6 Weeks

Happy Mother's Day!

Each retwisting session is shorter and easier than the last, YAY! My locs feel more like locs. The last 3 inches of hair stays in its section and feels kind of firm.  Except for a few rows in "The Twilight Zone", I didn't have to reestablish my parts. That was a HUGE time saver. There were fewer strands in the sink. You know what that means?  The shed hair is staying IN the locs!  I can feel some buds developing along the length of my locs, too.   


Water really is good for locs.  My locs change and mature with each wash.  As a sufferer of Hand In Hair disease, I noticed a huge difference in the look and feel of my hair. I will post pictures soon. Until then this photo represents how my hair looks now.

What's weird with your hair?

That's what my husband asked when he saw my hair. I'd just spent hours on my hair and it looks basically the same as it did after I washed it.  The only difference is that the roots are neater. The picture below is after I retwisted. The others are immediately after shampooing. Not much difference, huh? 

Products and Procedure
First I do rinse with a 50/50 of apple cider vinegar and water. After it sits for a few minutes, I rinse it out. I mix Suave Coconut Shampoo or Elasta Creme Conditioning Shampoo with water and spray it on my scalp. I work the mixture through my scalp and gently squeeze the lather through my locks.  Rinse, rinse.   Then I towel dry.  For retwisting I use HealthyLocks Conditioning Mist, by Phyllis Johnson, and a mixture of the pink Queen Helene gel and my hair butter concoction. I only use a tiny bit on each section and I mist the undone hair with water as it dries.  It took me about 6 or 7 hours this time. Sounds like a lot, but that was less time than before.  Since the sections at The Crown always disappear  (the coils sorta stay on the ends, but the hair gets all mixed up from the root to about 2 inches), I have to reestablish the parts. I look forward to when that won't be necessary.  That will cut those hours in half!!!!!

First Wash Retwist - Early Onset Puberty at 2 Weeks????!!

Wait four weeks to shampoo my hair?  No, thank you. I prefer to wash at least every 2 weeks.  My scalp will itch and flake after 8 days. Plus I'm working out now so I really need some soap and water on my head. It felt sooooo good to wash my scalp! When I washed my hair, all of the coils stayed in at the ends but the parts virtually disappeared.

Retwisting was fine until I got to the crown.  The crown - The Twilight Zone, The Bermuda Triangle - this is the part of my scalp that sprouts 1 million strands per square inch. The more sections I part, the more hair I have left to do.  Time stands still when I get to this part of my head.  No matter what I do press & curl, twists, and now locs, I struggle to complete this area. People are often concerned about styling hair in the back of their heads.  For me that's a breeze, I just grab the hand held mirror as I go.  But when I get to the crown I have to check and check again and check one more time. Speed is not an option here.  Thankfully, once I get to the top and the sides of my head, things progressed quickly.

So after washing and retwisting, my locs are puffy in the middle. I didn't expect them to look like this after the first wash.  Is this the beginning of the teenage stage?!?!  Looks like my locs are experiencing early onset puberty. Maybe I should detangle the hair and redo the coils.  Wait - I'm growing LOCS, so the tangled coils need to stay as they are.