Let's Talk About My Hair

My Sisterlock installation date is around the corner and I didn't want to get them installed without letting you know what my hair is like without manipulation. I washed my hair and let it to its own thing and took some pictures. First of all, let me say I HAVE A LOT OF HAIR. Not only do I have a lot, it is crazy thick (thanks mom). My hair suffers from extreme shrinkage and as you can see below, my hair shrinks to about one third its length.


I am not good at characterizing my hair texture on that 3b/4a scale thing so I have no idea what my hair would be categorized under. I do know, however, that my hair is more tightly coiled towards the back of my head on my neck when compared to the more loosely curled tendrils at the front. This combination, when not combed out makes me look like bozo the clown. I measured my hair and its somewhere around 11 inches. I think that's pretty good progress since I promised to stop cutting my hair about 2.5 years ago and my hair was MAYBE 2-3 inches at the time. Talk about a cute little afro. So this is about two and a half years of growth even though I have been natural for 4-5 years.

For those that are not aware of the process, sisterlocks are a method of locking the hair with different patterns (depending on hair type and texture). So to determine which pattern will hold up the best throughout this journey, my loctician installed 3 different patterns in my 'test locks'. I have 12 of them in the bottom right corner of my head/neck and this is what they look like. The lock on the far left in the bottom row is in the exact middle of the back of my head. For some reason it looks like the locked section covers the entire back. NOT! My head is huge. The top row of locks probably line up about a half inch below where my earlobe ends. Its a pretty small section.




I know they are so small right? I think the density of my hair will require small locks. They have been in for about four days now and I think they are holding up quite well. My loctician told me to be as rough as I can with them so she can be sure she is installing the right pattern. Sidenote: these bad boys are so small, I can't tell the difference between the patterns. I might have abused my test locks this week. I put them in a sponge roller - just to see how that would work out. They have been in a headband, two-strand twisted and finger coiled. When I wash them tomorrow I will treat them like the rest of my hair (I'll even use conditioner). Oh yea, the use of moisturizers and conditioners are not recommended in the early stages as they can cause your hair to slip out of the locking pattern. My installation is scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of next week. I'll make sure to post some pictures of my scalpyness for the world to see. From browsing other blogs, I have come to the conclusion that I may not like what I see for a little while but things WILL change. But, I am prepared to look weird for a while. I may have some tricks up my sleeve to minimize the wierdness.

That's all for now - Back to watching football