The New Hair

As you probably know by now, I don't post on this blog very often.  In fact, sometimes I forget about this blog completely.  I'm hoping to change that but in my defense, it's been very busy these past few months *cough, cough* years.  But I did want to show you a few pics of my free-strand, natural hair.  It took me 2 weeks to take my locs down.  Two WEEKS!!!

And this is what it looked like right after!

I was confused as to what I should do with it from that moment, all the way up until - heck, I'm still confused!  LOL

So the next day, I got to work with washing and conditioning.  My hair (after shedding about 2 lbs of it in the shower - which was SUPER scary and disheartening, by the way) bounced back to it's natural halo shape, otherwise known as the almighty Afro.

As far as length goes, I didn't lose a lot of length.  It felt that way considering that locs give a false sense of length.  All right, let me drop some knowledge on y'all real quick.  Most folks shed about 100 hairs a day.  But when you are wearing your hair in locs, that hair does not shed.  It just forms as a part of your loc.  So my hair looked longer than it actually was.  So all of the hair that I shed when I took out my locs was 5 years worth of hair that would have been lost anyway.  Feel me? So that's, 100 x 365 x 5.  That's over 182,500 shed hairs.  O.o

So…yeah.

 So this is me, nowadays.  I've been wearing my hair in a two strand twist out.  And in order to protect my hair, I sometimes keep it in the twists with a scarf over it.  That's the thing about taking down my locs.  I cannot wear my hair out quite as much as I used to.  Also, it takes a lot more work and time to care for and wash my hair.  It's funny, when I had locs people would ask me, "Is it hard to wash?" I would tell them, "No…I wash it just like white women wash their hair.  I get under the water, scrunch a bunch of shampoo through it.  Rinse and repeat.  Then I do the same with the conditioner (unless of course, I decide to deep condition)."  Folks always seem to think that dreads are a lot of work.  The only problem was that it took a long time to dry.  But other than that . . . the hair was SUPER easy to maintain.  Even retwisting took a little over an hour at the longest and I did that once every couple weeks (if that).  But with my hair now - whoo child!  I gotta separate it into 12 different sections.  Finger detangle it and oil it up.  Loosely band each section up.  Wash it with the shampoo.  Rinse.  Put the conditioner on.  ALWAYS deep condition it.  Add oil, whatever else.  Rinse with cool water.  Take the bands off and detangle again while adding a butter or moisturizer.  Then oil it to seal in the moisture.  Then twist each section.  And let me tell you something.  Detangling is painstaking and takes a LOOOOONG time.  And I do this ritual every single week.  It takes me no less than 3 hours.  But this is what I asked for.  And when I look at my hair in the mirror, touch the softness or pull a twist as long as my shoulder and then feel it spring right back to my head - I know it's all worth it.  Also, I want to grow my hair out and know the exact length.

Funny thing is, I've been natural for about 9 years now.  To be honest, I can count on one hand how many times I've ever gotten a perm.  Once when I was 7 or 8 years old.  Maybe twice in high school and then twice in college.  Either way, I've never - NEVER - really educated myself on how to take care of my natural free-strand hair so that it is healthy and maintains length.  After having locs, I started to do the research and figured I had the maturity, patience and know-how to make it work.  So that's what I'm doing.  Making it work!

And I will be sure to report my progress!  :-)

Happy Locaversary To Me!!!

It's been five years, and guess what?

I'm taking down my locs!

You heard me. I'm not cutting them; I'm not shaving my head bald. I'm taking them down. Loc by aggravating loc! I've been doing this for five days now, and I'm nearly halfway done. It takes about 25 minutes per loc.

What I do is dip the loc in warm water, saturate it with conditioner, and pick it apart using a dental pick. I'm sure some of you are screaming or shouting to the heavens, "WHY?!?!?" The truth is...everyone's loc journey is different. And mine has come to an end. It was time; what can I say?



I have a tendency to make changes to my hair around this time. I'm sure it's no coincidence that on my 5-year locaversary, I'm taking them down. Either way, it was fun while it lasted, and I will be sure to post pictures when I'm done.

Thanks for reading...good night!

My headshot

May start going on a few auditions soon.

What do you think?

She's Baaaack!

Wow! It's been a LONG time. I really have no excuse except that life gets crazy sometimes and you just lose track of time. Either way, I'm back and boy do I have pictures! So here's what I'm going to do...

PICTURES GALORE!!!

This was the length when I first got to Japan.

My alter ego. (Mutsuko Fujii)

I curled my hair quite a bit while I was over there. It was (and is) a good look.

Kimono photo shoot in Japan. And yes, that bun is real. ;-)

(That bun was done by one of my Japanese girlfriends. I was pleasantly surprised with her expertise.)

Back in the States!

New York during the summer. (This is one of my old stand-by hair styles).

While in Chicago a couple months ago.

Me and this fish have the same forehead, lol.

Rocking a cute up-do.

This is a very recent picture of me. I love how it shows off my natural highlights.

So that's where we are today. Can't say that every day is perfect, but I can say that I am pretty happy with my hair most of the time. Unfortunately, I have had to cut (sometimes rip) a few tips off because of dryness and some strands being too thin midway through the lock. Sometimes locks were being held together by 3 or 4 strands of hair. It's a terrible feeling to have to do that, but it had to be done. I would say that I've done that about 6 or 7 times over the past couple of months since I've been back from Japan. The only reason I can think of for why that happened was because maybe I didn't take care of my hair like I should have during certain stages in my life and so it's easy to see that years later. For the most part, though, my hair is forgiving and there are more and more things that I can do with it now that I've gotten some length. It's been 3 years now (come January 17th it will be 4 years) and I'm not going to lie . . . occasionally I think about taking these locks down. But everyone advises against it and to be honest, I don't think I'd be ready to deal with "free range" hair again. So I'm going to ride this lock thing on out - as long as I possibly can. And when/if the time ever comes to chop'em off, I plan on growing out a fro and then lopping off the locks at the tip. I'm not about all that bald stuff. I have patience, lol.

So I've experimented with a bunch of different looks, but I mainly find myself wearing my hair in a ponytail most days. I try to keep my hair covered throughout the day and that helps to seal in moisture as well as protect it from lent (which my hair is a lent magnet). I don't retwist as often as I used to and have found styles that help me to go without twisting for a while. For example, I like to wash my hair, condition, moisturize, put plaits all over my head and then blow them dry. After this, I wrap a satin scarf around my head and go to bed. The next day when I take out the plaits, my hair is soft and wavy. It looks pretty-much like the style that I had in the last picture. Simple and a little - I dunno - "free spirit" looking, lol. But hey! I love it. And it works for me. That's one of the things that I find about locks. You really have to find what works for you and once you do, you will truly be as beautiful as you feel.

Either way, I am loving my locks and loving my life. I hope you are doing the same!

Naturally Me

Where she been?

In order to find a chopstick for my hair . . . I moved to Japan. If you're interested in learning about my experiences, please feel free to follow me over at . . .

www.blackgirlnjapan.blogspot.com

I will return to posting on this blog in April/June of 2011. Although, occasionally I'll try to post some pictures of myself my hair here, whenever I get a chance. Hope you enjoy!


Muah!
XOXO

Quick and To The Point

I just tore a lock off. Yes, you heard me right. I actually tore a lock from my own head . . . on purpose. Seems a lock was hanging by a thread. I've come across it several times, but always imagined that I would repair it by twisting it with another lock. Long story short . . . that didn't happen and now there is a lock sitting in the trash can.

*Sigh* First time for everything, I guess.

For Real Hair Store Lady? For Real?

I have been on the hunt for about 3 months now. What am I looking for, you ask? A freaking hair-pin. That's right! A hair pin. You know, the long (often decorative) stick that holds up your hair.

Yeah, that. Now not only did I find out they no longer exist in any shape or form, but apparently (according to a "hair store" owner) they are no longer even cool or relevant. Personally, I don't agree. I was wearing one while she snarkily laughed that nobody wears them anymore.

Actually it wasn't a hair pin that I was wearing. It was a pen pen, of the black ink variety LOL. Since then, I have found other stick like objects to pin my hair up with.

If you look closely, in this picture you'll see that I am holding my hair up with a makeup brush, lol.

Can anyone say desperate?

I think I'm just going to buy some chopsticks when I get a chance. And if you're curious about how and why I need a hair pin to create this updo, here's what I do (and then why I do it) . . .

- I gather a bunch of hair from the back of my head and hold it up (according to where I want it to be.)

- Next, I take a ponytail holder and stretch it across that portion of hair that I am still holding up.

- Finally, I take a stick and push it all the way through the hair so that it is looped on both sides by the ponytail holder.

Voila! Your hair is being held up by stick and string. I find this style easy and convenient to do because my hair is too thick for the plastic hair claws that I used to use. Also, I use way too many bobby pins trying to keep this full head of hair on top of my head. This is just quick, easy and low maintenance.

So there it is!