What I Wish People Would Have Told Me About Locking My Hair

That Starting Phase is no joke

As I alluded to earlier, the starting phase, the time before you hair has formed into locs is the most shocking, most unpleasant part of the experience. If someone had told me how… unbecoming this initial phase was going to be, I certainly would have waited longer to lock my hair and might not have done it at all. Now, everybody’s experience is different; but when I decided to lock my hair, I had just cut it so when my beautician spun me around after she had carefully coiled my hair, into what’s known as “starter locs” (aka two strand twists), the shrinkage was so real. I still thought I was cute…just a cute little boy. By the time I got used to the shrinkage, “the fuzzies” started to appear. Since my hair had not locked properly yet, the twists were constantly slipping and I’m sure several people thought I was just too lazy to retwist. (It took almost a full year before people realized I was locking my hair.) And that sad part about it was, for the first couple of months, I really couldn’t do anything about it. I had to wait for the beautician to even wash my hair, let alone retwist it. Sigh Thank God I got past that phase. Now, whenever a woman tells me she’s thinking about getting locs, I warn her by saying it’s not going to be easy; but if you can get through this phase, you’ll love it.