Seriously Natural

Guest Post: Choosing to "unloc" my Locs

2013-05-22T07:45:00.001-06:00

Some loc lore: the hairstyle's history is rooted (no pun intended) in Jamaica, where Rastafarianism taught that Haile Selassie was the Messiah, Africa was the promised land, and dreadlocks were NEVER to be cut. Personally, I've heard even unloc'd folk come near screaming about the cutting of locs: it's a religious thing, a spiritual thing, something to bring one closer to God, and NO one should cut another person's locs. Ever. (You oughta see how tense I get when a loc'd sister shows up on What Not to Wear. Is Sista going to whoop up on Nick and his scissor fetish?)

Oh, and folk who wore dreadlocks smoked marijuana. Also to get closer to God.

Further, the process of "locking" the hair can not be reversed. Ever. "Dreadlocks" aren't ever supposed to "unlock." Those of us with the applicable hair were told if we ever loc'd our hair, it'd have to stay that way unless or until our heads were shaved. Seriously. It's a commitment, one way or the other. A friend of mine, who has had locs for years longer than I have, emailed me recently and said she was having her locs undone. "Yes," she said. "Unlocked." She explained that the process was expensive and time-consuming, but it could be done. I didn't believe her.

I guess I should say something about the process of loc'ing hair. Currently, there are (at least) two schools of artificial* process : palm rolling and latch hooking. Palm-rolled locs are just what they sound like: hair rolled into the desired loc shape, maybe helped along with styling oils or beeswax or gels. Latch hooking threads old hair through the new growth, making the locs tighter and neater. Sometimes the "loctitian" actually uses a latch hook, but s/he doesn't have to. A cousin (who had never loc'd her hair, btw) told me that palm rolled locs could, if desired, be relaxed and unlocked, but latch hooked hair? Never. When I decided to take the latch hook route, I was told that there was no turning back; that latch hooking would guarantee that I could never "unlock" my hair. Never.

Over time, I found out that a lot of the loc lore was just dogma. For one thing, locs are older than Jamaica and Haile Selassie. Loc wearers weren't necessarily Rastas or marijuana smokers, of course. And, finally, locs could come unlocked.

See, I got my hair cut, over the objections of my regular loctitian. When she began to complain that our conversation about cutting my hair was making her eye hurt, I decided to go to a friend who had been employed by SuperCuts, and I asked her to cut my hair.

I was mildly intrigued when, after the cutting, the ends of my locs --that is, the oldest parts of my hair-- began to unravel. "Huh," I thought. "Maybe Amy [the email friend] knows what she's talking about." This is an earth-shattering revelation.

And now I'm obsessed with the stuff. Or, at least, the ends of the stuff. When I first did research on locs, I became aware of "hand in loc disease," where folk waiting and waiting and waiting for their hair to magically lock up can't keep their hands off of it. Leave it alone, says Daezhavoo. It will happen; get your hands out of your hair. I never had that problem. I was never one to play with my hair. There wasn't any to play with. But now, now that my hair is unraveling, I can't keep my hands out of it, feeling the forgotten softness at the ends, finding the latched areas and pulling more hair loose, wondering if there's a point at which the unraveling will stop. Wondering if I want it to stop.

Because, see, at bottom, a lot of black women chose locs because they wanted hair that cascadades* down their backs. Hair that moves. Yeah: Like white women's hair. This style might be or might not be, initially, about "heritage" or "history" or "self-love." Today's locs are about beauty. Otherwise, we would, all of us, be taking that "natural"* route. So now, my hair's at a length I really love, and the locs are coming out. Do I keep cutting to keep the length? Do I keep unraveling --until I decide, "Hey, I've got all this loose hair now. I never could grow it this long before. Could I get it (and keep it) Dead Straight? Dead Straight is the style now, after all. . ."? I'm also imagining myself with long, thick, nappy hair, and liking the image. I wonder how long it'd last before my hair dried out and began to break off --because it was neither Dead Straight nor loc'd.

With me, though, the answer comes down to just how much work I'd have to do to my hair in either case. Loc'ing my hair means that I don't have to do deep conditioners. I don't have to sleep in rollers. I don't have to use a curling iron. I don't have to use a blow dryer because, after I wash my hair, I can let it dry in the wind. See, I chose locs because I'm a lazy git.

UPDATE: One summer, or one end of a semester, I decided to unravel the locs and see what I got. I would work all day and unravel all night, with the help of one daughter. I used the metal end of a rattail comb to pick the locs apart. During the process, I sprayed my hair with a light Aussie leave-in conditioner. At work, my hair was in an updo that hid what I was doing.

Unraveling my locs took slightly more than a week, and the index finger on my left hand has never been the same.

At the end, I had a small Walmart bag full of hair. I also had a lot of soft, unloc'd hair on my head. Since then, I've been waffling back and forth over whether I should go back to the locs.

Regina is a Christian, in her 50s, zaftig, has two girls, two dogs, and she likes arguing with strangers on the Internet. She's a friend from one of my favorite Natural hair groups on Facebook.

I'm always looking for guest posters so if you have something you wanna say the email me at serioulsynatural4@gmail.com with "submission" in the subject.

Take care Naturals,
Sabrina

Older Natural Feature - Brandi

2013-05-20T06:00:00.000-06:00

Brandi

My name is Brandi and I am a wife and mother to 3 children. I will also be turning 40 on April 20th. I made the decision to go natural back in 2010. I transitioned for a solid 9 months during which my hair grew like never before. I took a new job and eventually folded under the pressure to look apart and relaxed my hair much to my dismay.

In 2011 at the age of 38 I decided to give it another go. I wanted to be a natural as all the other women in my family are naturals. I began my transition doing bantu knotout's and braidouts. These were my go to styles. I used curl activator gels to keep my hair soft and keep it from breaking at the line of demarcation. Finally, Feb 1st 2012 after a 6 month transition I did my Big Chop and haven't looked back since.

I wish I had gone natural 20 years ago but my mind wasn't ready to step out and be set apart from what was considered to be cute. I know now that I am beautiful with my natural hair and there is no need to conform to society's images of " Beauty ".

There are many natural women in my city, and we are rocking it out. I see natural haired women of all ages from early teens to late into maturity.
My favorite and go to hairstyle is the Two Strand Twist Out ! I am falling in love with Qhemet Biologics but my staple and forever love will be good old Crisco ( shortening ).

If I had any words of wisdom to share with a new natural it would be to love their own hair that God gave them. I would also tell them that the key to length retention is MOISTURE, and more moisture. Every oil is not a sealant and every water based product does not provide proper moisture. Be a product junkie for your first year being natural and find what works well for your hair. When you find what works stick with it and keep your regimen simple.

I have to thank Brandi for taking out the time to share your Natural hair journey with us. She's so pretty and I love that hair color! She's got some great wisdom to share and please take heed. Moisture is key and not every product out there will get it for you. Heck, what your sister or best friend's go to product may not so if just starting out expect to be a product junkie for at least the first year. You gotta figure it out and so does your hair.

I'm still looking for older Naturals to share so email me at seriouslynatural4@gmail.com to let everyone see just how happy you are being Natural!!

Take care Naturals,
Sabrina

Working on losing it

2013-05-17T08:16:00.000-06:00

Yup...that's right. I've gotten super serious about losing this weight that has crept up on me (again) for the last time. I'm tired...tired of not looking my best, tired of not feeling 100% and tired of Knee problems.

I fell on concrete last October and although I didn't drop my Galaxy SIII, I DID manage to fall directly on my right knee. It was scraped and bruised but I thought I was golden after a few days. Well, after a few months the pain became unbearable and that started a whirlwind of doctor and orthopedic appointments. The pain got so bad I could hardly walk! Yea, it was just that bad.

Arthritis in my knee in three places is what they finally found and I had to do a few weeks of physical therapy, two injection (yes, into my knee) and taking high doses of pain pills. Now....I'm feeling about 90% better, no more physical therapy and have pretty much done away with the pain pills. Life is good!

I knew what was coming when I spoke to the Orthopedic surgeon about my knee. I needed to lose weight. Isn't that ALWAYS the case? Well, I'm bigger than I've EVER been in my life and I'm not happy about it so does that recommendation surprise me? No, but this may be the push I need to get it started. During and after PT I started riding the exercise bike but soon realized I wasn't burning that many calories so I switched to the Elliptical and saw a huge difference. I'm on the elliptical about 4 times a week for at least 30 minutes. I've also started the squat challenge with my sister so that's helping as well and next week I plan on adding crunches to the mix. Now, I'm still doing my PT exercises so all in all I'm pretty busy with exercising even though school is fighting for time.

I've added green smoothies to the mix and with taking my vitamins, extra hair supplements, and drinking more water I'm feeling like I am actually going to lose this weight for all the right reasons. Yea, I wanna look better but I wanna feel better as well. I've got a senior off to college this fall and my youngest is going into Junior High in the fall so why am I still this size with all the extra time for me? No reason at all. Time to get my ass in gear especially since since school is finishing up at the end of this month. More time for me and re sculpting this body.

I'm ready and it's time. Expect a change in me and a change in this blog as I discuss more health and wellness topics while I make my transformation into a better and healthier Sabrina. Wanna take the plunge with me? I'd love the company.

Getting ready for a change Naturals,
Sabrina