a sisterlocks journey

(a sisterlocks journey)

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Read the very first post on this blog ~~~ "Pledging the Sisterlocks Sorority"

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Beautiful People Who Follow My Blog...

Beautiful People Who Follow My Blog

Sunday, August 30, 2009

"How do you wash those things?" (and some lovely locs encountered this summer)

My dad asked the question..."So when you wash those things, they don't come out?

A sister wtih traditional locs from New Jersey that I encountered in the airport in Houston


I pretended not to hear him. We were on a tour bus at our family reunion and the engine was rather loud. He was sitting behind me.

A brother who was on our flight from Atlanta (Nice lats!)

But then he leaned forward and, rather loudly, continued, "I said, how do you wash those things?"

A sisterlocked mom and her daughter who just happened to be on the escalator ahead of us at Hartsfield-Jackson airport (Mom has been SL'd 8 years)

I turn around so he could hear me. "With shampoo. Like the way you wash your hair," I said in my most "uh-duh" -like voice.

A mom with traditional locs and her cuties atop Stone Mountain

That was it. I guess, since he last saw me this past spring, someone must have explained to him that I have locs.

;o)

Saturday, August 29, 2009

"...unfit to represent America..." ---Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics

[New York Times ]

Skin Deep: Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics

By CATHERINE SAINT LOUIS
Published: August 27, 2009

SILKY straight hair has long been considered by many black women to be their crowning glory. So what if getting that look meant enduring the itchy burning that’s a hallmark of many chemical straighteners. Or a pricey dependence on “creamy crack,” as relaxers are sometimes jokingly called.

Getting “good hair” often means transforming one’s tightly coiled roots; but it is also more freighted, for many African-American women and some men, than simply a choice about grooming.

Anyone who thought such preconceptions were outdated would have been reminded otherwise by some negative reactions to the president’s 11-year-old daughter, Malia Obama, who wore her hair in twists while in Rome this summer. Commenters on the conservative blog Free Republic attacked her as unfit to represent America for stepping out unstraightened...read more here

Friday, August 28, 2009

A Question about Sisterlocks with Permed Ends...

On August 26, 2009 7:52 PM,

Ms. S said in a comment about the post entitled "The (BIG) Big Chop"...


Hello! How long have you been sisterlocked?
Have you kept the relaxed ends the whole time?
I plan on getting SLs soon but am not sure about a big chop soon after.

(My response)

Ms. S,

I've been loc'd 19 months.

I kept the ends 'til July (about 17 months), but I will tell you that in order to hold a curl at the end of my 'braid-outs', I would clip the ends a little to get them even.

Over time the ends will break off and bunching of permed ends can be a problem if you don't bind the ends with care EVERY time you wash your hair.

I found that braid-outs, minimized the difference in texture between the permed ends the locking, natural hair. Braid-outs also help to camoflage any bunching you might experience as well. It also makes your hair appear fuller and more abundant.

However, braid-outs (damp, braided hair, rolled on flex rods and dried VERY dry before removal of the rods), begin to take longer to dry as you gain length and texture. But without braiding your hair BEFORE curling it, the variation in texture is MUCH more obvious (and would have led me to cut off the perm sooner).

One of the upsides of having cut off the permed ends, is that I now roll WITHOUT braiding first, which has significantly reduced my drying time. Hope this inspires you!

Looking for lots of updates from you on your journey...:o)
DL

Earlier post about Braid-outs

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

The (BIG) Big chop

Free P, that Memphis natural brown eyed beauty, was right...I am enjoying it more after the chop!

After my Big (Top) Chop, I started trimming here and there over the course of several week. It was weird. I felt compelled to clip, clip, clip.



After the 'top chop' but before the 'back chop'

Still, there were still quite a few ends that I had clipped below the bunching and I knew this would cause a little pain during my retightening and slow the process down as well. So I snipped them off.

Bye-Bye Binding and Bunchies

Then I trimmed the rest of my hair evenly across at the nape of my neck.

Ok. So there are a few ends with a little sliver perm left...but not enough for me to ever have to worry about bunching again...

...and bye-bye binding, once and for all!


After the Big Chop

Monday, August 17, 2009

I bumped into my old stylist yesterday...

Thought I would re-post this one for any SL newbies or 'contemplatives' who might be lurking this week. :o)

__________________________________________

(Original post date February 27, 2008)

Yesterday, I was leaving JC Penney and I heard a friendly and familiar voice shout from across the parking lot, "Long time no see!"

I was genuinely happy to turn around and see Sarita, my old stylist. I hadn't seen her since September. But I felt a little guilty, I guess. Like I had abandoned her, I suppose.

She watched me approach, her eyes focused unblinkingly on my head. We greeted each other with a big hug. We exchanged niceties, all the while her eyelids narrowing slowly as she tried to decipher what was going on at the roots of my hair. I told her that I had recommended her to a couple of people, relieving myself of the twinge of irrational guilt that I was feeling.

Finally, I said, "I went on and got sisterlocks, so I won't be seeing you for a long while." All semblance of a smile left her face. She actually seemed crestfallen. I was a pretty big tipper. But seriously, it runs deeper than that...

What if hoards of African women realized that our hair texture makes us unique among all of the women on the Earth? That in days of old, before the oppression of our hair, our paradigm taught us that our tightly twisting coils mirrored the spiraling hair of the gods. Our hair was compared with the swirling of galaxies, the torrential, whirling, winds of a storm. Our hair is like unto the helical meanderings of DNA - the very essence of life.

Such an awareness, such an awakening is unlikely to occur so abruptly and en masse as to cause economic hardship to befall those of our sisters who are just trying to make a living by meeting a demand created in us by the dominant (dominating) culture.

That I traded my stylist for a loctician will have no impact on Sarita's pocketbook. But, that I traded my stylist for a loctician is of immense value if, by my example, just one young sister finds the courage to face the fact that it's not "just hair." The value inherent in one young sister feeling empowered to do the hard, introspective and often painful work of critiquing her assumptions, questioning her esthetic preferences and re-examining her political philosophy is immeasurable.
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