State of the Locks

We got a little excited with the stuffing . . .

What with an unexpected snow storm followed immediately by Halloween, I remembered to wear a costume but I forgot that my locks had a milestone - six months!  Election Day (and being a "dreaded Republican" candidate myself) has also slowed down my writing, but it's time for a state of the locks address.

My hair is definitely longer than it was at the end of April.  Some days it's also a helluva lot fluffier.  It's still short enough that I find myself with the occasional stick-straight-out-from-my-scalp lock when I wake up in the morning . . . but that's assuming that this will actually happen less often as they get longer.  That assumption is only based on what I've seen on other heads.

Longer and fluffier locks!

What my locks all have is a portion that's tight, and doesn't need any help to stay that way.  There's a certain amount of looseness near the base of all of them, and a good amount of the tips are giving me problems, but I don't have a single lock that is completely in shambles.

I haven't been using any products in at least a couple of months . . . no rubber bands, no wax, nothing designed to make them tangle faster or hold together while they do it.  As I mentioned before, I may go back to using some wax.  My wife thinks that some of the locks need to be rebackcombed, but that goes against everything I have researched and I'm resistant to the idea . . . pending an experienced source that agrees with her and a sudden desire to feel that pain again.

Some of my locks are only a third locked, with such a long tail that I can't just pull the loose hairs in and let it go with that.  A few of them still have rubber bands in them; I can feel them inside and I don't know how much they're doing to help maintain lock integrity.  A few of them are solid from stem to stern.

It's still about patience, I get that.  We (my wife and I) pull loose hairs in, and some of them fall back out.  The fluffy pieces need to be palmrolled regularly, something that I believe (based on the progress with and without) would be more effective with wax.  My hair seems to benefit from its judicious use.  In locked form the hair is still much too short to be pulled back, and so keeping it looking somewhat neat can be out of reach on some days.

It's all about patience, and some days I'm just not very patient.  I want to know what these things will look like once there's no more corona of flyaway hair, once I don't have any locks I can shove a finger through, once the hairs have gotten used to living in colonies instead of as individuals.

I've survived my first summer.  The heat wasn't that bad and the locks weren't that long, so it probably wasn't much of a test.  I don't know what this winter will bring, but the challenge of drying my hair properly will shift into a different gear for sure over the next six months.

I don't think that locks are terrible, and I know that mine are more appealing to the eye than many I've seen.  I still want the process to speed up, and I still know that you can't always get what you want.

Reconsidering wax

Last night a business associate whom I hadn't seen in a couple of months asked me if I had given up on the dreads.  I knew that some of them were feeling a bit loose, but it was a bit of a shock to have some think they were on the way out!

I have had a couple of changes in my maintenance routine of late.  I have

• stopped using wax
• not added new rubber bands to replace the old
• aggressively latch-hooked many tips with limited success
• stopped asking my wife to work on them
• run out of Lock Peppa

One or more of these changes have led to my locks loosening instead of tightening.  I don't think it's the rubber bands on their own, but they certainly keep the tips together while they're trying to lock.  It's not the latch-hook; that just pulls hair in, so either it's going to stay there or it's not.

I got frustrated with how much of a big deal it is to have someone else work on my hair - it's more like a hair appointment than just doing something together, and the other person isn't going to have my pain response to regulate the routine.  I know my wife is willing, but guys aren't built with any serious pain tolerance.  However, even though it's easier with someone else's eyes on my head, I don't think I am missing as much as I was back in April.  It takes me more time and it would be good to get the help, but I don't think it really is making my locks fail.

Is wax the best or worst thing for my dreadlocks?

The two products might be the variable to revisit.  The wax, in particular, gave me a set routine:  wax and palmroll one week, pull in loose hair the next, and alternate.  Once the hair is pulled in, the wax keeps it still for awhile, training it to stay there.  As the wax dissipates it has a chance to lock in and tighten.

It could be that the locking process will continue without wax, but much slower.  It could also be that my hair needs the extra help to lock up, and it's just going to get looser without it.

I understand better why wax is so controversial - it's difficult to tell if it's an impediment or an accelerant for the locking process. It's easy to understand how too much wax can lead to mildew and rot, but it's harder to determine if a moderate amount is the right choice.  I think it may have a lot more to do with the quality of one's hair than any other factor.

So I'm thinking of going back to wax, if nothing else.  I want to see this process through, and my months without wax just haven't seen the same progress as the waxen beginnings of the locky journey.

A dream first

Do my locks really look that bad?

I had my first bad-hair dream ever last night.  I was in a high school cafeteria filled with other adults eating.  A woman at the next table turned around to say to me, "Don't you think you should so something about your messy hair?

Dreaming about hair shortcomings tells me that I'm thinking a lot about my hair.  Over the past couple of weeks I've been playing more with the latch hook, trying to pull in loose ends and feathery tips.  The result?  A lot of random loops and ends sticking out of odd places.

What a weird effect.  This is definitely not a "low maintenance" hair style . . . for me, anyway.  I guess I just have too much obsessiveness to leave the little locks alone, giving me yet another opportunity to learn patience.

Sorry I'm late, I was doing my hair

Self-portrait experiment number 37

The myth that dreadlocks are low-maintenance has been debunked in my mind.  Well, it's probably safer to say that dreadlocks are like political campaigns:  you can put into them as much time and energy as you want to.

The other night I was late for a party because, for the first time in my life, I was held up doing my hair.

Are you kidding me?

I had a collision of priorities, namely:

1. Wash my hair
2. Wax my hair

It may seem simple enough to do both, but it can be screwed up.  I'd put off waxing for an extra week so my wife could focus more on blunting the tips (she felt she had the technique down, but wanted more time to have it on lockdown), so wax was on my mind.  Moreso it was hot and humid and a good waxing makes for a more party-ready appearance.

The washing, like the waxing, could have been put off a day without it being disastrous.  I'm more likely to err on the side of caution when it comes to hygiene, though, particularly since this is my first summer with matted coils of hair on my head.

So I showered, and washed my hair, and only then did I realize that I didn't have the time to let the locks air-dry.  I got busy blow-drying the hell out of them, but this was no time to be forced to master patience!  I hadn't budgeted for that extra time.

After wringing, toweling, shaking, and hot-air drying for longer than I wanted to I gave up with the locks damp, and set to waxing.  I'd have to blow-dry them again anyway.

Waxing dry locks isn't just a good idea - it's damned near the law of physics.  The wax slid off moist hair until I mashed on far more than is good for them, and my next round of blow drying was difficult because the wet hair held the heat, and burned the hell out of scalp whenever I pointed the dryer at any spot for more than about three seconds.

I moved the dryer around a lot, softening but not melting the wax.  My wife noticed, and forced me back into the bathroom where she all but held me down and gave me a stern drying so that I wouldn't look like I was wearing candles on my head.

I think the blisters should be healed any day now.

State of the locks

A brief report on how these locks of mine are maturing.

Rounding out two months or so, about two-thirds of my locks are definitely tightening up and becoming solid.  The remainder are in varying states of "mushy," and are mostly being held together by the base and tip bands alone.

As to the tips, we started to blunt some of them yesterday.

We tried it out on a handful, with some success . . . I put bands back on one or two but I'm pretty sure te others we tried will tighten up sweetly.

The loose hairs being fed into the locks seems to be an endless chore.  I've gotten pretty good at making dread balls, but I can't for the life of me get them into the lock without help.  I have a halo of hairs above my head, and little by little I hope to see them all go where they belong.

Trickier is going to be the flyaway stuff on the surface of the tighter locks.  Time and good advice should help me figure out if there's anything I need to be doing about them.

So far, so good.  I don't think wax is slowing my locking down, and my haberdasher bears that out.  Maureen is African-American, has had locks for twenty years, and recommends the use of wax in them.

Tips for tips

The advice keeps coming, and I'm really appreciative.  If nothing else, it's validating my experimentation.

Tame locks are happy locks

One tip I got after lamenting my epic bed head was something I had tried with remarkably good results:  soaking in a hot tub.  It got those bad boys to settle down, and stay settled for days.  I don't think I will need to use wax for cosmetic reasons if a half hour of glorious immersion will do the same thing.

That same friend of mine, who tells me that she studied locking techniques for a year before she began her first set, also suggested aloe for conditioning/taming, spoke highly of tea tree oil, and suggested a semiannual vinegar rinse as well.

This is really good news to me, because my long-term plan is to divest myself of commercial products.  The shampoo I was using prior to locking is just baking soda and water with a little bit of tea tree oil, and the rinse is apple cider vinegar with a drop of vanilla and a cinnamon stick.  I still need to find out if that drop of vanilla in the formula will cause problems, but I think it's only for scent, so I'm fine with dropping it from the recipe.

One of my local locked friends, Amanda Catherine, has really amazing blunt tips on her locks.  She explained that they come from a technique which she'd been taught, but for which she did not have a name:

1. Take a lock near the base and put it between the second and third fingers of your non-dominant hand.  Your palm should be facing away from your scalp.
2. With the fingers of your other hand, grab the lock, leaving less than an inch between the two hands.
3. Use clockwise rubbing against the non-dominant hand, slowly moving that hand away from the scalp, along the length of the lock.
4. Hold the tip between thumb and forefinger, and rub your palm clockwise over it to encourage locking and blunting.

I might try using the Lock Peppa with that technique, since that's what it's for.

Lock maintenance party!

I was also fortunate enough to get an offer of working on my locks, by one master locker and one apprentice.  It's always more uncomfortable to have other people yanking and tugging at your hair, but I gratefully accepted.  It wasn't nearly as agonizing as the six hours of backcombing.

Crisp and clean, and no caffeine

I got a few more compliments on my wife's backcombing skills, and we were able to identify which locks are slower to tighten and which ones are coming along really quickly.  I am really excited about using the latch hook my wife brought home to tighten them all the more.  She didn't think we needed a lock-specific tool; it's great to have a skilled fiber artist in the house if you don't happen to live with someone who is already experienced with dreadlocks.

I also got feedback from some of my friends who hadn't seem me since this adventure began, and I was pleasantly surprised by the positive reactions of these largely traditional, professional people.  I think the fact that I didn't look like my head was exploding had something to do with it . . . I just can't imagine anyone who isn't living on the road thinking I looked remotely decent that day.

Next up:  I've worked out a timeline for what in the hell I'm doing with this hair of mine.  If you fail to plan, you plan to fail, and all that, so I'm planning on not planning to fail by failing to plan to plan.