Starter Locs Journey

Hey everyone,

As I mention previously I have decided to locs up! Yay!! whoop whoop! One more for the natural sisters of the world.

Ok, so I've made the decision now what? Although I got the gist of starting locs is two stand twist and leave it for a while, but even still I had so many questions. Like how thick should my dreads be? What is the best technique for my hair? What should I do to my hair before I start? How do I look after my locs? How often should I wash my hair? and biggest question was how will it before hair is down to my bra strap?

I am so excited to get to the point were I can do those amazing locs styles I see in the magazines and videos. Seriously check out pinterest the styles are amazing!

Before I get into my story, just a little disclaimer I am not an expert, everybody hair and experience is different this just my personal experience. Before I started I washed my hair, had a treatment and trimmed my ends. The technique used on my was a two stand twist that was interloked at the base (with fingers). In terms of how thick i wanted the locs, I wanted them to be medium/thick. As pretty as skinny locs are, I was worried about the strength of them. So the size partings the stylist did was approximately 1 inch squares. My hope is that my locs/hair will be thick enough to fill it out.

This was my first day, hopefully you can see the twists

Not going to lied you, once it was done it really wasn't want I was expecting. It was far too gappy and I could see too much scalp. This was not how the girls on Youtube look! After a little sulk I remembered that locs is a journey and there are no quick fixes. Time to man up and get on with it. I noticed my hair had shrank at bit since the initial twisting, which I was not expecting.

After about a month this is what it look like - thank goodness for hats!

I went through an 'ugly' stage (tbh I still go through this every now and again), this is development stage. My hair hadn't quite worked out how to be and was not 'looking' the way I'd like. I didn't feel very attractive, I couldn't do much with it. It took time for me to build confidence at first, but slowly but surely its really started to home in that my hair is for me, not for anyone else.

Although its neater still looks thin and a bit gappy 

About 5 months into locs I decided to go to a different salon and get my hair neatened up and interlocked tightly with the tool. I decided  to do this because my hair was starting to unravel and the 'interlocking' that was done was pulling out. After doing this my locs felt much more secure and fuzziness at the ends had reduced. At this stage I also noticed my hair had began budding so progress at last.

This was in January

Fast forward another three months and this is were I am. I try to re-twist my hair every 8 weeks or so. My aim is learn how to re-twist and style myself and only go to the salon for special occasions. I'd like to talk about product build up and lint, as well as frizzy ends. But I'll leave that for another post.

Overall I am happy with my hair and the way it looks, but I still have much to learn. There is no set time on when your hair will loc. Patience is needed, its a process. Its going to take time.

Take Care x