Picture This

January 12, 2010Edward Bowsercolumns by Tara, good hair, real women0

Editor’s Note: Tara Walker continues to share with us her journey of locking her hair.

Happy New Year! I’m still in shock that a new year is even upon us and I’m hoping all of Georgia Mae’s readers are as energized as I am about making this an awesome year.

This month I decided to share a few pictures with you all to show how my locs have progressed thus far so that you can see a glimpse of what the locking process is really like. Sometimes people have so many wild and crazy ideas about what the beginning stages of locs are about, and some will even be quick to tell you that you’re doing something wrong. My best advice is to “do you” and don’t get too caught up in the hype. If you decide to take care of your own hair without professional help as I did, you’ll learn to listen to your hair. It will tell you what it needs and doesn’t need, what it loves and what it hates.

Don’t get me wrong–I’m not knocking loctitians nor am I saying that anyone who tries to help you won’t know what they’re talking about, but what I am saying is to really take the time to learn and understand your hair’s specific needs, because what works for your locked friend or your neighbor’s cousin’s sister-in-law may not work for you.

Case in point: I wash my hair once every week maybe every two weeks and one of my co-workers that recently cut off her 18 year locs (which were beautiful) told me ‘all that water’ was keeping it from locking properly. Washing once a month or so was good enough until it was fully locked. When I told her my concerns of having itchy, dirty and, dare I say, smelly hair, she basically told me that the dust and dirt would help it lock faster. Cue the crickets.

I really like this co-worker and consider her one of my few friends at the office, so I kept my cool and politely told her I’d take my chances. Had I told her what I really thought, we might not be cool anymore and I didn’t think it was that serious. My hair is locking just fine and more importantly, it’s clean!

Let’s get to the pics shall we?

Here’s a picture of one of my first buds. A bud is a meshed, tangled portion of strands that is one of the first signs your hair is officially locking!

Unraveling locs are very common in the beginning. It’s no big deal.

Many that would not stay twisted, I’ve braided instead and now they’re fine, although they appear much smaller than the puffy twisted locs.

My products!

My hair after a wash.

Here’s a photo of my hair after 1 1/2 months into the process. Even now you can still see the twist pattern of my locs, but not as much as you can here. Within the next few months, the pattern should be completely gone and they’ll look like locs and not extremely old twists.

This was taken November 11. By now, a lot more of the pattern is gone.

This is me on New Year’s Eve before heading out to church. This was my first real style! The sides were flat-twisted, I made a ‘part’ down the middle in the back of my head and twisted all locs on either side going upward to create an updo effect. All the locs on the top of my head I set on the pink perm rods (I didn’t have time for them to completely dry, or the curls would’ve been tighter). I think it turned out pretty cute, and I’ll definitely try more styles soon!

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