10 Day Old Braidlocs Update

Here I  had my braidlocs for about a week and a half and I'm already noticing some changes in my hair. My hair has endured 2 washes and a trip to the beach!

I've noticed that:

• My hair is shrinking more everyday.
• It's bunching up and seems thicker.
• The ends have unravelled and coiled up and they are knotted in though they just appear fuzzy and loose.  I figure I'll lock bigger than the rest of my hair and have to be cut off eventually.
• My hair is fuzzy in general but natural hair is not just curly, it's fuzzy and I love it's curliness and naturalness. I'm enjoying and loving these locs.
• The back "locs" tends to loosen up quickly so I've had to interlock the back ones several times. I'm considering just taking them down one by one and interlocking them from root to tip.
• I actually feel like I could interlock my hair to tighten the roots all over my head but I'm trying to hold off a bit since I have an event coming up soon for which I want to have my hair to be freshly and neatly done.
• I have had to replait about 4 of the ends but even though they appear unraveled in the pic, many of them are really just very fuzzy.  I'm trying to decide whether to latch them but I'm trying to wait until I visit my loctician to make any significant changes. In the meantime, I'll just finger-coil the ends.
• I tightened a few at the front but since going to the beach, they loosened up just a little.

I'm so excited for my first official retightening which I hope to do sometime in the middle or end of June.  Click here to see how I will be maintaining the roots of my locs when doing them on my own.

The #1 Rule to DISregard

Do not wash your hair for the first 2 months of loc'ing.

Ignore your so-called loc expert and wash your hair! Did I mention that my locs lock much faster when I spray water on it everyday? Think about it - when natural hair is washed and not combed, it gets tangled. Locs are intentional tangling of the hair. As long as they are still separated, you should be fine.

I have no idea why this rule became so popular. If you started your hair with anything but comb coils, you should be able to wash your hair gently at LEAST every two weeks. Comb coils do have a tendency to unravel, but all the more reason to use a different method to start your locks. In this and my previous journeys, I have washed or spritzed my hair with water daily. 

There is are few smells more nauseating than that of a stink, sweaty, unwashed head of hair. I have had to sit beside several people who are refusing to wash their hair because they are locking and it has never been pleasant. To me, it is simply unhygienic! Even locs expert, M Michele George, encourages regularly spritzing of water on the hair in her book, The Knotty Truth: Creating Beautiful Locks on a Dime!.

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