I Cut It!

My hair grows realllly fast between July through January. I think it’s a getting ready for winter thing, then making it through the winter thing. Anywhooooo, I’m not a big fan of long hair on me. I find it annoying. The picture to the right is before I cut it, early November.

The other week after I washed my hair I was looking at the locs and absolutely love my hair, BUT, I didn’t like the length. It was getting a little long, and I didn’t like the two widths of locs. You see, I started from two strand twists. All of my hair has locked nicely now (well minus the parts I cut off because it wouldn’t loc), but the portion that had locked from the two strand twists was slightly thicker than the portion that grew in from finger rolling.

Well, those of you who know me know my answer to this. CUT IT. I whipped out my trusty dusty scissors and commenced to cutting off the bottom six inches or so of my hair. I couldn't take a picture of my cutting, but I took one below of my getting ready to WHACK! Now this is on a differnt day than when I washed my hair. Maybe a day or two later, so no one was there to be my photographer.

My locs are different lengths, but that’s fine with me because my hair grows at different rates, plus I like the less manicured look in that aspect. If I could get one of these kids to stay still long enough I'd have them take a picture. Actually, it's nothing exciting. I still look like me, just with shorter hair.

Now the cool part is that when I cut my hair, the middle, the core of my locs was clean. No build up, sooooo, I must be doing something right.

Hello John

I was at the store today when I realized I have fallen down on my job of keeping you all informed about how to do your own locs from scratch. Yes, this blog is about my journey, but I also want to help those of you who know next to nothing about locs informed. Thanks for inadvertently reminding me to post John. If you have any questions, I’m always here. Same for the rest of you. deatrikingbey@yahoo.com

Soooo, now I’m about to post a few entries to catch you up on things.

Peace
Dee

My Journey To Nubian Locs

I’m a spiritual, emotional, artistic, physical being. Technically, I guess we all are in varying degrees. I’ve noticed that quite a few people begin their “journey” to locs or natural hair styles as part of their spiritual journey or a way to outwardly show their pride in who they are as a Black person.

I don’t think they are wrong. Each person should decide the why behind their journey or even if they are on a journey. There is no right or wrong.

For me, I don’t have such lofty reasons behind my journey. I am Black. No matter what I do to my hair, I will always be a Black woman, and I LOVE IT. I can’t imagine being anything else. Spiritually…Well, my hair isn’t a part of my spirituality.

Oh I forgot to include the people who are going all natural—natural hair, hair and body products without chemicals, some become vegetarians or vegans… Well, I’ve had my hair in natural styles most of my life. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve tried the relaxer thing. It just wasn’t for me. I have always preferred natural products and am always seeking new ones, so if you come across some, please let me know.

So what kind of journey could I be on? I’m an impatient person, and my attention span is SHORT. Extremely short. I’ve been asked any number of times how I can write novels, yet claim to have a short attention span. Well, I write 4-5 novels simultaneously with sprinklings of articles and workshops here and there. When I lose focus on one project, I’m off to the next. I even write in several genres, which is not the norm but is me.

My Journey to Locs has been one of patience. You can’t just snap your fingers and your hair be locked. There is a natural process your hair goes through to loc. Going in, I knew it would take a long time for my hair to loc. I knew with my patience issues I’d be tempted to cut all my hair off and say to heck with the locs. But I’ve stuck with it.

I no longer have someone else tend to my hair. Back when I was having my hair done, I’d read or write on books and any number of things in the time it took her to complete my hairstyle. Now I take the time to wash, condition, oil, and re-twist myself. What seemed like days to fix my hair initially now seems like minutes. And amazingly enough, I’m finding myself more patient in other aspects of my life. Making myself slow down in this aspect of my life is transitioning to other areas. My attention span still isn’t the longest, but I can remain focused on a particular project for longer amounts of time.

Come October I will have been on this journey for two years. Do I still have issues with patience? H*ll yeah. I want to cut the portions of my hair that haven’t locked off. I really don’t care that it would be uneven. I say cut it all and even it up. But my daughter—aka SLAVE DRIVER—says no. And she’s correct (don’t tell her I said that). The hair will eventually all loc, I just have to continue being patient.

Soooo, patient I will be. At least I’ll try my hardest to be.
Much Joy Peace and Love
Deatri

Shhhhh, don’t tell the my daughter

I started my locs from two strand twists and it took two years for my hair to actually loc. If you scroll down, you can see images of my mixed up hair. Anywhooooo, the vast majority of my hair has locked, but some of them have two strand twist ends. It looked BAD to me.

Sooooooo, when my nazi of a hairstylist daughter wasn’t around, I cut off the portions of my hair that didn’t loc and it looks FANTASTIC! Don’t be afraid of those scissors. It was only two inches or so that I cut off, but made a huge difference. I wish I had taken pictures, but time has been flying!

Maybe I Have It Wrong

The other day someone emailed me off loop saying they loved reading about my journey to Nubian Locs but wanted to know why I show pictures of my hair all messed up instead of at its best. Mainly, they were talking about the image of the conditioner that didn’t rinse out of my hair. They thought that I may be discouraging folks from going natural and trying to transition into locs.

Maybe I have it wrong, but the reason I show my hair in its not so beautifulness (SMILE), is because I want folks the issues they may get into and how to get out of them. We all know what to do when the weather is beautiful, but what about during natural disasters? Well, sometimes my hair can be a real natural disaster. I’m just letting you all know I survived and LOVE MY HAIR.

I mean I truly love my hair. Is it perfect—nope. Is it where I want it to be ultimately—HECK NO. But I still love it.

I really, really, really want to cut off the portions that have not locked yet, but my beautician of a daughter won’t let me (slave driver). I know it will all loc eventually, but I’m impatient. It’s taken almost two years for this much to loc.

Now don’t panic. It does not take everyone two years for their hair to loc. My youngest daughter decided to loc her hair. She started in February, and her hair was already locking by April. She’s out of town for the summer or I’d take a picture of her hair now so you could see it. It’s FANTASTIC. I won’t lie. I wish my hair had locked as fast as hers does, but I’m still happy with my hair.

Anywhooo, the pictures displayed were taken before I washed my hair this go around. I tried to take real close pictures so you can see much of my hair is locked. I don’t know how the hair decides what will loc and what won’t. Eventually it will all be locked.

Well as you see, nothing exciting going on. I wash my hair once a week and finger roll it. Instead of using hair clips to keep my hair rolled, I use rubber bands. That's just easier for me. I look crazy for a while, but oh well, it's only once a week. After I wash and roll my hair (using aloe vera) I allow it it dry a few hours, then take off the rubber bands and place a scarf on my hair to hold it down. My hair flies ALL over the place when I first take it out of the bands. My hair is actually drying now. I'll take a few pictures and post them.

Okay, for some reason, it isn't allowing me to add more pictures. Maybe I've used up my alloted size. I'll make a separate post for my hair drying and when I first take it out of the bands. Now I'm warning you, I call myself Medusa before I tame those crazy snakes for hair down with the scarf.

Anywhooo, once my hair is completley dry (usually by the time I go to bed), I put my scarf back on and sleep soundly. The next morning, I finger comb my hair, spritz it with a spring water, aloe, olive oil solution, and am ready to go.

Happy Nappy Hair!

Peace
Deatri

Happy New Year

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Here I am in all my locked beauty. LOL. I know, you can't really tell from the picture, but my hair is pretty much locked now, even the portion that started out twisted. There is a difference between my hair that was twisted then locked and the new growth that has locked since I started my journey. And between the two my hair got this knot thing. I tried to take a picture, but it doesn't come out right. You can't really see the knot.

The former twists that locked now do look like nappy twists. Yeah I said nappy. I don't care about being politically correct. I have NAPS and love them.

I still wash my hair weekly, as I did before I started locking my hair. My hair still has a mind of its own (man I have a few short thin locks that decide to stick out at times.

I'm glad that I have very little popping after I wash my hair (I talk about popping in some of my initial post). The popping decreased drastically once I started massaging my scalp. I must admit, I don't massage daily as I should.

My hair grows fast, and a few who know me have asked why it isn't growing as fast. I've explained to them that before they'd see my hair after I put a blow dryer to it. Now it gets to keep its kinky curl, so it will not look as long.

Okay, I don't really have much to say because nothing exciting is happening. I think I need to start having guest bloggers on to keep you and myself entertained.

Much Joy Peace and Love
Deatri

Just Saying HI!

Hello everyone,

I know I just posted a few days ago, but I washed my hair today and wanted to post a picture. I wash and finger roll my hair once every other week. I haven't conditioned in a LONG time. It's about time to condition, but I'll condition with a hot oil treatment, not a paste. Those paste cause build up.

I oil my hair once or twice a week. I haven't oiled my scalp in years. I remember when I first stopped oiling my scalp (clogging my pores). My head itched like the dickens. But I survived. I also stopped getting dandruff. I have no idea why.

Anywhoooo, I hope you can see that my hair is locking and I'm LOVING it. II have this part locked part twisted thing going on, butlocs are different sizes, but oh well. It's me.
I'll see ya next month.

Peace
Deatri

One Year Down!!!!

It’s been a year since I started my journey to locs, and I must say, “It’s been GREAT!!!”

Yeah, yeah, I know. You haven’t heard from me since February. You thought I’d given up. Nah. Well, to tell the truth, nothing exciting was going on with my hair. To get the goooop out of my hair from conditioning and the build up of beeswax, I used the lemon vinegar rinse three weeks in a row when I washed my hair. Then—don’t tell my loc coach this next part—I used Suave Daily Clarifying shampoo for the next two washes. That took out all of the buildup. Now this is EXTREMELY damaging. So if you mess up and get a wax buildup in your hair and have to do these acid rinses, make sure to oil your hair. If you see your hair is drying out too much STOP. Just continue washing your hair as usual but with the Suave Dailly Clarifying shampoo and, of course, oil as usual. You don’t want to dry your hair out and make it break off.



Anywhoooo, the picture above is from April 07. If you look closely, you can see a little bit of budding. At this point I had a centimeter of budding here and there. Not much. I was truly beginning to think my hair would never loc. I wasn't going to give up, but MAN.

Now during the month of April my life went CRAZY, which is why this blog has not been updated. In March I found out we may be moving from Chicago to Phoenix. The decision was final in April. Thus I had to find us somewhere to live in Phoenix, get our house ready in Chicago to sell, get our children ready for the move (finding schools and all that good stuff), drive all of our household items down to Phoenix, then go back and get my children and move them down to Phoenix also. I did all of this in three months. Then when we arrived in Phoenix to live at the end of June, enrolling the children in school, looking for a job, finding a new church home...LIFE got in the way. BUT I continued working on locking my hair.

An AMAZING thing happened in June. The budding that was going sooooo slow started speeding up. The budding is what the twisted parts of your hair becomes as it locs. It's not as smooth as the new growth that comes in and you roll every time you wash your hair. This is what I call the junior stage. Some day I will cut off this portion of my hair because I can see the new growth (since I originally twisted my hair back in Oct 2006) looks like the locs we are more used to seeing. It's hard to explain. Let me take a picture. I’m BACK!!!! Did you miss me.


Okay now. It’s time for me to wash my hair, so don’t talk about me. I want you to see my hair when it’s all messy as well as when I’ve just had it washed. In these pictures, I’ve pushed my hair forward some so you can see the twist/locs closer to the base (my scalp). Notice how parts don't look twisted, but look locked.

Okay, sooooo as you see, my hair is starting to loc. Now this part loc part twist thing is a little odd, but oh well. As I said before, I think I'll cut off the twisted parts that are turning into locs because it looks different. Maybe next summer I'll go for another chop.

Okay, I've said enough for today. After I wash my hair, I'll take another picture and post it.

Until next time, be nice too each other.

Much Joy Peace and Love
Deatri