Lock Loops Holding Strong

Its Day 3 with my lock loops and the curls are certainly holding strong, so much better than my one day braid outs (lol).  I don't know if it has to do with having some more length, but only a few months ago around month 2 and 3 after a few days my curls fell out, literally.  Hopefully this trend will last, because from reading other blogs it seems the longer your locks the harder it is to keep a curl.  What's been the best part for the last three days is that everyday I wake up I have a new style because the curls look slighlty different.   

Nothing much else going on with my hair lately, I haven't been spraying anything on it and its about that time to wash my hair again.  Hmm..I think the weekly wash may be helping as well.  Until tomorrow.... 

Lock Loops - Day 2

Its day 2 with my lock loops and they are still holding strong.  I didn't take step aerobics yesterday at the gym so I think my curls were able to withstand all the "head sweat".  Not bad, right?  I do notice that I have more body and I'm wonder if its because of using the 3 pattern instead of 4 for my retightening so it gives my hair at the roots right now some more volume, if it is I love it.

On another note, yesterday was the BIG reveal of Tyra Bank's natural hair. When I say natural, not our definition of natural (smile), I mean natural without any wigs, extensions, clip-ins, etc. Surprisingly, her hair looked extremely healthy and full. So it shows you can sustain healthy hair under all those extra additives, but then again when you have a glam squad anything is possible, LOL!

An Oldie but Goodie..Lock Loops

I decided to try something new last night. When I jumped in the shower, I put my bare unbraided and banded head under the faucet and soaked my head, and the water flowing through it felt great. When I got out I pulled out my lock loops and rolled up each lock nice and neat instead of sloppily grabbing sections. I ended up using about 20 lock loops and here is my look this morning. The longer side isn't so prevalent and the curls seem to have taken a bit better with my hair being soaking wet. The test is to see how long the curls last, day one and counting :-)

Feeling Lopsided

I took this picture yesterday and it is clearly obvious that my right side is noticeably longer than the left side. Unfortunately, I cannot do anything about it and I wonder if the left side has more shrinkage. When I wash my hair this week I will be able to tell more so, but whatever it is it has me feeling a little self-conscious. Unlike with permed hair, I can't just pull the scissors out and even it all up, for now my solution will be to start rolling my hair again or wearing the back up. I will figure something out tonight, but how weird is that. Its like all of a sudden there is a drastic difference.

DIY-Rocks!!

Say what!!! I finished my right side in under 2 hours!!! I didn't really want to go out with half a side of my head tightened, so I started at 830 and finished a little before 1030. I'm getting the hang of this!!! Oh yeah!!! Since I have no major plans I may tackle the back of my head tonight.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

DIY Retightening #2

So tonight I was ready to put in a good four hours or more to retighten a section of my hair. I started on my left side @ 630 and I was finished by 930. I stopped for about 15 minutes, but to my surprise I was flying through my rows. I think it had all to do with not having to "thread" each lock when I was ready to tighten (see my previous DIY post).


What I found out is with the SL tool I didn't have problems like I did with the NL tool of pulling another lock through or even catching some of the new growth. This of course sped up my session and saved time trying to remove one lock from another. Surprisingly enough, even though I didn't separate my hair after washing it earlier this week I didn't find a section that I had to pop...that is at least on the left side.


I cannot stress how much better I like using the SL tool than the NL tool. At this rate I should be done in another 6 hours. Lol!! 6 hours still sound like a lot but compared to my first try of 5 days and about 3-4 hrs each day this is progress!!!

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

2nd Day Hair

So I wanted to post a picture today of what my hair looks like on the 2nd day of a braid out. NOT so much a braid out anymore, I'm going to stop bothering I tell ya. I need to go back to rollers for variation. In any event, it also happened to be my daughters 1st day in Kindergarten, so I'm killing two birds with one stone. Enlarge the picture, for the true hair details.

Week 1 in my test

If you recall, last week I said I will begin washing my hair weekly, so last night I washed my hair and let it air dry as usual. Of course I'm still braiding and banding, but I skipped the separating the locks afterwards because I went out to dinner and I'm sure I'm going to pay for that when I retighten my hair this weekend.



I came back home, put some cornrows in went to sleep and I ended up with this look this morning. Nothing different then when I freestyle, so why do I bother spending 20 minutes cornrowing my hair, who knows!!

Remember how I mentioned that a co-worker always notices when I wash my hair. Well a few minutes ago, another co-worker just asked if I got my hair done--see what some water and shampoo will do!!! LOL!!!!

Need I Say More

Double click on the image for a larger view.

Retightening Class

Today I went to my retightening class and I met Kay Exquisite. It was just the two of us and honestly we talked for the entire class to each other and the instructor. With all that talking we actually ended up staying an extra hour just talking, it was a GREAT experience. #1, it was great to meet a fellow blogger in person, and #2 it was nice to see another person's hair in just about the same stage as I'm in.

In regards to the class, I definitely implore all of you to go and take the class if you want to DIY. I learned alot about my hair, why things are done a certain way and what my hair is currently doing, information about my cuticle and because Kay Exquisite was also there it was like we were able to bounce ideas and questions easier and learned even more then if we were there alone. Although, you do have your consultant for that you know human nature always wants you to get a second opinion on everything. The trainer was extremely knowledgeable, friendly, helpful, and giving of information and for all of those reasons she will be my new consultant. I will definitely be going back to her in the future to check on my hair on a quarterly basis and if I need any styling for any special occasions. Now the ultimate test of course is which do I prefer. Since I have already retightened my whole head with the NL tool and now I have used the official SL tool, by far the SL tool wins!!! Hands down it cannot compare and I think my 5 day retightening will be reduced to 3 days. I will test my theory out over the Labor Day weekend. I still love my SL's and even more so now that I can take care of them the proper way.

And one last thing is that I have changed my pattern now to a 3 to allow my hair to coil around its natural pattern instead of keeping it stifled.

On another note, there is a HUGE back story on the NL tool and how it came about. I will post about this tomorrow, its time to go to bed!

Nothing new

Nothing new going on today. I just wanted to post because a natural co-worker of mine will always ask me what I did to my hair, if its a braid out or roller set. What's ironic is the past two times I've washed my hair she will ask me the same thing. After washing my hair, I just let it air dry, no braids or rollers so I always laugh and respond, "I washed it". So this time around I asked her does it look different and she told me that it looks fluffy and light. Here is my hair that same morning. I'm thinking I'm going to start washing my hair once a week because I don't put any oils in my hair but I do sweat so maybe the mixture of my natural oils and the sweat is weighing my locks down. I'm going to monitor for a month and see if I see a difference.

Sisterlock Starter Shampoo

I ordered a new bottle of starter lock shampoo on Monday and I received it on Friday (four days) not bad at all. The bottle is much larger than the shampoo in the starter kit. I diluted the shampoo this time around with water I would say 1:1 and I shampooed three times.

What I notice different from using the starter shampoo to Dr. Bronners is that my curly ends are really prevalent as my hair dries. My hair does not feel as hard as the first few times I used the SL shampoo. I think that has to do with my hair settling now and plumping up, not a result of the shampoo. The largest difference is that I don't see the white bulbs and that's a great thing. My hair feels clean. The verdict is that I will be using the SL shampoo every two weeks until the bottle finishes. I plan to go back on the sisterlock website and order the green tea shampoo once this one finishes.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

Taking your locks out?

Well....my perfectionist ways have caused me to lose two locks. During my retightening I combined two locks because I could not get the new growth apart, but since I lost a part I wasn't really pleased with leaving it that way. I wanted to fix them, meaning take it out and re-install it. PhePhi (thanks for the guidance) gave me a you tube video to watch on how to install a SL from scratch. I figured I was ready, so I pulled out a bobby pin and started taking the lock out.

RESULTS:

As I picked the lock out my hair was shedding and the further I got the more my hair was shedding. When I was done picking out both locks I ended up with a ball of hair on my dresser :-) You know the type of ball that you get when you wear a weave or braids and finally take it out, yeah that ball :-) So I put my hair in the toilet and flushed it away..so in essence I flushed two locks away.

I didn't put 2 new locks in because the hair remained is so thin...pics to come (my camera needs to charge). I figure during my next retightening I will just combine the few strands with a lock nearby.

Now I have no thoughts of taking my locks down in the nearby future, but from this experience it has got me wondering. What if I did ever want to take my SL's down, it seems like I would have to cut them because my hair has begun locking. Yes, very positive that my hair is already locking, but sad knowing that if I do want them out I would have to cut them...luckily I'm not having those thoughts!

Here is what is left of the two locks!

Six months - well not quite!

This morning as I'm getting ready to take pictures to document my 6 month mark I realize that I'm just entering my six month. Hmm...obviously I'm a bit special with my counting and the ironic thing is I'm an accountant!!! So on September 18th, I will have had SL's for six months. In any event my hair desperately needs to be washed, the white bulbs that I discussed in an earlier post from Dr. Bronners are very visible to me in the front. I ordered some more starter shampoo and I'm awiating its arrival which I will dilute and then wash my hair and then make my decision on which I will use for the remainder of the year.

That bantu knot out from Monday night, well I opted against it and I did some quick cornrows and went to bed. I have been real lazy about my hair. Today I have a scarf on a ponytail and bang hanging, needless to say it is far from creative, but it will have to do for now.

One thing I noticed though is that my braidout doesn't last longer than like two days. I used mousse this last time and I woke up this morning and basically all my crinkles are already gone. How do you sustain your braidout?