Moisturize me Cap’n!

Hair moisturization is so important in the care of natural hair. I mean, it can’t be repeated enough how imporant it is. Moisture in the hair also keeps your hair looking and feeling nice.

Here are some tips I can provide on maintaining beautifully moisturized hair (advice I know I need to routinely make myself keep up with):

1) Wrap your hair at night with a satin scarf. This is important that you do this. Not only does it prevent lent, but it helps keep moisture in your hair. You can also try purchasing a satin pillow case as an alternative. It’s so hard to remember to put this doggone thing on at night and it slips off as well. Try to buy one that will stay on! Also, don’t tie it too tightly. You don’t want to cut off blood circulation to your areas of your scalp.

2) Avoid sulfates in shampoos. As mentioned in an earlier post, sulfate ingredients can really strip your hair of natural moisture and cause you problems with maintaining soft cottony hair.

3) Avoid shea butter, silicones, and parabens. These ingredients coat the strands of the hair and provide an artificial shine. They also cause build-up. Sulfate free shampoos also tend to cause build up; however, that’s why you can use lemon juice to remove the build-up like I mentioned in my last post.

I got this information from watching another Youtuber. Here’s the video! Watch it 🙂 It’s interesting what Casey goes through and learns.

4) Try using a light oil to moisturize. Use a light oil like Coconut Oil to moisturize your hair after spritzing your hair with distilled water. I find that Coconut Oil is light, doesn’t feel greasy, and leaves my hair feeling soft. Some people have used leave in conditioners. I haven’t tried them yet because I am afraid of build-up; nonetheless, I am willing to trying any leave-in conditioners in my locs… I just have to do some research!

There you have it. My four tips for maintaining a healthy, clean head of locs that are moisturized and soft.

Cleansing locs…

Hello beauties!

Cleansing locs can be a bit of trouble for a lot of people with locs. I know for me, in the beginning stages of many past loc attempts, the idea of washing my hair was quite daunting. I read so many things about unraveling and I was also afraid of straw hair. I knew that cleansing locs was important to prevent build up, but using a heavy duty cleanser meant to me that I would have to have crunchy, dry locs for the rest of my life.

Anyway, I have learned a lot and at this point I am truly grateful for Youtubers and other bloggers who sprinkle their hair secrets onto the masses, which includes me. I have learned you don’t have to have crunchy locs for the rest of your life. There are ways to cleanse your hair without causing build up and stripping natural moisture from your hair.

Here are some tips on washing your locs!

1) Try picking a natural shampoo that doesn’t have tons of moisturizing ingredients. Sodium Lauryl Sulfates and the like are a big no no in the natural hair community. I know this because I have suffered the drying effects of this stuff. I actually went out tonight and bought this Shikai Tea Tree oil infused shampoo. Tea Tree oil is supposed to be an astringent and shouldn’t be much of a cause for build up. This Shikai Tea Tree oil shampoo I found at the local market called, Sprouts! However, there are so many brands out there to try. Just try to avoid buying shampoo on a whim at the regular supermarket because they only tend to carry the highly commercial shampoos that all usually contain Sodium Lauryl Sulfate. The less ingredients the better! That’s what I think, anyway.

Here are the ingredients for this shampoo: Purified Water, Aloe Vera (Aloe Barbadensis) Gel (*), Acacia Consinna (Shikai extract +), Olefin Sulfonate, Cocoamidopropyl Hydroxysultaine, Cocoamide MEA, Tea Tree (Melaleuca Alternifolia) Oil, Peppermint Oil, Glycerin (vegetable), Panthenol, Diazolidinyl Urea

If you use something like a Castile Soap be sure to dilute it with water because I read online that Castile Soap can lead to build up!

2) Try using Lemon Juice! Lemon juice helps me tremendously with build up. It’s cheap. It doesn’t smell bad like Apple Cider Vinegar does and it isn’t as messy as baking soda. All you have to do is buy a spray bottle and put lemon juice inside of it. Spray your hair with it. Massage and scrub it into the scalp. Then Rinse. If you notice build up the next day, repeat. This should help get rid of it! It works very well. I found out about this from Jessica D on Youtube. I also find that the acidity of the lemon juice helps my ends curl better.

3) Get in the habit of washing your hair in the day time. It’s important that you don’t wash your hair at night because when you sleep with your hair wet it can cause mildew to form. This is so much more important when your hair starts maturing, but you want to get in the habit of not washing your hair at night.

There you have it! On your way to nice, clean, and hopefully not dry locs!

An introduction…

Hello and welcome to Loc’d Away! A natural hair care and inspiration blog for natural women of african american descent who have decided to loc their hair. You could have started your locs in any way from braidlocks to comb coils. It doesn’t matter. I decided to loc my hair months ago using braidlocks and I haven’t looked back since. I hope that this site can be a source of information and inspiration for those who are on their loc journey. I know that for me, inspiration is so important because sometimes I lose patience with my hair and I tend to get bored with it. I also need information because I used to struggle with build up and very dry hair (dry hair is still a struggle but that is my fault)!

In this post, I will just introduce you to me and my hair. I am Geri and I started my natural hair journey about 7 years ago around the summer of 2007. It was the summer right before I was about to start college. Wow! And I was watching a small little show called, “So You Think You Can Dance.” This was season 3 of the show and I don’t exactly remember if I started watching the beginning of the show or not but what I do remember clearly is seeing a young lady by the name of Sabra Johnson on this show. When I saw her and her hair I was completely blown away by how beautiful and free she looked. I mean, she was awesome all the way around and she’s still one of my inspirations to this day. She even ended up winning the competition! I had a small obsession with that show afterwards which included fan fiction and forum posting, but we won’t get in to those embarrassing details. 😀

Winner of SYTYCD Season 3

Anyway, after watching Sabra on the show, I decided that I was going to go natural, too. So, I left the hot comb behind and started wearing my fro as much as possible. I did styles and I cut off my heat damaged ends (I wasn’t really a perm user because my mom used it once on me as a child, my hair fell off, and that was the end of full head perms). I met some opposition from my family but it wasn’t huge. I was discouraged a bit but that didn’t stop me. My hair was growing beautifully; it really was. I was shocked. Um, but then my mom asked me to go to the salon to get my hair straightened for a birthday party. I did it; hoping that my hair would revert. After a week of this silky straight barbie-like hair, I kinda knew in my heart that this was not going to revert.

I put water in my hair and parts of it stayed straight. I was hurt. I tried to work with it. I tried to salvage my hair. Even though it grew longer, it was uneven, it wasn’t thick, it was hard to work with, and I had split ends up the wazoo! I dealt with this for a LONG time until last December I decided to just do another big chop. My hair was the shortest it had ever been. I was scared but I felt liberated and I felt hopeful that my hair would grow and become what I had always hoped for it to be.

Throughout that journey, I always thought about loc’ing my hair. I even attempted a few times but ended up taking them out.

This time around, after my second big chop, I was tired of my loose hair. I was tired of it being short. I was tired of not liking my hair. I was tired of feeling like I looked like a boy (lol). So, I decided, man, I wanna show off my length, so I braided my hair into tiny braids. I also was tired of having to figure out styles I needed to do with loose natural hair in order to look cute or at least presentable.

I got the idea to do braidlocks way before I put them in. I would watch tons of Youtube videos and I would see certain girls on Tumblr who had tiny braids or sisterlocks and it was inspiring and beautiful to me.

I opted for braidlocks over sisterlocks since they were DIY-able and since others before me claimed that braidlocks were a safe way to loc your hair; and they looked pretty similar to sisterlocks.

Fast forward to now, it has been about 4 months since I braided my hair and it still has the braid pattern to it. Some of my locs curl at the ends and some don’t. I love that! I will keep the curled ends. Like one Youtuber said, it’s like having the best of both worlds. You can have locs and the loose natural curls as well. I have experience shrinkage because when I wash my locs (what I will get into later) the braids loosen up and become more like loose natural hair; therefore, they shrink. My hair is naturally on the thinner side because when I was younger I used to wear a lot of braids. The braids would be tight, too! Yikes. I also permed my edges to make my braids look nicer. (I asked my mother to do this; I didn’t do this myself.) And I believe this has had an influence on the number of strands that I have now.

lol it’s me

I think my hair is healthier now since my second big chop. I haven’t been the best hair care taker since then, but I am determined to make my hair care more of a priority. Hopefully, through this blog, I will be able to make myself more of a healthier haired person.

Thank you so much for reading this and I hope you come back for more! If you have any questions please leave comments. I love comments. 🙂