I’ve been bitten by the DIY bug…..

My recent frustrating experiences with my SL consultant have motivated me to begin my journey to DIY! I checked the SL website to look at the schedule for the retighten class. The recent changes to the site were not helpful to me finding the information that I need. According to the schedule, I will not be able to fit the class into my schedule until December. :-( So I started looking at blogs, emailing people, and talking to sisters who are currently DIY-ers. I was referred to YouTube and I found a number of videos with retightening instructions. I ordered the Nappy Lock tool and I got it in the mail today! :-) I already had a retightening scheduled for tomorrow the 12th so I am going to say that will be my last salon retightening. I am going to attempt my retightening 4 weeks from tomorrow. I’m excited! I maintained my traditional locks after about 1 ½ years and keep up my neat locks for 5 years. So I am confident that I can do the same with my Sisterlocks. Pray for me as I transition into a DIY-er! Peace & Blessings!

90 Day Probation

Happy New Year!!! I haven’t posted since last year….LOL. Well I’ve made it to the 3 month mark and I thought I would post a picture comparing then to now. My hair definitely has more volume than it did when I started out. I don’t have too many changes to report. I can fill minimal thickening in a few of the locks. It doesn’t seem longer on the pictures but I know my hair is growing because my consultant has been able to do a full rotation on my last two retightenings. My hair is very springy so that explains the illusion of no growth. Overall, I am 100% pleased with my progress thus far. Sisterlocks, your probationary period is over and I have decided to keep you on because I see that you will be an asset to the organization. Press on ladies!!!!

One Month Progress

It’s been exactly one month since my Sisterlock babies were born! I am absolutely in love!!! I washed my hair 2 days before my follow-up visit. I braided/banded and washed. After towel drying my hair I took the braids out and set my hair on lock loops. Here is how that turned out.


My follow up visit was today and my scalp feels rejuvenated. I like the feel of freshly tightened hair. It took about 2 ½ hours to complete. My consultant (Olohimai) says that my babies are coming along nicely. She thinks that it should not take that long for them to lock. (Yipeee!!!) She told me to keep up whatever I’ve been doing; which is proper braiding/banding for washing, only using water for now for moisture, sleeping with a satin cap, and wearing a shower cap. I don’t have much slippage, but the little that I do have is mostly at the crown. We contributed that to washing hair in shower, so I need to watch the water pressure.

These pictures are after the retightening session. I can see progress!

We are going to try the next retightening at 5 weeks. We think every 5-6 weeks should be cool! Peace and Blessings!

My 1st Wash and Braid-out

Day 8 and I decided to wash my hair instead of waiting for day 14. Not sure it I will go for a weekly or bi-weekly wash yet. I guess it just depends on how the spirit moves me. I braided and banded my hair. Each bunch had about 20 or 21 locks and I ended up with 19 bunches. I also had about 13-25 very small sisterlocks along my hairline that I bunched in groups of 3. So that confirms my lock count around 400. (The fact that I am a math teacher along with a few traits of OCD, yes I am obsessed with numbers.) After the wash, I let the braids stay in over night and let my hair air dry. After 2 days, I came to the conclusion that I need curls at the top of my head to avoid the flat look. So I wet set them overnight. So here’s what my hair looked like with the braid-out wet set combo style.

After thoughts:

• some days I feel like my hair looks like a jheri curl (not a good look in 2009, no offense to those still rocking the jheri)

Tell me this doesn't look a little jheri curl-ish?

• the older my hair gets the better behaved it is
• I do have shrinkage
• the fill in is noticeable after the first wash (Praise the Lord)

Before 1st wash

After wash

The Locs have been counted…….

Okay the girls have been counted and the official number is……. ≈410!

2 days after my installation I introduced my babies face to face to my part of my sister circle, including my sisters who helped me take down my traditionals. I had hoped that they would help me count them. NOT! When they looked at my hair they all were like "uhh uhn". No help! My sis-in-law said she couldn't count that high. LOL! Good one! One of my sisters that helped with the "take down" was like, "I thought I was through with that!" So I had to go at it alone. It's cool, I was just able to bond with my babies. I have touched each and every one of them. That's love! Peace!

Pump Up the Volume!

I was thinking that my hair was to flat so I decided to try curling them on day 2. I first spritzed them with water and rolled them. I let them stay in the rollers over night and here is the result. Afterthoughts for next time:
Maybe use some type of product. I know it’s too soon now, right?
Let them set longer or perhaps sit under the dryer.
Maybe use perm rods.

Any who….just having fun getting to know my girls! I can’t keep my hands out of my hair and it’s just day 3!

Peace & Blessings!

Introducing…….

Whew! After 17.5 hours, 7 movies, and countless conversations and laughs, my sisterlock babies are finally here! My locs were installed on October 23, 2009 at about 11:45pm. My consultant Olohimai was a solider along with her sister helping from time to time because she made it happen in one day! I had to give myself some mental pep talks around the 10th hour. But I was a G about it, because I knew what I was doing it for. One of the 7 habits of highly effective people is to “begin with an end in mind.” I had to tap into that resource to make it through this process. Just think, retightenings will be nothing compared to installation. I don’t have an official count yet, but my consultant estimated more than 500. I won’t be satisfied until they have been counted so whoever I see this weekend (my sisters) better be ready to help. (LOL)

Overall, I am very satisfied with the initial look. I am making frequent stops in the mirror just to examine them. I am not as scalpy as I thought I would be. My test locs filled in pretty quickly in the 3 weeks that I had them so I am hopeful the rest of the girls will do the same. I do have some volume too, but I may try to put some curl to them today. I may do my first wash in one week to assist with the fill in process. Thanks for all the support that motivated me to get to this day. Peace and Blessings!

Consultation

I had my consultation today and I can’t say how excited I am! My consultant is wonderful! I knew we’d vibe from the phone conversation we had when I was shopping around. She lives less than 10 minutes from me so that makes me uberly excited! So I get in the chair and I take the band holding my afro puff off. The first thing she says is, “Wow, you have a lot of hair.” (Smile) I knew that would be her reaction, because that is usually the reaction of anyone who has to style my hair. She also said that my hair is “the good stuff.” (LAUGH!) I tell her that I never heard that until I went natural. My curl pattern seems to be ideal for loc’ing because it is so “springy”. I have coily hair. God got the message to me by making me fall in love with locs. She likes the length that I saved too. She loves my grey patch too. Overall, I have absolutely no complaints or reservations….EXCEPT that I know that my anticipation level will be through the roof until the 23rd. She’s gonna aim to do my hair in one day in about 15 hours. That’s cool with me, because I have a family reunion the next day and I don’t want to miss it.

I have about 35 test locs in my hair. I guess things were going so well that she just kept weaving and weaving. My mission is to keep as many as possible so that she won’t have to re-do any. Of course after being with my test babies for a few hours I started having more questions. 1. What’s gonna happen with these little buds on the end? 2. Are they too thin that there is a risk of falling out or thinning to the point of breaking?

My sisters were extra excited to see the test babies. When they did see them they both expressed how pretty they all would be when I got them installed. My oldest sister is ready to style them for me. (Can’t wait!)

The best thing that I heard my consultant say was that I would end up with over 500 Sisterlocks™!!! Yipppeeee!!!

Next step…….wash twice…..then install!