Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Lock-Splitting

The LWC strikes again....

I've had in mind to do a post on my own lock-splitting experience for about three months now, but I have been too busy. I was thinking about it again this morning, and then I found myself at Amba's blog where she recently wrote about it.

Doesn't that happen ALL the time in the blogosphere?

I was the first one to insist that I didn't want micro and mini locks, and I still don't want them all over my head. (Since I have started self-tightening, I have been especially happy with my decision to get larger than standard sisterlocks.)

However, I find that small locks have their place. I've started about twenty locks around the edges of my hairline since my initial locking and all of them are small because there just wasn't a lot of hair available, but it was more than I wanted to leave loose.

And I like them, they're fine. They are more of a pain to retighten than the larger ones, but since there are only a relatively few, I can manage it.

I split six of the my locks around the time of my one year anniversary - three on each side of my head.

The hair at my temples is really fine and soft, so I had Phyllis make those locks the size I wanted them to stay - medium.

The locks behind my ear didn't swell. They are almost the same size they always were. The locks in front of my ears did.

They got much thicker than what I wanted. It was okay when I wore my hair down, but I didn't like the look when I wore it pulled back or up, which I do a lot! Daily.

So I took them down. It wasn't that much of an ordeal, a little time-consuming, but not a terrible experience over all.

I had my consultant make each lock into two and they are micro-mini now, but I know they will be just right a year from now.

I don't foresee that I will need to split any more, but it was nice to know that it wasn't a negative experience or a grueling process.

There are probably another 6 or 8 that I COULD split, but they're such happy healthy locks and they're in the middle where no one sees, I only feel that they are larger when I retighten, so I'll probably leave them alone.

4 comments:

CardioBunny said...

Ummm... what's up with the posts without pics? Bad blogger lol!

J/K, I'm glad you were able to make the adjustments you needed. I split some of the locks in my crown because I wanted more fullness... now I'm happy (or at least I will be when they lock).

blackrussian said...

You know that is precisely why I haven't posted in soooo long. I have about 12 posts sitting in draft right now and most of them require pictorial accompaniment and I haven't had time to take pictures or upload the ones I have taken.

Plus, when I started my business I bought a new laptop, a new camera, AND a new phone.

So I've had a huge learning curve on all this new stuff and some pics are on my desktop, some pics are on my phone, some pics are on one laptop, some pics are on the other.

I was never the best at taking and posting pictures ANYway, but now I am especially challenged AND I have less time to boot!

My smallest locks are at the crown. I had them installed that way for fullness too. I refer to that area affectionately as 'the thicket'.

In the beginning it was my least favorite area to retighten. It was most prone to tangling and married locks, which I refer to (and not affectionately as unholy unions.

However, once I realized that there was no reason I had to wait 4 weeks or 6 weeks or any set amount of time to retighten everything changed.

I retighten that area as needed. That means very often. That area - the thicket - probably accounts for about a third of my locks - so we're talking about 100 or so. I retighten 5 to 10 locks every 2 - 3 days. Sometimes I'll go in and do all of them, then I won't need to go back again for 2 - 3 weeks.

But my hair grows fast enough that I do have enough growth in that time to merit another tightening. In fact, I really need to do it that often to stay on top of it.

Unllike my consultant, I can't see what I'm doing and I have to work entirely by feel AND I don't reallly like bothering with clips, so I never separate my parts properly - again, I rely on feel to make sure I'm staying within the established grid pattern.

So it is especially important that I don't let the thicket get out of hand. I try to keep the passes with the tool to a minimum: 3 - 4 (and sometimes 6) loops through the base of the lock as opposed to the 6 - 10 I would face at 6 weeks.

Umm...I think this needs to be a standalone post as well...

Maryee said...

I think it's cool that we have the ability to either split or combine our locks. I'm thinking of combining more of my locks. There's no room to split. I hope you have time to figure out your camera, take pics, upload and share! (LOL) Take care...

muslimahlocs said...

Reads like you have a really great consultant who continues to work with you to achieve the look(s) that you want as they evolve over time. That is phenomenal!