New home

Due to the sudden demise of space-pirates.org, I had to relocate the hair blog. Thank you to Jen and Bear for generously giving me server space for Beyond Locs for so long.

With the move, I decided to go back to the beyond locs title as well. even though I am locking right now, I have found that many locking resources are targeting people who a) do not have kinky, nappy hair of African descent or b) target people who are jumping from relaxing/texturizing into locking. I want to use this blog to collect resources for people who have loose natural hair as well.

Finally, I went back to the Beyond Locs title because I think that it was essential for me to get to know my loose natural hair before I locked. I think that my expectations of my hair are better because I am accustomed to the unpredictability of natural hair and I have redefined my standards of “neatness”.

Anyway, I am going to slowly start moving posts over from the old blog. Slowly.

So it’s a little empty in here

I have written a lot for this website. Unfortunately, most of it is in a little black notebook. Eventually, I am going to post all of it here.
As it stands, I am going to post product reviews every week and book reviews every month or so (since I have many fewer books than products to talk about). Eventually I will get my FAQ and About Me pages up too.

Why this is “Beyond Locs”

Last year, I spent a lot of time thinking about locing my hair. I looked at books websites and talked to people. In the end I decided that locs weren’t for me.
Along the way, I decided to lookinto what could be done with unrelaxed, un pressed, unweaved, unloced, unbraided hair, ie. my hair in its natural and unrestrained state. And I found that there weren’t a whole lot of resources in that direction.
But things have changed since I first decided to stop perming my hair for good in October of 2001. Over the last 4 years or so, I drifted. I didn’t know how to take care of my hair and I went back and forth between braiding and pressing my hair. In the process, I did a lot of damage to my hair. In the last year, I started doing research and completely changed my routine. Now my hair is healthier and stronger than it has ever been.
Along the way (the 26 years leading up to today), I have had to navigate the politics, biases, and stereotypes that go along with African Ameican hair.
This site is for all of it. The practical hair care stuff, the ranting, the social commentary, the OMGWTF am I going to do with this stuff on my head. Everything.