ready, set, loc!

It took two days and lots of patience, but my hair is finally on it's way to locs. My sister-cousin worked diligently for about four hours one day, and another three hours the next. The parts are nice and neat and they are all uniform in size. Now all that's left is to wait. SC has agreed to be my helper along this journey.

Every eighteen days, I get a four day weekend from my job. I figure I'll retwist during that time. But I'm gonna try to go at least a month before I do a full wash. I'll use witch hazel to cleanse my scalp and a home made cleansing solution on a warm wash cloth to clean the actual twists. This will be necessary since I work in a smoking environment and I don't want my hair to start stinking.

So here's my hair half done...

I wanted the parts more in a brick pattern but this will do.

all done..

all done, at work...

I know it looks a little weird right now. I don't have the luxury of working in place where I can cover my hair or wear a hat. I didn't want to pin it up just yet. I want to let it rest for a few days.

So today, May 26, 2010 marks the beginning of my loc journey. I know it can take 3 months to a year to have fully formed locs so I know I have to be patient.

now, a quote..."Among the Rastafarians and Sadhus, Indian holy men, dreadlocks are sacred and their formation a religious ritual. Among certain peoples in India and others, dreadlocks are an expression of their disregard for profane vanity and a manifestation of a spiritual understanding that physical appearances are unimportant. To a large degree, dreadlocks are a style in India reserved near-exclusively for holy men, expressing a spiritual significance which implies the wearer has risen above a desire for society at large to think favourably of their appearance." credited to http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/dreadlocks/meaning-and-popularity.html

Last Wild and Free

This morning I woke up feeling good. I showered and washed my hair. I was going to do the 'tightly curly' method but since I had just taken out small twists, my curls were already defined enough. The tightly curly method is simply putting a light conditioner on your hair in sections and using your fingertips to separate and define the natural curls. My hair is naturally very curly so I usually end up just smoothing with my fingers.

This is my hair soaked straight from the shower, rinsed free of shampoo and condition/honey.

I took sections of my hair and applied a light conditioner.

Then I blew dry my hair, stretching it out at the roots to preserve some of the length

There was still quite a bit of shrinkage but that's okay. The entire process took maybe 20 minutes.

The end result after getting ready for work.

shrinkage!

Now, some interesting quotes.

"The words, SPIN, SPIRAL, and SPIRITUAL have common roots! The Supreme Power spins; spirals; it is spiritual. It moves or spirals the universe! The entire universe dances in spirals and rotations; everything in it reflects the “SPIRaling, SPIRitual” essence out of which it is made! The “SPIRal,” especially the Golden Spiral, is simultaneously the most profound motion and design in the universe -built into all life forms, from seashelss to man, to spiraling nappy hair! Your blood spirals through your veins! Plants spiral up from the soil! And nappy hair spirals out from the hair roots! Ball your hand into a fist and slowly extend each finger."

"Hair is a really antenna that can receive and transmit energy! A Rastafarian explains that dreadlocks are a quality of Black people; they “are high-tension wires,” which transmits divine energy and inspiration from Jah [God], the creator, to Rasta, the mirror.” (Nicholas/Sparrow: Rastafarian -A Way of Life) As Blacks awaken to true self-knowledge and self-acceptance this brings, the negative racist conditioning with respect to their natural spiraling, nappy hair as “bad” and straighter hair as “good” will cease!"

credited to 'The Isis Papers" by Frances Cress Welsing.

Link. http://www.stewartsynopsis.com/blacked_out_through_whitewash.htm

The Plan

For about the last week I have had my hair in small two strand twists. This is how I will begin my locing process. But I have been doing my research for the last couple of days and I realize that I made some mistakes while twisting my hair.

1) Since I twisted my hair myself, I didn't take the care to make sure the parts were straight and neat. Apparently this is a no no when trying to start locs

2) Also because I twisted myself, I'm not sure all of the twists are in a clockwise direction.

3)Again, because I was going solo, not all of the twists are exactly uniform in size.

So, I have solicited the assistance of my sister-cousin(my cousin who was raised by my parents so we may as well be sisters). She's going to do my twists for me, make sure the parts are nice and neat, the twists are all the same size and in clockwise rotation.

Since I want small locs and as locs mature they do get thicker, we are starting off with very small micro twists. This will take some time and patience so we've set aside two days to get it done.

Today is Saturday. I'm devoting to day to removing the twists I had. I'm almost done.

Tonight I will wash with carol's daughter shampoo. http://www.carolsdaughter.com/product/haircare/shampoo/khoret_amen_shampoo.do

condition with some regular general store bought cholesterol condition that i'll add honey to. Rinse and apply carol's daughter hair oil http://www.carolsdaughter.com/product/collections/khoret_amen/khoret_amen_hair_oil.do?search=basic&keyword=hair+oil&sortby=newArrivals&page=1

sleep with a plastic shower bag on.

Since I don't have to be at work tomorrow until 10am, I will blast my roots with the hair dryer in the morning and style with my fingers and head off to work. It will be my last day of having loose hair so I will take a little extra time to mess with it and make it look cool. Maybe stick a flower in it or something.

Sunday night starts the real work. I ran out of carol's daughter hair smoothie conditioner. Since I won't be using it anymore I didn't want to waste the money purchasing more. So, I'll probably just use whatever conditioner I have to help with combing out my hair.

One of the things I never liked about wearing two strand twists is that once you take them out, it's so hard to comb and detangle my hair. But doing it while it's wet and saturated with conditioner makes it a little easier. So Sunday night while watching the Lakers beat the Suns, I will be dedicated to getting all the kinks out of my hair with my denman brush, of course. I will leave the conditioner in, comb it out, put it in six or seven big twists. Hopefully I'll be done by the time The Boondocks come on.

Monday morning I will rinse the conditioner out, leaving in the big twists, while in the shower. Then it's just waiting for my sister-cousin to come get started on my twists.

All we need is

1)denman brush to come out larger sections of my hair

2)a few clips and ponytail holders to keep hair sectioned

3)rat tail comb for parting and combing out small sections before twisting

4)a spray bottle of water since it's recommended to twist hair while wet

5)carol's daughter loc butter and beeswax(used sparingly only on ends to help keep them from unraveling)

So, I'm gonna get back to untwisting my hair. I will take pics in the morning before I go to work to preserve the memory of my very last day of loose unlocced hair.

Hair Herstory

I'be been natural for several years now. In 2004, I did my first big chop, going from shoulder length to about 1/4 inch. My brother at first refused to cut my hair for me but after I butchered with scissors, he was nice enough to finish it off for me with the clippers.

My hair grew very fast and I loved my natural hair. But after about 2 years, I got lazy and relaxed it. Immediately after I relaxed it, I regretted it. I never relaxed again and ended up doing another big chop about 3 months later.

Now I am shoulder length when stretched. On my birthday of this year, Jan 8th, I cut about three inches from my hair. I hadn't been taking very good care of it. The ends had gotten split and untamed. It has grown back plus maybe a little more length and now I feel it's time to go ahead and start locs.

Why locs?

I have always admired locs. I've seen beautifully groomed locs as well as ratty and untamed locs. Of course I will do my best to keep my locs looking good, neat, and clean. See, it's about more than a particular hair style for me. In fact, all of the transitions I have gone through with my hair these last several years has been about way more than hair. It's about a spiritual journey as well. It's been about having tremendous pride in my african heritage, being disgusted with society(particularly american society) that paints a picture of anything being ethnic to be unattractive. It's about rejecting the notion that we as black women can only be beautiful when we alter our natural appearance with harsh chemicals that makes us closer to the white woman. It's mostly about loving myself and finding beauty in the way the creator designed me.

As I became more conscious and spiritually aware, I became less satisfied with my artificially straight and colored hair. That's not in any way saying that women with relaxers are ignorant to their ancestry or that they can't be spiritually intact. I am telling my story from my own personal point of view.

Which brings me to locs. If I go a day or two without combing through my hair, I notice that sections of my hair naturally wrap around one another and try to form locs. I think there's something significant and cool about how my hair is a spiral. Our galaxy is a spiral. The root to spiral is spir, as in spir-it. In mathematics and physics, the spiral is significant. Even the earth moves around and around creating a spiral affect. The spiral occurs naturally. Look at the weather radar of a hurricane. Look at the movements of the ocean. I know I'm getting a little analytical, but that's how I am. I'm a deep thinker and the most natural and most spiritual thing I can do to my hair is to let it spiral together and loc up, collecting energy like antennas tuning in to the universe.

So there you have it. For the most part, my reason for getting locs.