Starting your loc journey is by far the most liberating experiences. Stepping into this community with so many questions and an immense amount of excitement, waiting to see how your locs will flourish how you imagined them to be.

Whether you’re starting micro locs, traditional locs, free form, etc, they all have pros and cons to them. Here are the main pros and cons for either route you take.

Pros

• Confidence booster – Starting your locs is your way of saying you are in love with your natural beauty. Even if it took a while to get to this point, you will see and feel a difference in what you consider “beautiful”.

• Low maintenance – This has to be my favorite things about locs; not having to do anything (for the most part). Once you washed and retwisted your locs, your’e good to go for the next however-many-months you choose to go until your next one. Just making sure you wrap your hair at night and give it moisture when it needs it are the main components of keeping locs healthy.

• Cost efficient – Since you probably only get 1-2 retwists every month, it keeps the costs of maintenance low. Regardless if you go to a loctician or maintain your own, locs have a minimal upkeep and allows you to go a good while without getting/doing your hair.

• Versatile – Before starting locs you may think your’e only able to do a hand full of styles, but that’s a myth that needs to be demolished. Locs can be styled in a plethora of ways like braids over locs, half up half down, add bangs, and you can even wear a full lace wig over locs. Check out my youtube video on how I was able to apply a wig over my own locs!

• Can lock with ANY hair type – There are so many ways to start locs, giving you the ability to start on any hair type. Braids and the backcomb method is perfect for straight textures, 2 strands and coils is perfect for kinky curlier textures, and so on and so forth.

Cons

• Start locs with full head – This may or may not only apply to men but starting locs with a taper might be a bad idea in the long run. Some may regret not starting with a full head of hair so it’s best to be sure on how you start.

• Permanent – Once your locs have matured, there is no going back unless you cut them off or comb them out which can take days upon weeks. Making sure you take the time to research and really be sure on how you want your locs to be is vital.

• Build up – Locs are prone to excessive build up if you don’t act on it right away. Dandruff, gel residue, edge control build up, lint, etc are some of the main sources of build up.

• Thinning hairline – Retwisting your hair too often, manipulating your edges freqeuntly, and wearing tight hairstyles can and will increase thinning.

• Time consuming – Even though you only have to retwist and wash every so often, when the time comes it can take hours to be finished. Depending on the length and thickness, you could be looking at 2-3 even 4 hours of your time being consumed.

• Costly – If you go to a professional loctician, you can get prepared to be paying at the minimum $150. Maintaining locs is a job in it self so if your’e not doing your own, it will definitely cost you some big money on a monthly basis.

• Patience – When first starting locs, you might be impatient because you are ready to rock the matured look. Everyones hair is different so the wait for matured locs will vary.

Remember everything has pros and cons so don’t be discouraged. Your journey is yours; may your locs flourish beyond life.