Retightening

Well, I finally got my hair re-tightened after 7 weeks. My goodness! I had a lot of tangling at the roots and unraveling. I will certainly try to re-tightening every month from now on. It is really growing fast now, and even my consultant was surprised. It is now long enough for me to clip up the sides with fancy clips, and I now feel comfortable with free-styling.

Six Months

My sisterlocks are now six months old. I have seen a definite change in the locks over the last two or three weeks, where the locks are now fatter and are very unruly. I am not sure if this is just part of the locking process or it is because I am desperately in need of a re tightening. I am going on seven weeks now since my last re-tightening. Ohhhh!! Bad idea!! My consultant comes on Friday and I can't wait.

I have been doing a little re-tightening myself, mostly with my fingers, and sometimes with my nappy lock tool. This maintenance has helped to keep my hair looking fairly ok, but it is really time to get some professional care.

I treated myself to one of Tomoka's hair twists. I got it today and I really love it.

Conditioner - Did she really??

Well, my hair has been feeling a bit dry recently, so I decided to wash it with a conditioning shampoo (Pantene for relaxed or natural hair - in the brown bottle) and then put on some Infusium leave in treatment for good measure. Wow!! my hair felt so good afterward. The only thing is that my hair took much longer to dry than usual, and that is not usually a problem for me except on this day I was going out and needed my hair to dry quickly. I ended up going out with slightly damp hair, but I think it looked ok. Here's a picture of me and my DH.

Five Months

When I washed my hair last weekend, I noticed more hair than usual in the bath tub, and when I was setting it up, lots of little hair balls ended up on the floor. I think that this means that my hair is finally locking. The locks are in various stages as you can see in the photo. Some of the ends are sealed, some are open and some are ramrod straight. It is a little difficult to see, because my hair still has much of the curl from the roller set.

DIY Retightening

Being an avid do-it-yourselfer, I have been itching to learn how to re-tighten my own hair. I have been wonderfully inspired by Kalia Dewdrop and her lovely hair, and I decided that if she can do it, then so can I. Hee Hee! I really cracked myself up with this one. The task of doing my own retightening was definitely more difficult than I thought it would be.

I bought a Nappy Lock tool, and got going with the retightening. I spent an entire Saturday on my hair, and I managed the front really well. The back however, was a different story. I couldn’t see properly and was more than a bit apprehensive to tackle it. So I left it alone. I had my hair retightened by my consultant a few days after my own attempts, and she found nothing to complain about. She actually said I did a good job with it. Well, I am more than a little puffed up and pleased with myself about this. So, I am encouraged to try the back next time around. I am beginning to relax a little about my hair now that I do not feel that I am entirely at the mercy of my consultant.

I am feeling so positive about this that for my next appointment with my consultant, she will come back in another seven weeks, rather than 4 weeks. Within that time, I plan to retighten my entire head. How’s that for confidence? Will keep you posted.

Wash time again

If you have read enough of my blog, you will recognize that when it comes to my hair, I am a little bit rebellious. So yesterday I decided that I was going to wash my locks without banding the ends, just to see what would happen. Guess what? Nothing at all happened, and not a single lock unraveled. I have been suspecting that the physical "trauma" of pulling out the elastics when my hair is wet, does a lot to contribute to unraveling. So I proved it yesterday. However, having said this, I do not recommend that you try this yourself. It just happened to work for me.

Three Months

Well, it has been just over three months since my sisterlocks were installed and things have been progressing nicely. I am due for my retightening on Friday, and boy do I need it. Since I washed my hair last weekend there has been quite a bit of unraveling and slippage. I have noticed that whenever I braid and band before washing my hair I always get far more unraveling than if I just band the ends without braiding. So until my locks have settled, I will refrain from braiding, and will just stick to banding.