Week 8

Week 8 is just ending! I'm so proud of myself even though I'm not completely comfortable with the way my hair looks on most days. I continue to move through the world with confidence as if it looks amazing, knowing that in a year or so it will look amazing :)

My "washing without clips" experiment last week was not completely successful. The front/top section of my hair did not stay together as I had hoped. The back wasn't as bad as I thought and the sides were fine. So, this morning I will clip the front/top section before washing.

I feel like my hair is progressing. I think I can see where the buds are going to be. The coils look less perfect and if you look closely you can see some indications of matting in certain areas. It seems like it has to be progressing but it's at a stage where it's not visible. The mere fact that I haven't combed the shed hair means that it's in there somewhere.

I had an interesting conversation with a lady at work yesterday. She didn't realize that I was locing and made a comment about my hair looking good in terms of growth. She's the second person at work that has mentioned my hair growth and I know I have no sensible reason to be irritated but I am...only because that's what hair does over time. It grows. All hair grows. Whether you see the growth or not is related to breakage, but all hair grows. I BC'd in August. It's almost March...of course my hair has grown. That shouldn't be surprising, but considering the mistreatment of hair in the black community, it is. What a shame.

She also said something like..."well, it looks like it could be done..." This was before I realized that she didn't realize I was locing and told her. "Done" - what does that mean? I think it means "manipulated to look neat." And of course, "neat" is completely subjective. I'm positive that as my locs mature, I will be less concerned with attaining the status quo standard of "neat" hair. I'm not going to be obsessed with retwisting my roots. I'm going to aim for 6 weeks to give my hair the best chance of being healthy. I'm pretty sure I'll have fuzzy hair and I'll get used to it. Once I get some length, I'll begin styling, but I'm not really going to worry about that for a while.

So, this is where I am at week 8, about to enter week 9 and my official 2 month anniversary on March 1. It's certainly exciting and I can't help but wonder what month 6 will look like, but I'm expecting some great changes by then :)

Week 7

I'm going to take a break from photographing my hair. It's not visibly changing much anyway. I'll move to a monthly schedule, but continue to write each week.
This weekend I plan to wash and retwist my hair, as I mentioned last week. This time, I'm going to attempt to wash it without clipping it. Hopefully if I keep the water pressure low and scrub gently I won't disturb the coils too much.

Week 6 - Changes are Coming

I am washing and retwisting my hair tomorrow and will do so each week until I hit 3-4 months. At that time, I will reevaluate my maintenance routine. This fuzz is out of control. I know that my scarf came off several nights and that probably contributed, but there are so many loose hairs it's ridiculous. 

The way I rationalize it is this...

The reason for limiting retwisting is to avoid weakening the roots of your hair. They advise against retwisting hair while it's dry.

I don't think that washing and retwisting my hair at this stage will matter or impact my roots at all.

My hair will be wet.

I don't coil my hair tightly and clip it.

My hair isn't locked yet.

That's my rationale. It may be completely false, but until I see a bud, I'm retwisting weekly. I cannot take going to work looking like this another week. Plus my scalp was itching a lot this week. I briefly considered washing my hair and not retwisting it last time I washed, but with my hair texture it needs as much help/training as possible. 

So here we are...tomorrow will officially be 6 weeks!

Week 5

I'm going to catch up here soon.

So last week was actually "week 5."

After being frustrated with the back 2 rows for the past month, I decided to backcomb them. My goal is to just keep the hair together. This hair is so different from the hair on the rest of my head it's amazing...

I used this flee comb from Pet Smart based on a recommendation from a lady on Nappturality.

This is what it looked like after backcombing it. 

Then, I palmrolled it.

I measured it and I think my hair is about 4 inches now! You'd never know :)

Then, because those pieces are straight and the rest of my hair is coiled....and I'm not trying to look extra crazy...I pincurled all of those pieces.

They came out pretty well, but they didn't stay that neat for too long :(

Pincurling might have to be a nightly routine, unfortunately. Although I'm not sure what that hair will do once it's wet.

Here's a look at the fuzz in week 5. It's really driving me crazy.

 I may move to a weekly wash and retwist routine. I know it's more frequent than recommended, but I can't deal. I think as long as I do it while wet, I should be fine. I don't twist tightly and I don't use clips so I doubt that I'm putting stress on my roots. 

I really want to make it until Saturday, but I don't think that's happening. I may be washing and retwisting tonight...