5 Years

I haven’t posted here in a long time. As my locs have grown longer, I’ve settled into a routine and their just isn’t as much to say. But I’ve been doing more experimenting with styles and this year will be my 5th year with locs so I am going to try to start posting on a semi-regular basis again.

Now that my locs are fairly long (below the shoulder – bra strap length, depending), I do have a bit more versatility with updos that I did not have before. So I’m going to start taking pictures of my experiments as well as my stylist’s magic.

To be continued….

Lock Loops

My Lock Loops arrived in the mail.

DIY and salons

dyed black w/ brown highlights

I’ve been a DIYer for several years. Partially for financial reasons, partially for personal reasons.

I didn’t know how to take care of and style my own hair until my early twenties. Until then I relied on other people – braiders, stylists and kitchen beauticians – to do my hair. It became a running joke in my family that I would never know how to do my own hair.

It’s been so long…

Between moving and starting a new job, I have completely neglected this blog. Well that, and not having much going on with my locs. I’m in a new city with more loctician options so I am thinking about stepping into the exciting world of professional hair color and intricate styles.

As soon as I find a loctician, anyway. Progress pics soon!

Curls

I’ve been experimenting with curlers during the last month. I bought perm rods in two sizes and setting lotion from the beauty supply shop and watched a lot of YouTube videos. I’ve curled my hair 4 times with mixed results.

Problem #1: I can’t sleep with hard curlers in. I’m going to get some soft curlers (either Soft Spikes or Loc Loops) and see if those are more comfortable.

Problem #2: My hair takes forever to dry. The one time I dozed off with the curlers in, I woke up and my hair was still damp. I’ve added a soft bonnet dryer attachment to my wishlist.

In spite of those two problems, I’ve been pleasantly surprised with how my hair has turned out. I use bigger rollers for a wavy look and smaller ones for tighter curls. I have only been getting the tight curls on the locs that dry completely before I remove the rollers, so I hope that better drying will improve my results.

Summertime – gratuitous hair pic

I love the summer. The thing I have really enjoyed about having natural hair is that I don’t have to stress about getting it wet.

3 years

I haven’t posted much due to being busy and not having much to say. But it is my 3 year anniversary, so here is a picture post!

The search for styles

Something different

I haven’t posted in a while because I just haven’t been thinking about my hair much besides regular scheduled maintenance. My hairstyles are very, very boring. My locs are usually down, in a pony, or in a half pony. My hair is long enough for a lot of the updos that I love to watch people demonstrate on You Tube, but I rarely attempt anything.

2010

I feel like I should post something in honor of the new year, but there isn’t much for me to say hairwise. On the plus side, I managed to survive the post-Christmas shopping season without buying any unnecessary hair products (ie. shampoo). I’m looking forward to the relaunch of Oyin Handmade’s website so I can stock up on conditioner and Juices and Berries.

On the negative side, I was lax about tying up my hair during my vacation and I am still finding bits and pieces of down feathers in my locs. So no new loc pictures until I get rid all the fuzz. And possibly henna my hair again since I still have quite a bit of Lush henna left.

Notes from a recovering product junkie

My shampoo collection

When I started writing this post, the title was “notes from a recovered product junkie”. Then I took a picture of all my shampoo.

This week’s discussion of overrated products in this week’s #naturalhair twitter hour (I was following on my BB, but a bit too distracted to participate) got me thinking about product junkies. The difficulty in transitioning and maintaining natural hair, especially for new naturals, often comes down to figuring out what products work for natural hair. The products that are used on relaxed hair just don’t have the same effect (and honestly, most mainstream lines aren’t that great for relaxed hair). Part of this is because we associate healthy and clean hair with shiny hair and that is the mineral oils and petroleum jellies are designed to do. Tightly curled hair just doesn’t shine like that unless you load up on the Jheri curl activator and let your Soul Glo.