So many things have changed except I still am so busy. However, today I felt compelled to give an update.
As we celebrate Jesus' birth, I am giving thanks for life and all that life brings, good and bad. They both help to shape my life and to put things in the right perspective. I am grateful to God for sparing our lives and for keeping me in my sound mind. I enjoyed early morning prayer meeting with my church folks. It was a blessing and I am happy I went as it was so very encouraging.
I am still loving my hair. I measured some strands yesterday and the length varies of course from 17 to 21 inches! That's pretty long and that's how I like it. :)
People still ask if I plan to cut it and my answer is still no! I would not spend so much money on my hair to cut it at this time. I actually do enjoy long hair. When my hair was processed it has never grown beyond this length and I know it will surpass this for sure being locked now. I am coming from two inches of TWA to 7 inches of locked hair approximately four (4) years ago to an average of 19 inches or so. I have no motivation whatsoever to cut anything.
The only cosmetic change I've experimented and would do again is to dye my hair black. Again, that is one of the famous questions..."are you going to colour your hair"? "Why don't you bleach the ends?".
I am not fond of bleaching. I used to bleach my processed hair or strands called streaking. However, bleaching is not good on the skin or hair. It will lead to breakage, even of locks and I cannot imagine losing locks. Besides almost everybody with locks, have bleached ends or the entire head. I don't want to look the same.
The only reason why I want to chose black is because locks have a tendency to get brown and I prefer jet black look. But I've only done it once.
Styling
I still hardly style. Though when I do it is excellent! But I simply cannot manage any hinderances in my head when it's time to sleep. I cannot sleep with braids, twists or any kind of bumps in my hair. I actually do sleep with my head free. I don't even wrap it (which may be bad) but this hairstyle is one of freedom which I fully embrace. This is the most versatile hair decision I've ever made in my life and I can't see myself changing anytime soon.
Nothing is cast in stone however, at this time...I'm quite satisfied. :)
It's been awhile! Yes but I'm still locked and lovin' it!!
It has grown a lot and I have a lot of admirers everywhere I go...male and female...impressed with the neatness of sisterlocks and the body of hair. I have educated quite a few people, who have asked, about the journey and defining real sisterlocks.
I'm still going to a my consultant for retightenings. I did expect to be doing it on my own by now but there are BUTS. I have carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) in my right hand, time is so scarce for me and I wear long nails most times. So I am not very interested in tightening my own hair right now.. and it is also getting longer each time.
For now, I'll continue with the consultant but I am not writing off taking the course to learn how to do it for myself.
I do not style much. I basically have it freestyle or tie headbands or crop half of it and leave the other half out. I occasionally spritz with water or wash and then cornrow over night, then end up with very wavy and full head of hair that is totally admired by ALL. My hair really does make me feel good.
So I've been locked for 1 year and 3 months and I'm still on the journey.
In this month I just happened to get creative one morning and did a wonderful job (I think). I wore it for at least three times and decided to post the pics. It's also the birth month of many of my best friend and hubby, Troy and quite a few other friends too.
I had begun using sisterlock salon shampoo and it has really been doing the job of getting my ends to close.
My hair I believe is making strides. My consultant says she'll be grooming me soon but not too soon.
Well, well....it's been a while but I have things to report.
My hair is growing a bit... probably not as fast as I think it should. Let me rephrase... it doesn't show the length as I think it should. However, I am working with it as best as I can. My hair can actually go up in a ponytail. Hurray!
My consultant over the past few months have been refining some of my locks by tightening the fuzzy ends and only leaving out very little of it because it is taking a long time to lock. She also changed my locking pattern because of the curly, springy hair I have so that the length will eventually show. To see my length I have to stretch it out my hair and as soon as I let go it springs right up again. I've noticed though that only some parts of my head has that type of hair. The back is not springy at all and some parts in the front remain straight. It's strange but God is really good to give us so much different types of hair on one head. It's the back ones that have begun locking while the middle and front are still not ready.
I must admit that I have not been braiding and banding and not sure if it is affecting much though I can't say for sure. But I prefer to just wash and go... my hair feels alot cleaner than when I braid and band. I know it's not the recommended way but..."a so it go!".
I am stille enjoying this new liberty I have and am getting alot more compliments with my hair these days from men and women alike. I also had the experience of people who just want to touch my hair, even without asking, just to see how it feels. I think there's a name for that but I don't remember (from the Sisterlock maagazines). I find it complimentary nevertheless.
I still have fuzziness to deal with but my attitude towards it has changed inthat I don't allow it to bug me but accept that it's part and parcel of my package and hence I must love it. Secondly, I believe when it is fully locked fuzziness will not be as great.
That's all for now but last and not least take a look at my pictures and give me your feedback!
Well, it has been a long, long time since I've been on. When I got sisterlocks I was not employed. About a month after I started a new job and it is eating up all my type. As I write now I'm actually invigilating a class test.
Anyway, I still have sisterlocks. It has been about 8mths now. I have two main issues though, my length and fuzziness.
My hair was about 8inches long when I did it and it shrank and that is to be expected but after 8mths. it looks even shorter. It only looks long when I put it in a ponytail and then let it out after a time. Otherwise it looks like 4inches long. Secondly, fuzziness is a real pain for me. My hair for the most part always looks fuzzy. I don't know if I can do anything to avoid it. They are still babies so I can't trim and it would be too much anyway. My consultant says her hair is similar so I am somewhat hoping that, like hers, mine will look nicer over time. But right now it is painful to see especially when I have my hair in a ponytail so I don't do it often.
I haven't really done a lot of styling. It's mostly freestyle or ponytail. I have tried others but only once or twice. right now I'm anxious to see my hair actually locking before I feel excited about styling. My consultant has changed my pattern because of my hair type so that my length will eventually show. I hope I can say much more on that in the future.
Only very few of my locks have buds at the end. Very, very few...I maybe able to count on one hand. Seems rather slow. I maybe wrong though so at this point I still have to fork out $ for retightenings. I was hoping by now I would not have to, especially in these economical times.
Every now and again, people say they like my hair but I think because of the fuzziness it isn't as neat looking as I would hope.
All that being said I am not disappointed because I have such freedom of "hair stuff". I don't worry about certain things anymore.
My mom has been pressuring me to put some kind of oil in my hair. She thinks it looks dry and can't understand this "natural hair system" I have taken on. She doesn't understand that with my already soft and curly hair that I can't afford to jeopardise the locking process by putting oil in my hair.
So right now I'm just waiting to see what my one year anniversary will be like. I hope I'll be in a different stage by then. That's all for now folks !
Lock Count Needless to say that I am happy about getting sisterlocked but somehow I thought I'd have more than a mere 380 locks. I've always been told I have a thick head of hair and that my hair is dense... and even the loctician said I had a big circumference etc... so I thought I'd have about 500 locks or near to that. I don't know what the word is to describe what I think about the count because I guess I have a misture of happiness (that I'm locked), disappointed in the lock count, happy it's not more because eventually I'll be self-maintaining. So that's it in a nutshell.
It still looks great and I have gotten tons of compliments but I'm thinking about the future and how it will look when it gets mature. Didn't want them to be too big but right now I'm just trying to get over that obsession and I have been encouraged so I'm taking it heartily.
Itchiness Surprisingly, I thought I'd be experiencing some great itchiness as I've seen others describe however, in that first week there was very little itching and I think it was more duet to the tightness of the locks themselves more than my scalp. I washed after about a week and it went well. I had no problems with the elastic bands that came with the starter kit. I diluted the shampoo and sprayed however it took about the fourth wash for it to start lathering. I diluted it less the second time around and got lathering by the third wash. Because my hair is long I did not have any problems getting to my scalp. I totally forgot to seperate the locks... I just waited for it to air dry abit and then pulled out all the braids. After about three hours I remembered and did the seperation thing.
After that first week I have hardly had any itching at all. Nothing unusual or unbearable at all. I am wondering if I should still brace for it later on or what but we'll see.
Preparation for Bed Well, my consultant did advise that I braid/plait my hair and tie it before going to bed. I did do that for a few days but I have always known that when I tie up my hair it makes it dirty faster. I've alwasy perspired alot in my head more than anywhere else. Once I start doing any activity in the mornings before undoing the hair and tie then I'll start sweating and my hair itself will get damp and then you know that it will get dirty shortly after.
However, if I braid and not band or not braid at all I'm better off. My hair takes a longer time to get dirty. But I'm not sure if that is good for the locking process. For now I'll keep braiding and just go to sleep.
Go Kelleen, go Kelleen, it's your birthday, go Kelleen, it's your birthday...
Well, well, I am finally sisterlocked!
Colleen, my consultant, started at 7:30am on Thursday, August 7 and we went up to 5:30pm. It was a long day but I'm glad I got to leave before night came down cause it would make it look longer than it really was.
We continued the same time the following day and were finished by 3:00pm so it took a whopping total of 17 1/2 hrs for it to be done. That's about 5hrs more than a normal braiding session for me.
Two things contributed to this long time. Firstly, my hair was about 7 - 8 inches long and not 6 inches as I thought... we measured it. Secondly, according to Colleen I have a big circumference. I had to laugh because I know that was a mild way to say my head was big so I said it for her and we both had a good laugh at that.
I also learnt about the type of hair I had. I have a loose curl hair and my hair is relative flat because my strands are almost smooth. A lot of us black people are quite a mixture so we don't have all the features of a black person as we think we should. But I always thought my hair would lock pretty quickly because in my opinion I had real "kia" hair. However, my mom and my sister always tell me that I'm wrong and yesterday my consultant definitely made me see that they were right and I was wrong. Hence the bottom line is that my hair might not lock very quickly as I thought.
I always thought my hair was tough to comb and it is. However, the day before my locking session I washed my hair and did not use conditioner (as I was instructed) and I was still able to comb through my hair. I did it in small parts. The next day my consultant made me really feel my hair and to my realisation it was actually soft. So it's all about knowing your hair and what it truly is and also how to manage it. It was a neighbour of mine who has had natural hair all her life who taught me only recently that I should try to use a big teeth comb and go through my hair in small parts and comb them out. It turned out it wasn't half as bad, even without conditioner. If I had known I'd have washed it earlier in the day but I kept delaying because of my anticipation of pain.
Now let me say I do have some amount of space at the top of my head. I know I have dense hair so I wasn't expecting it but I got a little of the "chicken head" look on top. The rest of it looks lush however.
As I said in ealier posts, my mom and my sister are not quite happy about my decision yet they both continue to do stuff to their hair and I don't bother them about it. So when I came home that first night, to pick up my son who they kept for me, they examined and said well it looks pretty fine and whatever. But when they saw the finished product yesterday, my sister can't stop admiring my hair. My mom loves it too but she doesn't want to say so 'cause maybe it would look like she's endorsing my hairstyle or something so she's keeping it under wraps but I'm sure when my hair starts settling she'll be on board.
My other neighbour and friend loves my hair so much. She kept touching it and saying how she loved it. She has traditional locks for about 4 years now for which she's getting tired. She sounds like she's ready to cut it all off and try sisterlocks.
When I went to youth meeting at church and a couple of the girls realised that I did it they started screaming and was asking me a lot of questions. Ofcourse I couldn't deal with it all then and there so I know in the weeks to come or for the rest of my life at that matter, I'm going to have to start educating people about sisterlocks since I'll become one of the poster girls for sisterlocks.
So can you imagine, after having it for one day only, I had at least four (4) people loving off my sisterlocks. Now my ends are still bushy or straggly cause I haven't washed it yet so they haven't had a chance to curl up properly so just imagine when I get it washed and style it how people are going to respond. It's amazing... "trus' mi".
My husband is happy for me, knowing that I finally did it cause he knew I wanted it long time. He thoroughly examined it this morning and was saying that it still looks like fine twists to him and not necessarily a lock (however, he still thinks it looks neat and nice). But as he is a man and most men don't know the difference for a lot of things concerning women such as clothes and makeup and hair, I never bothered to argue but just restated the fact that it is different from twists.
It occurred to me today that my son will only remember me with locs cause he's just 2 years old. He'll only have to see pictures to know what my hair was like prior to this. That may make him more conscious about black women's beauty as opposed to all the other pressures the world places on what black beauty ought to be.
Just want to say that I thank Colleen for accepting me as a client cause my hair was really long and she was not unreasonable with her price. In fact, I know her prices was good because I know others who paid more for shorter hair and smaller heads. I would say in Jamaica she is one of the better consultants. She's listed on sisterlocks.com as a certified consultatnt. She was patient and actually waited on me for a long time to actually do this. I trust her and plan to take all the advice she has given me about caring for my hair. I want my locs to grow nicely and with very little problems due to my lack of care.
Well, I believe I've expressed all my feelings about my sisterlock birthday.
I am a Jamaican girl who's the mother of a beautiful baby boy. I'm a wife, daughter and a sister. Most importantly, I am a Child of God who wants to do right by my creator.
