It was January 2001 when I first thought of starting locs.
At the time,I had extension long braids in...I was removing my braids (which took hours of pulling my hair and watching TV) and I thought to myself "WHY THE HELL AM I GOING THROUGH THIS!". I admit, having extension braids is the easiest hairstyle
in the world once they're in place, but to see the state of my hair once I had them removed was always a shock to me, 2 years earlier I was natural and had healthy hair, now even when my braids are done properly (in a salon)...my hair is left damaged.
While my friend was removing my last remaining
braids, I was reading an article in a hair magazine...I never realised that even when you are braiding your hair (no chemicals involved), the follicle of our hairs are damaged with the pulling and unnatural strain of carrying heavier hair...
That was it! I had to find a new way of having my hair. I wanted to be natural again. Funny, even though I had only been braiding my hair for only 2 years (with natural hair before then), the thought of starting to wear my hair again was a scary thought!
That can't be right! Its all in the mind!
Anyway, thats how I decided to become natural again. And I wanted locs.
I booked my appointment into the natural hair salon and went the following saturday...
Can you believe I chickenned out when they started doing the first few locs! I didn't like the advice she gave me, I didn't like the fact that washing my hair was going to be restricted or the hard beeswax that she was using. I didn't like that I didn't know what to expect after she had started my locs...all these things were going through my head!
I knew then that I wanted to loc my own hair and 'learn' about it MY way.
So, a few months of reading and searching...
I've tried all sorts of ways to start locs! I tried palmrolling with wax -it fell apart in the next few hours, I tried two strand twists -they lasted a while but after the washing, they 'died' on me! Backcombing -left my hair in a mess and I wanted something a bit neater to transition into...
