T-minus-20-days and counting! (the journey so far)

the blogger herself blogging herself

A coupla weeks from now, I'm getting my locs 'installed' (to use the lingo -- please note: my children, who are 9 and 13, think I need to "just stop!" trying to use "trendy terms" because "old people trying to be cool is SO not cool". That is me told. Anyway....)

To get ready I need to get my natural curly-fro out of the frizzy-monster, easy-snap, split-ended, home-colour-treated, brittle-and-breakage state, so that it will be at its strongest and most healthy come locking day when the crochet hook hits my mane. This will entail a bi-weekly 'detox', by which I mean using a clarifying (but not stripping) shampoo to remove old product and buildup. Then a warm oil treatment using one of those lovely warmy caps. Then re-wash with a moisturising shampoo and repairing conditioner and let air dry, avoiding all the old heat-machines I used to use to dry, straighten, and then re-curl my hair. I know - sounds like a complex load of madness.

Soon I will be going to my regular stylist, the Goddess of the Coif that is the lovely Jade of Hamilton Hair, to get my greys covered and my hair properly coloured (no more cheap supermarket dyes -- I know, naughty me), going back to my natural almost-black (no more 'metallic purple tint' -- forgive me, midlife crisis) with a touch of brown 'balayage' that I think will look wonderful when the hair is locked.

So here's a quick look at my mane journey so far:

Little me in the 70s, natural hair tamed by two twists

Me, 5 years ago when my hair was still chemically straightened

Early this year, natural but blowdried me...

...natural and air dried me,
in desperate need of some conditioning!

With hair wet & in twists to give me a general
idea of what a locked me might look like 

Pre- and post- all the detoxing, oiling and conditioning treatments I've described above:

 

Okay, enough with the photos of me now. I know that a hair blog requires that I actually put up photos, videos, and descriptions of my hair, but I'm starting to feel egotistical and vain.... more in future posts about the long and deep history of locking and its relationship to 'vanity' and eschewing vanity, spirituality and attaining states greater than the mundane.

It's gonna get deep!