Friday, June 25, 2010

Traditional to Sisterlocks, Brotherlocks



Sometimes locks can break. I've heard that Sisterlocks are so tiny that they snap without warning, at anytime they fall off. Any hair, relaxed, natural, or locked, can snap off but it gives warnings. One thing is to stop breakage before it happens - preventative maintenance. Make it routine to retighten or retwist on time. Anytime there is two textures or in this case state of hair going on, there will be a battle and the texture at the end will lose.

Julia has past shoulder length traditional locks with lots of new growth. This makes for a great opportunity for the locked hair to either slide out or break off. Basically, the hair that sheds remains in the lock, some hairs that are still in the root bed are in the lock, and then new hairs are growing and will be incorporated in the lock. When the hair is not maintained properly, all that's holding the lock is the hair in the root. Now and the hand in locks disease, time, the weight of the locked part, and styling the next thing that can occur is breakage. Unfortunately, this is what happened to Julia's crown area.

If lost locks are saved they can be sown back and/or wrapped with added kinky type hair to make the lock smoother and more stable. If the client is ready for a new start, then channel your inner Edward Scissorhands and get to cutting! I'm a slightly destructive person so this was fun for me. Even though I was quite scissor happy, I cut below the new growth and
into the actual mature part of the lock. Next, we used large push pins to pick out the lock.

While Julia was hard at work picking out some locks, I put in some tester Sisterlocks, in the front like she asked so she can see them! We both wanted to keep going, but you know the deal. Plus i had another client coming.
My next client was started using the twisting with product method. He was told not to shampoo his hair and that the dirt would help his hair hold. By the time another client told him about Sisterlocks/Brotherlocks, his hair had build-up already. He was itching for a scratch too. Yes, I went there with that one. For those of you too young or too old, Itching for a Scratch is an old school hip hop song.

Going from traditional locks to latch-interwoven locks is easy, if you have enough hair. This session marked a milestone in which his hair had grown enough to put into locks. In areas that were too short I used the twisting - rolling method with Taybutta by Shawnta' of Infiniti Naturals, a natural hair stylist, to hold the hair. I still used a little this time for stray hairs.

7 comments:

Naturally Sophia said...

Great information. Do you mind if I refer to your post about the transition from traditional to Sisterlocks?

Denise said...

Carmen thanks for sharing! Great information. I recently lost a lock due to a scalp condition called folliculitis (check out my blog at www.denisegaillard.com). I still have the lock and will sew/attach it to the new hair that grows in. I just have to figure out how this is done.

Carmennc said...

Sophia, sure, use it! I'm glad that you found it informative.

Denise, I have a slideshow with me sewing traditional locks back in.
http://carmennc.blogspot.com/2008/08/my-neighbor.html

Thank you both for commenting and stopping by!

V @ Locks-N-Motion said...

That is great information, I learned something today, thanks for sharing this. Take Care.

Locs2Envy said...

I see you are doing your thing, Ms. Carmen. Keep on working it out. Looks great!

British Bells said...

I am happy that you found a way to make it work! The breakage is what put me off locs...don't like being semi-bald at the front. Yours look nice though.

blackrussian said...

I'm 5 years in now and I keep starting new locks where little bits have broken free from the original locks, but there is enough at the root to immediately make a 1/2in or 1 in microlock. But then they get to about 1.5 or 2 inches and stick straight up. My solution has been to cut locks from the back where it's thickest and sew those on as extensions to help the new baby locks blend with the rest of my length. Your comments about sewing locks made me think of this.