Mature Locs

A few months back, I got a comment asking about how often you should retighten mature locs. I have responded several times as a comment but each time it would disappear whenever I hit enter. So this post is basically my response changed and edited a million times out of frustration.

How often you retighten your mature locs is completely up to you. If you want to stick with the four week schedule or drag things out by a few weeks, my recommendation is to stick to a six or eight week schedule.

Experiment and see what works for your hair type and tolerance level for looking a bit unkempt around the edges. My hair demands that I keep a four week schedule, so that is what I am sticking to. I very rarely extend that time unless I want to dedicate an additional evening (2 to 5 hours) to getting it all looking neat again.

Hope this helps.

I know it's short but there isn't much to say about this.

- The Loc Addict

Banned from Doing Hair

Life Updates!
1.  My locs look like locs now.
2.  My therapist has banned me from doing my own hair.
3.  My two year loc-aversary was June first.

No more self-retightening.

No more blowdrying or towel drying my hair myself.

No more time-consuming hairstyles created by me.

No more.

On the other hand, I feel a lot better.

Now before you start thinking I am mentally unstable or something like that, I am talking about my physical therapist.

Over the past two years, I have had shoulder pain on a regular basis. In late December, the pain became more frequent and in February, had intensified to the point that I could not sleep at night and could not remain in the office for more than three hours at a time.

I had to find a doctor who specialised in pain to get any answers. He told me I had tendonitis with referred pain, then a muscle spasm and finally, he landed at cervical spondylosis. Basically, I have arthritis - in my neck.

I have been going to physical therapy, changing my meds on a regular basis and have reduced the number of things I do with my affected shoulder. Progress is slow but it seems as though we have hit the right balance for now. Pain management is what we're focusing on and anything that may increase tension in my neck needs to be delegated to someone else.

I am not sure what to do now that my loc-aversary is coming up. On one hand, I was going to start showcasing simple styles but I can't do that now and just talking about the progress of my hair and length checks is not enough. I am open to suggestions but there is a chance that this will be my last blog entry.

Hope you've enjoyed this journey with me.

- The loc addict out.

A Whole Lot of Meh

Last year I planned a huge celebration blog celebrating my one year loc-aversary but the date came and went and I was disappointed. My locs were still unravelling every month, very few of them looked like locs and I could not be bothered to do much with them. That feeling has continued for more than six months. Overall, the excitement has waned leaving me feeling pretty meh about the whole affair.

Don't get me wrong, I still love locs. I love not having to comb my hair, I love waking up and shaking out my hair before walking through the door. My issue lies in the lack of visible progress. My hair does not look or feel any longer than when I started even though I have been told it looks that way. (I knew what my length was before the shrinkage and my hair is now back at that length without me having to stretch it.) My hair is losing it's bounce factor and retaining more water, I can stretch the length between retightenings by a week or two. I am seeing progress but it is so gradual that I barely notice and the things I am most looking forward to, don't seem to be happening.

I mean Houdini is still there. He has taught his neighbours his tricks and they are now performing them on a monthly basis. It's disheartening to see so much change but yet it still feels the same as before. Every month that passes, leaves me less hopefull that I will be fully loc'd by my two year anniversary. Whenever I feel like this I remind myself that my first set of locs took almost two years for other people to even notice I had locs and I watch P31Diva on YouTube to make myself feel better. She has had her sisterlocks for about three years and she is still having the issues I am experiencing. So for all of you feeling like me, hang in there! There is light at the end of the tunnel.

June 2016

February 2018

How Often You Should Retighten

I got a comment earlier this month and have tried replying several times but whenever I select send, the reply would disappear so I decided to write a longer version.

I have mentioned in one of my first posts that I keep to a 4-week schedule for retightening my locs. I was recently asked about when my locs are mature, how often would I need to retighten them. So for the final time - here it goes:

The general rule for retightenings (for me) is no less than 4 weeks and no longer than 10 weeks.

Retightening too often can place tension of the base of the locs which can lead to the loc itself thinning out and eventually breaking. If you keep the base loose enough, you might be able to avoid all those problems but why would you risk it? No true professional will do it for you so with self retightenings taking so long, who really wants to do that more often than once a month?

On the other hand, waiting too long between sessions has its own challenges that can result in locs breaking or merging together. Palm rolling allows the hair to loc from the outside inwards. Unlike palm rolling, the interlocked hair is forced into the shape of locs and the outer part grows around what is there. When you wait too long there is nothing there for the loc to form around and the base becomes weaker and more likely to break when it is retightened. The second issue is simpler but no less annoying to deal with. Even when I had my traditional locs this was an issue for me. Locs merging together little hairs wrap around other hairs nearby. It happens all the time, but when left alone, these can lead to painful separation or the locs being so entangled that they must either be cut or left to form one thicker loc.

The sweet spot for retightening mature locs is between six and eight weeks. I am by no means an expert, but from my research and knowledge of my own hair, I will be attempting a six week schedule for myself when my locs get to that point. It is up to you to find a schedule to work with what you have. If you can stand your roots looking extremely wild, stretch that time to eight weeks but if you're like me and cannot stand that look for more than a week, keep it short at six weeks.

Right now at about twenty months, I still have locs unravel completely and plenty that are looking almost mature. It's a very interesting stage to be in as you go back and forth between being excited about having mature locs and being disappointed at the lack of progress in others. I am looking forward to the day when I can stop retightening every four weeks. Hopefully, it will happen within the next six months.

Special thanks to Still Learning My Natural Hair.

The Loc Addict Out.
- Lata.

Keeping Moisture in Winter

This is not a post I thought I would be doing anytime soon. I mean, I live in the Caribbean, when would I ever have to deal with winter and low humidity? As chance would have it, the answer was November to December, 2017.

My solution?
Weekly washing, leave in conditioner and coconut oil.

Did it work?
Kinda.

I mentioned in a previous post, I have had dry scalp for most of my life. No matter what I do, certain  areas have always been drier than I would like. So I decided to focus was the hair itself. 

Let's start with the shampoo. Before my trip, I spent a long time looking all over for what I thought would be an appropriate shampoo for me. I gave up looking for the specific shampoo and bought another from the brand; Design Essentials - Moisture Retention shampoo. I did not just rely on the shampoo. I stepped it up a notch and used a conditioner.

Now, don't judge me, I had been given a small container of WEN Cleansing Conditioner and that is what I used. As far as conditioners go, I can honestly say that I have had better. It cleansed more than it conditioned but it also didn't leave my hair feeling extremely rough like the Dr Bronners Castile soap.

Next up, the leave in moisturizer. I figured, as drying as winter is supposed to be, my hair will need all of the help it can get. The Creme of  Nature Argan Oil Leave in conditioner was the only one I could find before my hasty departure. Initially, I mixed the conditioner with water. Not to stretch it but as a safeguard against having my locs unravel. It worked in the initial phase but as it got colder, I had to stop diluting it before use. It left my hair feeling silky when damp and just shy of feeling crunchy when dry. This added a natural looking luster to my hair but with all the wool products touching my hair, I needed something more.

Last but not least on my list of products was........good old coconut oil. Before my departure, I got a small bottle filled with coconut oil and added two drops of peppermint oil. This was my saving grace. Every time I used the leave in conditioner, I would seal it in with the oil then add another light mist of the leave in. This had my hair feeling soft and looking healthy. Too bad my scalp decided that every five days was enough time between washes. 

I am not complaining (not much anyways) and I did enjoy washing my hair weekly but having to blow dry my hair and then repeat the conditioning process every weekend when I could be exploring a new country was annoying. But hey, you do what you gotta go and that's what I did. 

Til next time, the Loc Addict is out!

Lata.

Happy New Year

2017 was an interesting year for me to say the least. I was going to start showing styles and give more updates on how the locing process is going but at some point, I stopped seeing progress and did not want to say every week or month that I have not noticed much change. Additionally, I dropped my phone and could not take any photos or upload any more posts. (I normally write these on my phone during lunch break.) If that was all, I would have been back to business as usual but summer started and threw that idea out the window. Summers here are some of the busiest for my office but this year, it was extended into October. In November, I was sent overseas for training and only returned just before Christmas. Just like that 2017 was over and my blog had been all but forgotten.

I was in the process of deciding whether or not I should forget about blogging and try something else. I have had only one comment in nearly a year and a lot of the views seemed to be from spamming sites. Not too encouraging from my point of view. A few days ago I got another comment from Marlee and I want to send out a heartfelt thank you to her. I am going to keep blogging for a while longer. Updates may be a little irregular at first, but I am working on one to be uploaded later this week. 

The Loc Addict is back! Until the next update....Lata!