Now before y’all come at me, let me give a little backstory. I officially loc’d back in August of 2022 and went through many phases with them. The Updo Only Mami, The Puffy Root Supremacist, and my favorite, The Baby-Hair Slayer (I’m lowkey still her but she be chilling). Not only do I have locs, I am a loctician who deals with locs on a daily, and being in this position has helped me have many realizations when it comes to our crown, and this being my most recent one.
When we first started our locs we were so pressed to make sure we had the cleanest grid, paired with the freshest retwist when that time came around. Speaking for myself, I made sure I had my retwist on the exact day it made a month with my hand held mirror to ensure each follicle was in its right loc. I wasn’t going to let them catch me slipping with a hair out of place. Now approaching my 4th year with my locs and my 3rd year as a loctician, I can confidently say, none of this sh*t matters.
Being that we plan to have our locs forever (Dr.Umar stare), we have to be mindful on how we treat our roots. Be mindful on why you were invited to the journey (inside joke, iykyk). Constantly ripping and pulling out hair from another loc to make a clean part is causing thinning and creating lots of unnecessary loose hair. Although when doing a retwist, sometimes we can’t help it, especially if we haven’t gotten one in months. I get it, but when your sole purpose is to have the cleanest parts, I want us to start rethinking before we do so. I realized I didn’t care that much about my parts when I stopped using a mirror to see the back of my head when doing a retwist. This was around the time I started to really get in tune with my locs and understand that this is a commitment; not a trend. I’d rather have healthy locs than overly polished ones any day.
As far as being a loctician, I seen the pain my clients would go through when I was attempting to give them a “clean” retwist (I’m sorry y’all). I take pride in the health of my clients hair and I will always result to the best alternative to keep it that way. So now instead of popping and pulling out hair, I simply comb/brush the hair in whatever direction it decides to go in. For a better visual, I recommend you guys watch this YouTube video that helped put it all into prospective.
I believe the longer you have locs, the more lenient you become when it comes to your maintenance routine. You start learning your hair likes and dislikes, your tolerable maintenance timeframe, etc. Our locs are unruly and weren’t meant to be overly tamed, and if you can’t grasp that concept, maybe this lifestyle isn’t for you. Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
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