My Loc Journey
This is my experience from before I decided to loc my hair to the current state of my hair.
If you are a non-black individual, understand that black hair is different than the hair of other races and ethnicities. Our hair does not produce as much natural oils as the hair of a white individual making it possible for us to go long periods without washing our hair. Due to this, we must also add hair oil to our scalp to add moisture because we do not naturally produce them in a high capacity.
When I began my loc journey, I barely knew anything about locs and simply just wanted to change my appearance. I felt that locs would help me to become the version of myself that I aspire to be.
When researching starter locs, I discovered that I needed to wait at least three months before getting a retwist to give my hair time to begin forming a loc. I decided that within those three months, I would learn how to take care of my locs and do a retwist.
I started my journey with twists instead of coils. I chose not to start with coils because I feared how I’d look with them when I already knew how I looked with twists. It’s important to note that twists take longer to completely loc and look like a loc than coils would, which I didn’t know.
In the three months before my first retwist, I read articles and watched a few YouTube videos on how to care for starter locs. The important tips were to just let my hair grow in the twist and not to pull on my first few retwists as my hair could unravel because no locs had formed yet.
When I did my first retwist, it looked as if it was on week three after a retwist and appeared decent for about a week. I was proud of myself for attempting so that I could improve for the next time. It also took me all day to wash my hair, retwist it and blow dry it.
It was a struggle to navigate my hands on the back of my head while looking at the flipped reflection in a mirror. I also struggled to keep remembering the direction to twist my locs and I’m pretty sure a few were twisted in the wrong direction.
For my second retwist, I got help from my sister who’s had locs for about eight years and has more experience than me. She did the front of my hair and styled me in barrel twists while I did the back. This retwist did take all day as well.
In a YouTube video, I saw someone use a setting moose after styling their locs. I’ve added this step to my retwist routine after styling in hopes it will last longer and reduce frizz. Honestly, I haven’t paid enough attention to know if adding this step has helped or not, but I continue to use a moose in my routine.
The following two retwists, I had the help of my sister in twisting and styling the front. Doing the back gave me more experience with using a mirror and twisting in the same direction.
This may seem stupid to some, but my sister gave me the advice of twisting till my loc was curling up. She also told me to stop using one clip for each loc because they’ll unravel and since then I’ve been placing two locs in one clip.
Currently, I’m nine months into my loc journey and the majority of my hair is dreaded. Some of my ends do slightly resemble twist still and others look like a full loc. When I had starter locs they reached the middle of my ear and now my hair has grown to touch my shoulders.
I’m confident in my ability to do my own retwists and style my hair. Since learning how to do barrel twists, which isn’t very difficult, I feel unstoppable. I’ve also managed to cut down the time on my retwist from all day to about five hours.
However, I do continue to struggle with consistently twisting in the same direction because midway through I’ll begin second-guessing myself.
To maintain my locs, I just oil my scalp weekly. I have seen someone brush their locs on TikTok to prevent lint from getting trapped in their hair and I’ll add that to my maintenance in a few months.
I’m enjoying having locs so far and am looking forward to when they fully mature. I’m planning on keeping them for about five years or more and then doing a big chop.
