What no one tells you about dreadlocks

Hello Naturalistas, 

How are you all doing? Today is the last day in January! Whoop! Who else feels like it went by really fast? Hope your hair goals for the year are going on well? Today we would take a look at the things that no one really tells you about keeping dreadlocks. 

I spoke to a couple of people keeping their dreadlocks and here is a compilation of their responses:

"I didn't realise that I had to keep go back so often (Weekly) to the salon to relock after the initial one"

"Cost of maintaining your dreadlocks can be high"

"When my dreads was still short, I had little styling options. Had to maintain the same style for a long while" 

"I didn't realise I had to steam/deep condition my hair. I don't really know why I thought that though.. Lol"

"There are really really bad hair days"

"You see visible and measurable hair growth"

"I have to have to deal with split ends"

"You can have thinning roots due to the technique of locks done on your hair" 

"You also deal with shrinkage"

One thing that can be a misconception like one of the ladies I spoke to said "I assumed that once I locked my hair, its fine and healthy" is thinking dreadlocks is actually an easy way out but we then need to realise that it might actually be more work to maintain dreadlocks and we would need to put in as much work to keep it healthy as we did our regular kinky hair. If you have it as a goal this year to start your dreadlocks journey, just ensure that you're doing it for the right reasons and do your research expensively before taking the plunge because as you might have seen, it takes alot to unlock your hair.

Are you currently on your dreadlocks journey? What is it no one told you about it that you discovered after you had locked your hair? 

4 comments

  1. First of all, no self-respecting loc head or naturalista calls it's 'dreadlocks' or 'dreads', there's nothing dreadful about locs. You could call it locs, lovelocs, rasta or even dada. Never dreadlocks.
    Secondly, what is this false dichotomy we keep trying to create between loose natural hair and locs? It's all natural and it's all beautiful, locked or loose. You might not even think that's what you're doing but this whole article is CLEARLY geared towards discouraging people from locking their hair.
    To all the points you've raised, some of them are clearly meant to misinform. No, you do not have to go to the salon every week to reloc your hair, infact, that's an outright lie. First time I locked my hair, I never went back to another hairdresser for a year at least and my locs formed perfectly. No loctician worth their salt will ask you to come back every week or that frequently to reloc your hair.
    Please, in what world is locs expensive to maintain? Locs that you can maintain with just olive oil and shea butter? Hair that you can reloc by yourself at home? My daughter's hair has been locked 7 months and I've spent N350 on a latch hook for locking her hair. That's how cheap it is.
    Also, who doesn't have bad hair days? or shrinkage or split ends? Definitely not loose naturals.
    Also, having locs is not 'more work' than having loose hair, my hair was loose for 3 years before I locked it so I'm speaking from experience. Last time I relocked my hair was in November. I reloc my hair 3 times a year and it's perfectly fine.
    Short locs have limited styling options yes but isn't that like short hair generally? I really think your article would have gotten a lot more balance if you had spoken with people with grown locs and not just people with starter locs.
    The only thing I agree with is, do your research before you begin locs. Do your research before you go natural, heck, do your research before you take any 'life-altering' decisions. Finally, from this locked mama surrounded by a community of happily locked men and women, 8 years locked and I have never one day thought about unlocking my mane. Probably will never happen.
    Peace.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks for pointing this out. Locs are good styling options for the bold. It is also better when we know some of these things before we go to lock.

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  3. You don't go natural, you return. Natural is where it began.

    ReplyDelete

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