Starting My Loc Journey

I did a thing! 🤗

On November 21st, I decided to officially start my loc journey, and I’m too excited about it! For months, I’ve been researching how to maintain and care for dreadlocks, looking at pictures on Pinterest for inspiration, and asking some friends who are already loc’d for advice. I’m only a few weeks in right now, and I can’t wait to see how my hair looks once it fully locs up.

I briefly considered getting dreads in high school but changed my mind when this guy told me that I wouldn’t look good with them. That lowkey destroyed my confidence, so I let go of the idea. Over the years, I imagined what I’d look like with locs every so often, but I was still convinced that they might be awful. I couldn’t stop thinking about what that guy told me in high school. 😢I’ve tried faux locs a handful of times in the last four years, and I LOVED how I looked with them. Apparently so did many other people.😊 After getting tons of compliments when I had the faux locs, I thought that maybe I wouldn’t look too bad if I got dreads for real.

Then in early September of this year, my cousin and his wife made a lot of great points that made me realize that I’d actually enjoy being a dreadhead. My sister always twists my hair, so I don’t have to worry about keeping up with it every day. All I ever had to do was was mist my twists with some coconut oil, grease my scalp, and be good to go for the day. I’d only have to deal with my hair when I washed it, which was every two weeks. My cousin asked me why I was constantly taking the twists out and redoing them when I could just loc up and be done with it. It was at that moment when I started to seriously consider getting dreads.

I absolutely love my afro, but I lowkey hate maintaining it. To see as much of my true length as possible, I used to flat twist my hair every night before I went to bed. Lately, I’ve been getting way too lazy to keep twisting it every night. I also found out that I wasn’t retaining my length because I was constantly manipulating it. If I never have to detangle and twist my hair again, that would make me a happy camper! So, after lots of advice, research, and consideration, I made an appointment with my hairdresser to get starter locs.

As I got closer to my hair appointment, I started feeling more and more sentimental. After I washed my hair for the last time before going to my appointment, I admired how gorgeous my wet curls looked. I also noticed that my hair grew a lot within the last year to the point where I could actually fit it in a ponytail without most of it falling out. After all this time, I was finally able to get a decent-sized puff! And I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the puff for long because I was getting dreads. It took many years, but I finally learned to embrace and love my natural hair. As I got closer to my hair appointment, I realized that after rocking my afro hair for the last seven years, I was going to miss it and considered canceling the appointment. Then I remembered how much I would NOT miss the detangling, knots, breakage, and shrinkage that came with my natural hair. So, locs it is!

I initially thought that my hairdresser was going to give me starter locs using the comb coil method since that was typically how people started their locs. She informed me that those were ideal for people with shorter hair and that the coils would easily unravel since my hair was longer. So, she gave me twists as my starter locs instead! The hairdresser also told me that after a while, the dreadlock would break if I got them done too small, so they’re a little bit bigger than I had hoped.

I liked them on the first day, but on the second day, I was terrified that my dreads would end up looking big and ugly. I was worried that I would look awful and that I would have to start all over. I couldn’t stop panicking. I started looking at pictures of girls with bigger dreads to feel a little better about how my locs could possibly turn out. There were a lot of them that I loved, especially this girl I found online known as The Fairy Queen on her social media. Her locs are so thick and gorgeous, and I could only hope mine would look as great as hers in a couple of years. After seeing those pictures (along with the support of my loved ones), I started feeling better about how mine looked. And if I didn’t like how they turned out once they fully loc’d, there wouldn’t be anything too bad about starting over.

All in all, I’m so happy about finally taking the leap and starting my loc journey. I can’t wait to see what my hair looks like once it’s fully loc’d. I’m happy that I have a more low-maintenance hairstyle, and I’m excited to be on a new natural hair journey. Thanks so much for reading!

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