The first 9 months were really a trip for me. I longed for those beautiful little coils I saw in all the hair magazines. I figured they would look perfect with my less than 2 inches of hair. I went to two different professional locticians trying to gain some knowledge and insight on how to maintain my own locs, and instead, all I gained was a lot of frustration!
My first loctician, Matima, made my coils way to big for what I wanted. I never had the opportunity to look in the mirror at what she was doing until the deed was done and I had paid her 200.00 of my tight budget. When I looked at my head I almost cried, but instead I went home and broke the loc sections down to the size I wanted. No more Matima for me, though she was a nice young lady.
Then I went to see Taylor. She had a lovely crown of red locs. She told me she used PK's natty cream on her customers as well as her own 4 year old locs, and it was the bomb. But when she told me she charged 175.00 to get your locs started I bought the PK's and went on my merry way....no Taylor for me, especially since I had just two weeks earlier paid Matima 200.00!!!
So next came Ed. He had a fabulous crown of jet black locs. His price for maintaince was 75.00...this was more like it. But by the time I left his salon an hour later I looked like I had popcorn balls on top of a TWA!!! I was so disgusted! So I decided the only way I was going to get the locs I wanted was to maintain them myself....
I did okay by trial and error for the first 7 months. I waited a month to actually wash my hair on advice from all three of the pros. But in between I had rinsed them in the shower several times. My hair texture is very soft, and the older I get, the softer it gets!!! Because I had been so out of touch with my natural hair I was kind of floundering around, feeling my way thru the journey. I would twist my locs maybe twice a week...and it was during this period I caught "hand in loc disease"!! This is when you just cannot believe this is your natural hair, and you are constantly touching and playing with it, looking for signs of locs forming. I went thru this for well over a year.
In the 7th month, my daughter came home all excited one day and told me there was a new guy at her job who had beautiful locs done by a lady named Estella. Estella charged 25.00 the first visit and 10.00 and a tip for all the rest. She had beautiful blonde locs, her hubby was loced, and her youngest daughter also. She is a very nice lady, but was having some personal problems...the other thing about Estella was she insisted on using beeswax. I went to her for 2 months, and learned 2 very important things....stay the hell away from beeswax, and never let anyone who is having personal problems touch your head!!! I went back to taking care of my own locs, thank you very much!!! |
