Whoops: Things I forgot

As promised in my previous post here is the pic of the ends of my locs that came off. The two long ones are 1.5 inches. I didnt realise they were that long :O The middle one is an inch and i didnt measure the smallest one.


As i explained in the previous post i do not know what cause the ends to become weak and come off. Initially i thought it could be poor retightening at the start, but i now realise it could not have been. My hair was never that short when it was installed, so i am at a loss. I hope it is not the start of some underlying problem and just a one off. Maybe i did not mositure is properly and it got dry and brittle. Anyway i will try to remedy it by doing some deep conditioning. Can anyone recommend a good product. Also i will make sure i will mositure the ends properly in case that is a cause. Still trying to find a product to replace the shea butter. I prefer to make my own so i am a little stumped.

I also forgot to mention that i have some baby locs. I have one at the front at the right. It has been there for a while but kept washing out. I have now sown the end and it appears to be holding. I find this technique helpful in helping the loc to form and i have done it on other ones. I did have a baby one on the left side as well but when i got retighten last it was joined to a loc. I have an unruly hairline and no matter what it always comes out and is bushy esp when i wash it. So even wen my hair has just been re-tightened it can look like it needs doing. I just accept it as my hair. Anyway there is enough to form a tiny loc, but sometimes when it is re-tighened a new loc is formed and other times she joins it with the other locs. Oh i dont know if i have mentioned before that Liz no longer re-tightens my locs. She has trained her neice to do re-tighening and she does my locs. I do not see this any different to her training me to do my own locs so i am kool with it. She has been doing it for a while now i reckon well over a year. I also have 2 new baby locs that were put in near the back on the right side. Those two are very new and i think it was formed from hair sprouting. That or i lost 2 locs but i have not noticed that so i don't think so. I also have one behind my ear on the left side. The thing with that one is that it is right where the ends of my glasses sit so it can pull. I do find it hard having random baby locs as my locs are matured i am used to doing my own thing with them and not worrying. I sometimes forget i have baby locs and they need to be treated with care.

Anyhoo i do not think i have forgotten anything else
Blessings
xx

In Love Again

Wow what a difference 4 days and a re-tightening can make. I know in my last post I said I wasn’t feeling my hair and after reading other blogs I know that sometimes it can happen. But at the mo I LOVE my hair. I hope the bad days will be few and far between, if at all.

I started re-tightening my hair on Mon and I finished y’day. I don’t know how many hours it took me to complete, I think on my next one I will count the hours but I know it was plenty. On Weds I did approx 9 hours. I’ve heard other ppl say they can do it in a day and Creyole can do it in 2.5 hours! When I read that I was like WOW. It takes my consultant 2 hours to do my hair and I thought she was fast. But 2.5 to self re-tighten, blew me away. I hope I get quicker and can do it maximum a day. Cos at the mo I need to set aside a week to do it and its just too much time. But as my old piano teacher used to say “practice makes perfect”. I was surprised that it needed doing already as it was only 3 weeks since it was last done and my consultant does it every 6 weeks so that is what I had stuck to. I don’t know if it was growth or slippage or a combination of both. I have read other blogs and I know that some do it every 4 weeks so I may try that, as 3 weeks its just too soon, my arms need chance to recover lol. The pics below were taken just after i finished re-tightening my locs.

Part of the way through re-tightening the front

When I was re-tightening there was a few problem areas. One lock on the hairline in the front was damaged but was holding on. My point of view is that there is not point in keeping it there so I pulled of the damaged end and started the loc again with what was left. For some reason I just couldn’t get the hair in the SL pattern so in the end I gave up and just plaited it. One of my locs I noticed has loose hair in the middle of the loc, don’t know how that happened.


I’ve also combined two sets of locs and you can see in the pics. In the first one it was at the back, as you can see one was really skinny and it kept coming out of the pattern so I joined it with a fatter loc next to it.

The other ones I think they were two locs I had joined when I first learnt to re-tighten and had to cut strands as I couldn’t separate them. They were two skinny locs but if you look at the end it was very fat. I didn’t like the way they were soo skinny so I joined them together. You should be able to make out the join at the root. When the joint bit of loc gets longer I will cut the two ends off and leave one loc. I do not know if it has messed up my partings but its done now and I prefer it this way.

I was reading Creyole’s blog (I hope she doesn’t mind me mentioning her. Hopefully not at it’s nothing she hasn’t already posted), and she was talking about the bunching she had experienced. I was like that it so my hair, and it made me feel better. I know it will get better with time & my locs will start to behave. It’s all about the journey and patience. I know ppl do braid outs and curl their hair to try and control the frizziness/bunching, so will try more of that. I do have soft spikes but I’ve noticed on the last few times I’ve used them my hair hasn’t set fully and sometimes still damp even though I’ve left it in over night. The first time I did it, it was fine so I don’t know why its not working this time when I’ve done nothing different. I think I will invest in a hood dryer. I was also looking at getting some heated rollers, still thinking about that. First time I tried a braid out I wasn’t that keen on it. I used to do Bantu knots but for some reason the knots won’t stay in now, so I just give up and put the soft spikes in. I want something quick which is why I was thinking of heated rollers. Actually this morning I was up early for church and I was thinking about it. I still have my curling iron from when I creamy cracked (9 yrs ago), so I kinda tried to style it using that. It took me way back, I r’ber them days. Didn’t have the curls but it added body. I’ve actually got my hair in soft spikes at the mo so I hope they dry over night.

Hope you enjoy the pics.

Til next time, be blessed and know that God loves you