Tag Archives: hair-loss

Friends it has been a while since I last posted a blog. I had been lulled into a false sense that locs were becoming mainstream and my very small effort to mormalize them was not necessary. this week I saw a television clip where two Caucasian looking women were throwing shade, that is, talking in a very derogatory manner about the actress Zendaya because she had chosen to wear faux locs for a talk show appearance. The catty statement that got my blood boiling was pronouncement that Zendaya looked like she smelled of weed! When I looked at the photograph Zendaya was nicely dressed and smiling. Her faux locs were long and she looked lovely – much nicer in fact than the two who were tearing her down on national television.

I realized the fire and ire I felt then as an impetus for me to return to the blog – o – sphere…not because I have developed a large following of readers but on the off chance these epistles will eventually find the ones interested in knowing more.

The other reason I have not written is I have not been able to upload any pictures and I had a sense that photographs would be appreciated by any readers I might have. I will try to attach pictures to this blog; however, the need to make my voice heard now out weighs my desire to share pictures of my progress.

You may well ask what kind of progress have you made? Well, I am so glad you asked!

Today, June 2, 2024, I am celebrating 2 years and 2 months of being loc’d! Am I surprised? Yes and no. I am not surprised I am still loc’d. I truly believe this is the way my hair was intended to be maintained. My hair is thriving and I have never looked better. I look back on photos of my hair before I established my locs and my hair does not look finished, not even when it’s a picture with newly styled hair. Some of that may be due to me having been the sole caretaker and stylist of my (loose natural) hair for 10 years before I established my locs. I was not trained in a beauty or cosmetology school to take care of my hair. I got tired of spending all day in a beauty salon every 4 – 6 weeks getting my hair permed, colored and having the ends trimmed off. I also got fed up with all of the ways I was not helping my hair grow especially when I followed my hairstylist’s suggestions between visits. It was frustrating, my hair never retained length even after having 3 children and lengthy continued used of prenatal vitamins. My hair was always growing unevenly when I got to the hairstylist chair and cut into a style.

That nightmare is over for me and I will never go back to permed hair.

Recently, I heard a comment on how people of color are the only people who call the hair that grows out of their head “natural hair’. That got the cogs a whirling. No other group calls their hair, as it grows from their scalp, natural. The assumption is that all hair is natural. Their hair must be altered to to earn a descriptive like “dyed” or “permed” or “blow dried”. However, as a people, we (people of color) specify whether or not our hair has been chemically altered in our description of our hair because altered hair is the usual treatment of our hair.

Now, my hair has been in locs for more than two years. I am ecstatic to say that the length retention I desired has happened! My locs sit on my shoulders and fall below my cervical vertebrae. My locs look thick and healthy because they are well cared for by my own two hands. I have gotten used to wearing my locs loose. At first I had no choice. My locs were too short to pull up into a bun or pony tail. Then, they shrunk and looked like a cap of locs. Today, I have the full bangs I wanted as a child. I have decided for the time being to trim my locs monthly. I am shooting for the first day of the month so I can have neat looking bangs when I take a photo to show my new growth for the month. I did try to let my bangs grow with a high side part in the front. That look lasted about one day. When I last interlocked my locs in January, I did it so that the locs would radiate from a point 3 inches in front of my crown. This is the pattern I have always used. Since that is the way they were trained to grow and they do not wish to depart from it. Keep this in mind if you are thinking about starting locs.

After the first year or so I could pull my locs up into a beehive but my locs do not like to be pulled. The tension was so uncomfortable I only wore my locs in a style for about 4 hours if I was going to an event. Usually, whether at an event or just in my every day life, I wore my locs loose. This actually made my soul sing. One of my goals when deciding to establish my locs was to be able to wear my locs loose and down. I had always worn a lot of protective styles as a loose natural or pulled my hair back into a pony tail at the base of my neck. Since I was at the gym at least 3 times a week (before the Covid pandemic) a pulled back ponytail was my go to hairstyle. I dressed this up with headbands. You are probably wondering, “What happened to her edges with all of that pulling back?: My edges suffered. My hair never responded well to gel and so slicked “baby hair” was never a hairstyle accessory for me. Today, locs from my edges fall to below my chin. I am cautious with new growth along the edges around my face. I gently handle the new growth to coax it into the existing locs. Wearing bangs helps keep my edges free from extra tension, too.

I have made a few changes in my maintenance routine. I am still washing my locs weekly with Dr. Bronners soap. I continue to dilute this in a spray bottle on a 1:1 ratio with water. The local health food market closed a few months ago. During the going out of business sale I picked up a bottle of Jasön shampoo with biotin. I have used it twice and that is enough for me. I found this shampoo left my locs feeling almost squeaky clean. Since I do not use conditioner on my locs, not even diluted with water, I wasn’t sure the squeaky clean feeling was good. By the second time I used this shampoo I knew for sure it was not agreeing with my locs.

I use my microfiber towel to towel dry my locs. I am not aggressive with this. My hair has low porosity so it doesn’t absorb a lot of water during the wash. After squeezing the water from my locs with my hands, I wrap my head with the microfiber towel and since I always wash my hair in the shower now – something I seldom did before – I dry off my body and apply shea butter to my skin. I occasionally apply a small amount of shea butter to my locs by rubbing the shea butter in my dry palms and applying to the locs. Before applying the shea butter to my locs I will apply a small amount of oil to my scalp and massage it in. The amount of oil I use has dropped drastically. I attribute this routine to keeping my scalp clean and free from the itching I experienced during the first 3 months of my loc journey. The oils I use continue to be Jamaiccan black castor oil, argan oil, and Mielle’s rosemary oil. Recently, I purchased a bottle of Beyonce’s Cecred’s oil. The Cecred oil is a blend and it works well with my loc maintenance given I have used it only twice at the time of this writing.

In my daily spray bottle I use distilled water mixed with sweet orange oil and/ or peppermint oil. I find the sweet orange essential oil gives me a little mood boost. The peppermint oil used to help with the itching and I often get compliments on the smell of peppermint in my hair; so, I will keep using it until I have emptied this bottle at least.

If Life gets in the way and I cannot wash my hair on Friday or Saturday I will stand under the shower head and wet my locs. This gets me through until the next week. Occasionally during the week I might stand in the shower with no shower cap to let my locs absorb some moisture. When these things do not happen I will usually spray my locs with a mister I purchased from Amazon.

The biggest maintenance change for me has been not retightening my locs for four and a half months. Some of the locs around my crown do feel like they are locking. Others feel like they are just an inch and a quarter of new growth. However, this time I am not seeing strands of hair in the shower or on my fingers when I wash my locs. I am following Lillian Okibe’s method of loc maintenance and I would like to commit to doing this for the remainder of 2024. I would like to, but; this is an experiment that I have to undergo very carefully. We have a pool now and the water will be swimmable on June 8. I plan to swim every day that I can this summer. I’m not a great swimmer but I like to try. Swimming with locs was a real treat at 3 months in. My daughter had advised me to interlock my hair so I could swim. We were on vacation in Mexico and we jumped in the pool just about every day we were there. Last year we contracted to have a pool built. Almost one year later our pool is inviting but not yet swimmable. If my locs react badly to the new swimming regimen, I may have to interlock again.

So, why am I not interlocking? Thinning locs and traction alopecia are not issues I ever want to have. As I look at the never ending parade of loc videos on YouTube I am noticing that sisterlock wearers are often complaining about thinning locs after around 5 years. I’m only two years into the game but I am looking ahead. I see me wearing locs from this time forward until the end of my time here. By not interlocking I am avoiding a lot of tension and pulling on my locs. I do not palm roll. I think that type of maintenance will also cause thinning locs and traction alopecia if it is done too aggressively for a long period of time.

This maintenance may not work for everyone. i am one of those who will run her fingers through her locs every day. I am feeling for strands of hair that are trying to marry into other locs. I gently pull those strands out and wrap them around the appropriate loc. In effect, I do a daily rewrap of any loose hairs.

I have actually done some reading on this. If you Google the question: “Do locs cause traction alopecia?” The short answer is “yes, if…”. Traction alopecia is caused by the pulling of hair strands repeatedly for a long period of time. Every 4 to 6 weeks (for a retwist or retightening) is repetitive and 4 to 6 weeks of pulling and rolling over a period of years may just cause your hair to fall out. I did not embark upon this journey to have my hair or my locs fall out. Both can happen if your locs are over manipulated repeatedly. When I see videos where a lot of scalp is shown between the locs, I am interested to know if the wearer has low density locs or if the grid has been too aggressively maintained.

Anyway, in an effort to keep my locs from becoming islands on my scalp, I am going to see if I can maintain my locs without interlocking. I have not thrown away my interlocking tool set yet. I am observing how my locs respond. One thing I have noticed is that after I wash my locs it is easier to put them into a style. The new growth is easier to manipulate.

We will be traveling out of the country this summer for two weeks. I will take my interlocking set with me just in case I feel the need to retighten my locs while we are gone. I will also bring my microfiber towel, satin bonnet and mister or spray bottle. These are things I will not be able to find in most other countries. When we went to Florida in February, I forgot to bring my bonnet. I could not find one in Hollywood Beach, Florida. I worried the entire time we were there that I would bring home a head of lint. Fortunately, I did not.

Locs and Lint

Lint has not been an issue for me, so far. First, I believe that is because my locs have been short. My first winter loc’d I had little to worry about from wool scarves or sweaters transferring lint to my locs. This winter with longer locs it may be a little different keeping lint out of my locs. I knit (and sew) a lot of my clothes and accessories. This winter I may have to wear silk scarves to cover my wool collars and to line my wool caps and hats.

Locs are pretty insulating. I don’t typically wear a hat when it’s raining because my locs love the moisture. I will wear a sun hat with a big brim as long as I can plop it on my locs and have the hat stay in place. My collection of headbands that I referenced earlier from my loose natural days, gets very little wear on this loc journey. I can wear many of them. They don’t hurt my head but often I feel they are superfluous rather than adding to a particular look. Perhaps my tastes have changed.

Lint also is not an issue because I do sleep in a satin bonnet. Washing my locs once a week also keeps the lint away, I think.

Loc Jewelry

One new addition I have enjoyed is loc jewelry. I started with little colored metal cuffs ordered from Amazon. These can be slid up the length of your loc or opened and wrapped around the loc. These are very user friendly and great to wear on special occasions.

I have now branched out and purchased loc jewelry from Etsy sellers who make metal and semi precious stone circles for locs. To buy these it is necessary to have an idea of the diameter of your locs before shopping for loc jewelry. The thicker your locs, the more choices you will have. My locs are a chunky 5mm in diameter which is often the smallest size you can get for semi-precious stone jewelry. To put the loc jewelry on, I crafted a tool out of a metal twisty tie from the end of a package. I bend one metal end up (about a quarter of the length of the twist tie) and place the end of my loc inside this “U” shape. I squeeze the loc and the twist ite through the loc jewelry and pull the jewelry up onto the loc. I like to place a little metal cuff under the semi precious stone loc circles to act as a warning. If the metal cuff comes off, I know the stone circle will be coming off soon and it’s time to do something about it.

I am able to wash my locs effectively without removing the loc jewelry; however, I take the jewelry out and replace it with different colors to match my outfit or mood. The stones I have purchased have different attributes or characteristics attached to them. As my locs grow longer, I hope to try more of the longer loc jewelry pieces.

Finally, I mentioned that I am trimming my bangs once a month to keep them relatively neat. If my locs grow to armpit length, I believe that is when I will start trimming my locs. I want to keep thinning at the roots and along the loc nonexistent. The literature suggests that the weight of locs as they grow may also cause thinning. Clearly this is not a problem for the loc wearers with locs to their butts or ankles. However, I know how long my hair grew before it was loc’d and I know hair down to my butt is going to have some weight.

If you have read this far, thank you for your time! Would you share in the comments whether or not you are loc’d. If you are, do you have microlocs, traditional locks or Sisterlocks and why you chose the size of loc you chose. If you style your locs, how do you style them? Do you have any concerns over thinning locks? Would you trim your locs ? Let me know if you are interested in the Etsy shops where I buy my loc jewelry.

I inserted this last photo because I am happy to have reached two years and two months on this journey. I hope you love your locs as much as I love mine! Best wishes until next time. Bettye