11 months

It will be 11 months on thursday so I decided to post today. I'm always late posting on my monthly updates, why not post early? So here goes....

I'm experiencing kamikaze hair balls. I've read of the little hair balls that form at the end of your locs and that it's just a part of the locking process, but mine are all over the place. They are not staying attached. I find them on my desk, on my shirt, and in my bed. I wonder why my hair is shedding so.

This weekend past, was the first time I shampooed my hair without B&B.  It was great and my curly q's are back. Maybe because in the past I was braiding or twisting all the way to the end, not allowing my texture to curl in the moisture. Hmmm.. I don't know, but that's my theory.

a few pics for ya.....

fake it to you make it puff

flakes minimized (for now)

I have to give that herbal cleanse a try Ms. Fullroller

See my little hair ball down on the right?

One of the few that hasn't jumped off my head.

You make have to click on the picture to see it.

A hair pin holding down the rebels of the front. I really like my puff. I can't keep my hands out of it.

The funnies: I have to laugh at myself. I don't take myself seriously sometimes because I'm soo funny. So here I am thinking I'm posting my update early and happen to look at my side bar and my installation date and realized I'm 2 days behind. I'm such a hoot! :D

More Pics To Share

Pictures of my friend's 40th birthday bash. She made us dress up, ya'll.

No, I wasn't singing, but if I was my face looks like I was "sangin" or at least that old-mother-of-the-wooden-church-in-the-back-of-the-woods humming. Some y'all know what I'm talking about. :-D

Million Dollars Smiles!

~Poor thing. He had scrunch down to get close to me and I had on heels!~

He Likes it

I've read in so many blogs that there is a huge fear of women of color going natural. One reason that sticks with me is the reason they believe that their man or men in general won't find them attractive. I've also read in many blogs that that simply is not true and this I know for a fact.
My significant other loves my hair and he's not the only one. While at work, a gentleman strolls into the front lobby digging for info. A rep looking for a contact name to push a sales pitch to.  I inform him that the facility would be closing in a month and so no new contracts or contacts would be made. He offers his apologies for the apparent job loss I would be experiencing in the near future and asked what would I do. I explained to him that I was a student of cosmetology and I would be focusing on my studies the more to graduate. He tells me that his wife is a stylist and loves what she does. He goes go on to explain that his wife is tackling to expand her target market to African-American clients. (That's right. He and his wife are caucasian.) I explained to him that most stylists feel that there is a huge difference in african descent hair and caucasian hair. The truth is, its not. What's different is the texture and therefore maintenance. Other than that hair is hair. It all needs to be cleansed, conditioned and nourished just the same. You just have to learn how to apply proper care to hair texture that is coily or very tightly curled, I explained. Very interested, he asks the super loaded question that he probably had no idea what it meant to a black woman. "Why do African-American women straightened their hair? I think yours is beautiful the way that it is and it's natural, correct?" I thanked him for the compliment and told him yes that it is indeed natural. But there was no way I could explain to him in totality my views as to why we as black women straighten our hair without taking up the rest of his day and mine. I simply explained to him, my personal reason and that was because my mother relaxed my hair while I was still in kindergarten maybe even as early as preschool. "For me, it was all I knew."  "Well", he starts again, " I sure think your hair is beautiful and it looks as though you put some time into making it look so." Yes I do put time/work into the upkeep of my locs. As I did when I relaxed it. Except now this is my texture, the natural me. I thanked him again and he went his merry way with a good bye and a good luck to me.
Which brings me back to men, all types of men, love natural hair. Not all men do, but don't believe that there are just 1 or 2 out there admiring your natural coils. There are plenty of them that are secretly admiring you.  All wide eyed in amazement at your gravity defying curls. Mesmerized by the appearence of softness that resembles cotton. Longing to know what it feels like. In complete awe of your beauty and confidence. They are out there do you see them?

Hair for a formal

Hair pinned up above the ears on both sides.

 What I used: Water and two hair pins.

~Maybe next time I'll be more creative~

Pics at 10 mos

Well, I've found that dogone usb cord. Let's just say if it was a snake, it would had bit me :-)

Ok, so my ends are not exactly curly q's. Maybe, I'll call them curly s's? I don't know.

I have a little problem with flakes as you can see around my hairline. It's gotta much better. My scalp use to be completely white. I have stopped the use of mineral oil and petroleum since being locked. Maybe that  has something to do with my scalp's improvement. Still I wonder if there's anything else I could try to get rid of these flakes without jepodizing the integrity of my locs.

My favorite pic. My locs doing their own thang.

a closer look. Uhmm...Please disregard the look on my face. I can't explain.

There's no excuse. lol.

top of my head. My scalp a little white. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

My rebels in the right corner. I love these babies.

Final pic,  me trying to be cute.

Where's that durn USB cord?

I've been holding out writing a post because I can't find my usb cord for my camera to download pics. Well I couldn't take it anymore and just had to update. I'll upload pics when I find or buy a new usb cord.
I'm now 10 months into my loc journey. I believe my locs are coming along fine.

I'm on day 3 of retightening my locs now.  I have about 50% complete with the use of a nappylock tool. I keep encouraging myself that one of these days I'll be retightening my hair and won't even think about it. It'll be like second nature, taking only 2 or 3 days to complete instead of 4 and 5. It took a whopping 3 hours to complete only the nape area of my head!  I never really had respect for how thick my hair is until I became natural and started doing it myself. I tell you, I thought that having approx. 375 locs was a little number, but now I'm grateful that I don't have more. It's a wonderful experience though. I'm learning alot about my hair, about it's texture, it's diameter, and density. I'm enjoying watching my locs change and grow. It's almost like tending to a garden. Having to make sure that the soil (scalp) can nourish seed (hair) growth by making sure there is plenty of moisture and nutrients. Also like a garden, my locs need love and care.

 My hair is a looser coil type in texture and with medium diameter which probably means it'll take a year and a half to two years to completely lock. I have locs in the top of my head that still come a loose after 10 months. Only about 2 or 3 but it's ok. I'm learning to accept. I just braid, twist, or interlock it  back and keep it moving. Since cutting my relaxed ends off, I've entered into the realm of the curly q's. I've read that they may seal up as time progress or maybe they won't. It doesn't matter to me. I may just end up with with some sealed ends and some curly q's. Talk about individuality! Speaking of that, it took me a good little time to accept that my locs won't look like the ones I see in the blogs everyday. They may not be as beautifully big and bold as Brunsli's or as long and manicured as Blaqkofi's, or look like any other of the beautiful heads of locs that I see everyday. But what they are and will be is mine. The more I let my locs be, the more compliments and stares I get. Not saying that I'm seeking those things, it's just I've taken noticed that when I try to make my unruly locs lie down or try to make them lay a certain way I get comments like "Your hair looks nice." When I let them be in a free style or wash-n-go, I get comments "You look so pretty!" "You're a beautiful woman." I know it sounds crazy, but it's true. I noticed how comments changed from being aimed for my hair to being directed to me. Can anyone figure that out?

Some of you know that I'm a part time student of cosmetology. I have another blog at http://www.cosmetstudent.blogspot.com/ that serves as a portfolio as well as a marker of my developement to becoming a professional in the arts of cosmetics. I am also a full time receptionist and have been for the past 2 years. Why am I saying this? Because the latter is about to change. As of December 23rd of this year the state that our economy is in will hit home. I will be loosing my job 2 days before christmas. I wanted to blog about it because it's bitter-sweet for me. While I'm concern about getting another job, I know the Lord has some awesome plans for me because I believe that. I was wondering how I was gonna leave my job after graduation. I was thinking how I am grateful for my job, I was becoming increasingly not interested in it. Basically, I was bored. Then the announcement of the lay-off and I was shocked, but relieved, because I know that this is a door closing so that another one opens to...
a new chapter in my life, a new season, a new start, A New Me.

Make'em Think

I decided to post some of the things that are said to me from time to time about me locking my hair. Some are down right rude and some are really curious questions. Sometimes I'll say things back to make them think.
 I'll keep posting under this label as comments, questions and opinions come my way. I'm sure there's loads to look forward to.



If I had a comb right na, I would get to your head and take that mess out.

Have I ever called your hair "mess"?

No, I just can't stand for a woman to go around with a nappy head. Theres too many ways to do ya hair fo you go 'round like that.

Like what? Nappy? You do know your hair is nappy don't you? Maybe you don't. You've probably never seen your natural hair have you? I can tell you this, it's not all that silky and shiney! Who told you it was ok to walk around like that, with your hair all straight? There's way too many ways to wear your natural nappy hair.        (This conversation was with a family member)




I can't believe you went and did that to your hair.

Did what? Stop relaxing it? You can't believe that I stopped using a chemical that is use to dissolve hair from sink drains? Did you catch that? The chemical in relaxer is the SAME chemical that is use to DISSOLVE hair in sink drains. And you can't believe I stopped? Seriously?




What are you doing?

Retightening my hair

And you have to do that to all those tiny things on your head?

Yep.

Girl, you know that's a lifetime committment doncha?

Yep. You do know that if you don't wear your hair naturally, it's a lifetime committment relaxing it or keeping it straight, don't you?

True. True.