love.  We started talking to someone else in the shop who started wondering if the loc life was for her and it was like ma'am totally depends on you but I'm loving this process in ways I can't actually articulate.  She asked if I was saving money being loc'd and I'd have to say probably not on one front.  I'm still having to pay someone at least once a month to do my hair.  That's instead of the every two month Senegalese twist life that would be the equivalent of three months of loc visits and one month of my hair doing whatever it wanted while I let it rest.  Plus products.  At this point, I'm light on products outside of oils and my hair is doing its own thing with minimal input from me.  We both shared that sentiment and she seemed to take it to heart but probably not ready for that and I totally understand that.  It's a lot to commit to.

The Year of Many Changes

I have been a busy girl.  I've gone from planning a graduate program to nearly being done with the first semester of a graduate program--five more to go.  I've gotten another 20 ish students to conferences.  I've gone from planning a study abroad course to being four months away from heading out on said trip and have been fundraising my ass off well figuratively not literally cause my butt needs to go to the gym.  And while all the work stuff is good, the personal stuff is good too.  Earlier in the year I planned on getting Lasik cause I was tired of my glasses costing a tiny fortune and if I could I would like to opt for just waking up and seeing clearly with no assistance.  Recovery time was factored in and July seemed like the best option but mom was ill so I stashed that idea.

Old-Fashioned Hair Talk

hey guys,

I mean to write this last night because I was noticing something in terms of loc journeys.  People seem to be great about documenting that first year of growth and change and what it is like to go from mostly loose natural hair to mostly cultivated locs.  But after that year the gaps widen or the bloggers/vloggers just vanish.  I think the same thing has happened with some of the natural hair bloggers I used to stalk as well.  I mean life happens and we redirect our energy elsewhere so I get it but it made me sad. These folks become part of my mental extended family with whom I can vent about this one thing with and maybe that's the issue.  We only have that one thing in common so when life happens there's nothing to share or feel like there's a community to lean on.

Work friends are fascinated with my hair change BUT they can't really walk me through it as I am the only person at work with locs right now.  Someone at work wants to get locs but feels she's at least a decade away from that.  Now mind you I can't knock her because I only finally went for it about 20 years after I initially thought I would get them.  That was mostly because I didn't want to look exactly like my mentor more than I already did but now I'll be the one with the gray locs while color has not abandoned her.  I'm really enjoying the process and the ups and downs and I am really feeling like this is the year of long awaited changes for me.

Just gotta get back to the gym.

Three Month Update

Hey people,

I am very glad that I was able to retrieve my calendar because as smart as I think I am normally I am super tired because I am sick and my brain was blanking on an important date.  I went from thinking about locs to getting them very quickly.  So quickly I was starting to think that i started the process in August because it didn't seem like I had had them that long.  I was incorrect.  I had my consult with Sarah @ Soul Sistahs in mid July and the install done the next week so yes I am officially three months in.  Corissa has been filling in for Sarah who is on maternity leave and I have to say I enjoy both of them and this journey has been smoother because I have been able to ask questions and discuss what I wanted openly.  I wanted to see what looked different from day one to now so I put together a quick progress update using Pixlr express.

Two Month Update & Other Stuff

Hey guys,

I am finally coming up for air from last week.  I was busy every day but Friday when I started getting sick and just slept in.  Monday through Thursday was super hectic for me including a drive in for my second retwist.  My loctician is on maternity leave so someone else in her shop is filling in.  In general I liked the new technique but she combined a few without letting me know and they just looked awkward when I came home so I split those and went about my day after letting her know I had done it.  There was also a bit of oil overload so I will probably ask her to stand down on that next time.  Now beyond that I noticed a few things about my hair. 

First thing is the length of these coil/starter locs.  My hair is longer all over, save the damaged patches I mentioned a few months ago, to the point that it is hanging in certain places and is making tying it down with my old method problematic.  I did buy a loc soc from Curly NuGrowth and a new Slap Cap that allows me to tie it into place.  I have mentioned before that I have a big head and it's because I have a big head.  Anything that is wholly dependent on a band to keep it on my head will be okay for a few weeks before my head stretches it out and then starts slipping off while I'm asleep.  Even with the tie down options I am probably going to put on an extra cap to hope that something has my hair covered in the morning. 

Second thing is even as much as I move around in my sleep and play in my head, still working on that, my locs are retaining their shape really well as has been noted each time I go in.  I wasn't sure that would happen because when my hair is in braids it is resistant to all of that and starts to slip in different places as soon as humanly possible.  Doing nothing to my hair is taking almost no effort.  I am more concerned about dryness of course but spraying with one of my moisturizers and oiling my scalp has been working well.  I may start adding some JBCO to the patches that were damaged before I started the whole loc process to help them grow but I may just need to massage those areas a bit more like I did many moons ago when my edges were on vacation.

Finally, I am just loving a new phase of my hair journey.  I'm not sure I would have gotten here without the long and winding road I traveled and not because I had issues with locs but because I wasn't ready to risk whatever I thought might be in play professionally and personally by going in this direction.  That's the beauty of aging.  The field of effs you have to give about things like that become more and more barren.  All right, enough of me babbling. Here are update photos.  Oh and I lost 2 pounds lol.

Six weeks down

So this Thursday marked my sixth week of loc journey.  Nothing magical about it except I had some moments of randomness that I should document because they were both interesting and funny for me.

• I have random moments of wanting to wash my hair or go swimming  Neither of those things is gonna happen any time soon cause yeah I'm not trying to schedule an emergency appointment to get retwisted or hide my hair under a hair wrap until I could get back up to my loctitian.
• Apparently my face looks so different with my hair down in the starter locs a woman that has seen me repeatedly couldn't place me because of it.  We ended up having a good conversation about how locs start because she had no idea.
• Someone described the act of playing with your locs constantly as loc paw.  I don't have that anymore but I definitely have a loc or two that are my favorites and I find myself messing with them all of the time.
• The back row is holding up better than before.  Just that left outside one that keeps going meh I don't know if I'm about that life.

So that's what I know at the moment.  No major updates.

I've gotten the older black woman seal of approval

If you are not a black woman or from a black family or know a lot of black people you may not understand what I'm talking about.  Whenever something major changes in the family dynamics: weddings, babies, jobs, school, moving, food and hair, there is a contingent of older black women somewhere making judgements about all of it.  You will hear directly what those judgements were if you hang around long enough.  After I got my locs started last month, mom gave the first pronouncement that things were good but I mentioned to an older woman at work what I was doing and she wanted to see them.  Now it was probably my fault for showing them to her in that first week before the hair started to relax and puff up a bit but she gave me the look that only an older black woman can give you.  It's supportive but questioning your life choices all at the same time.  And then she asked what they always do when that is the face they are giving you--does xyz in your family like it?  In this case it was my mom and she did so I got the okay face proceeded with I just need to see how it goes.

So one month in officially and post my first retwist and she was much happier with me and my decision.  My hair was rounder and more defined as well as appearing longer.  Now we're good and she sees the vision lol.  It was one of those moments this week that reminded me of the love that is inherently present and wonderful in the community if you connect with someone.  If you don't then yeah it can be some shady boots kind of stuff happening.  That just reminds me all skinfolk ain't kinfolk though and I keep it pushing.  But the love is appreciated when it comes and helps all of us keep moving towards better versions of ourselves. 

Related to the approval, I have been trying out new sleeping caps to protect my starter locs.  One I couldn't wear through the first night because it was just too tight and didn't cover the very ends of my hair.  I switched to another that works better but there's no elastic in the band so my giant head is stretching it out nightly and there's also no ties so I can't keep it locked into place.  I pull it down around my ears and then it ends up tucked behind them before I wake up in the morning.  That's also why I've been putting on a regular satin bonnet on top of the sleeve because I am pretty sure if I don't then I will wake up with my hair completely out one day.  I ordered two other options, both of which have ties, so I'm hoping that helps.  I will update you when I find out. 

Right now I'm just happy for a three day weekend before my ever increasingly busy schedule keeps going I hope you don't really wanna sleep.  I need to detoxify a bit.  I'm more people to people and their energy when I am stressed even a little bit.  Have a good one all.

Random Hair Thoughts

So I opened up blogger, was ready to type and forgot what I wanted to say so I logged off until it popped back in there right quick.  I know this is likely just a by product of doing something new but I am starting to notice a lot more people with locs.  On one hand that's cause the semester just started and we just made a dramatic uptick in young black men on campus about half of whom are loc'd that I've seen.  But even not on campus I'm noticing hairstyles, people, options and the like all related to hair.  I know that's not unique to hair.  Whenever I buy a new car I suddenly notice all the similar cars on the road or in the parking lot or what have you.  There's no one just starting them right now but they are a mix of hues, lengths, sizes and styles and I'm here for it.  I finally got pinterest to stop showing me photos of white girls with locs and as soon as I did I stumbled on a board someone named Nigel Montcrief has assembled with a whole bunch of gray locs.  I'm enjoying that because my locs are salt and pepper so it's nice to see all of these young and old gray loc'd women.  And more than just sisterlocks because that's what I was finding when I searched before.  Nothing wrong with sisterlocks but my patience and my pockets are not set up for them. 

As I am looking at the photos and looking at my own hair something came to me tonight.  I hadn't actually thought about what my hair will look like in like five years.  I was thinking a year from now they'll be a decent length and looking more substantial.  Maybe they'd be chin and shoulder length depending on their location on my head and if so all the better.  But I really hadn't gotten past a year of hair growth in my mind.  I'm looking at locs of varying lengths but when I got past bra strap ones my brain was like damn that will happen if you don't trim them ever.  They just keep growing and getting longer provided you take care of them.  Ha.  Not sure why that surprised me or made me momentarily shocked because my hair has grown quite a bit since I chopped it off that not too long ago February.  But because of the texture the only way it was going to be down my back was if I flat ironed it for a length check or put it in some sort of braid or twist style.  My hair would defy gravity not swing lol.  Permanent length on my hair just threw me for a loop for some reason.  All in all I'm just enjoying myself and my hair and observing folks with hair I would call hair goals. 

One Month In

There will be photos.  I was going to do before and after appointment shots but the way my lazy was setup that didn't happen.  I had a meeting before my loc session and yeah when I got out of the car I was just glad to be out of the car.  Everything started on time and I was happy that she thought the locs looked good.  The back row was redone and is chilling on my neck.  Correction the row above that is chilling on my neck.  The middle of that row is minding its business.  The edges are on my neck and feeling more solid than they do when I redo them but got confirmation from the person doing my hair that it was normal for that row to just be a pain.  Based on how they looked today she said that I should be loc'd in a year.  Yeah but letting my hair just do its thing is been oddly liberating even when it wasn't quite doing what I wanted it to do.  And because I haven't been doing anything to it besides oiling my scalp and moisturizing the length of my hair the shorter bits are growing out and I'm pretty happy.

I do need to be fired as my own photog but here's two new photos.  I may tonight or later this week do a side by side from a month ago to today but this is what you got for now. 

I'm happy with the size, the flow of my hair and that it doesn't feel like my hair is somehow unkempt.  The only thing I have decided to do is make sure that my hair is tied down.  The first week I just put on my bonnet and went to bed and I think that led to some of the initial fuzziness.  I was a little worried that it was flattening them out too much but apparently not.  I did grab some caps that are allegedly specifically for loc'd hair so I may just switch to that for the next few days to see how I like them or don't.  Right now I think it's fine because most of my hair is still short enough that it wouldn't matter what was covering my head as long as something was.  Six months from now that may not be an option.  I also thought about an easier way to get oil onto my scalp primarily and remembered I had a bottle for that purpose that I hadn't been using.  I'm going to whip something up and take it from there.  That's it for now.

No Photo Just Updates

Hey All,

I meant to update last week but I had to go to a conference.  I may write about that in this post but this is mostly an update about the process thus far.  So I'm three days away from being three weeks into this process.  I'm scheduled for my first retwist next week at the four week mark.  I may shorten that for the second retwist but I have a plan for all of this which of course you know nothing about.  So what has changed in the nearly three weeks?  Not much.  The nape of my neck is on its own plan so I'll have to talk with her about how to maintain that between sessions.  The center/crown area of my hair seems to have maintained the best.  That's where my hair is thicker and a bit coarser especially compared to the nape area.  The sides aren't too bad but since that's where the limited friction would be when I sleep they aren't as tight at my root as the crown.  The very front where the gray is in total control is probably the loosest area compared to the rest.  That's also the result of some hair breakage from previous braiding expeditions but nothing is totally undone there just needs more attention at retwist.  And the other area of breakage that is actually hidden quite well by all these twists is the least uniform but it was also the shortest hair so again that was not a surprise as I have watched a lot of videos and hair less than three inches takes a lot to hold the starter locs unless you interloc which I am not planning on doing right now.