I'm back!

What's up Ladies!

I haven't been on for a minute, but I am back now. In terms of my locks, I have been up to quite a lot I must say.

Styles

First of all, let me supply some update pics on my soft spikes style as promised. This is what it looked like 5 days later.

The curls were still tight, but in a more relaxed mode. I received positive feedback as well. My mom offered some helpful insight on my hair - since it's very curly and elastic, it's best that when I do sets with curlers or braids to not keep it in for too many days, provided that I want to get more length or a wavier look. I did notice this when I kept in my braids for one weekend, as opposed to longer, as I did during the Easter holidays.

P.S. Braids are my favourite way of setting my locks.

DIYER

Outside of that, my biggest update is on the matter of becoming a DIYER again. The last thing I said on the matter, was that I would think about it. Well, it is official, I am now a DIYER again. I now retighten every 2-3 weeks. My retightenings have taken one day so far. I can't really count the hours, since I often stop to do other things then start back again; and no, I do not experience any difficulties while tightening the back.

This change to my routine has certainly paid off. I don't experience complete unraveling anymore. I have a little slippage in the back sometimes though, but the best part about it, is I can correct the problem as I experience it, as opposed to having to wait until the next 2-4 weeks. See below, for a pic after I completed one of my retightenings myself.

Setbacks

One minor concern I have, is that I have a few rather thin long locks in the left back section of my head. They make me kind of nervous, but I simply retighten them as they slip. I just hope they don't break, I am actually considering combining them, but I will watch them a little longer, so we will see. I think what happened is that although my hair grows fast, it has been slower in the actual locking process, and I had experienced a lot of slippage as well as the complete unraveling of some locks, while I waited to go to Curly every four weeks, and so as a result, while everything else would fill out as they grew, these would remain thin, since they had to be freshly repaired every month, hence I ended up with super long and thin locks where applicable. Thank God, this problem is minor though.

Again, I will think a bit more on the matter of combining, but in the mean time, I will watch them closely and tighten them as they slip. In all honesty, I don't really like the idea of combining though, and never did, even when I had traditional locks. I think locks should take their natural course to an extent, but I do acknowledge a valid need for the process, especially when it comes to the potential for breakage.

Summary

My locks on a whole have been going great though. I have length and fullness. What I am a bit antsy about is that they still have a lot of elasticity and so they still shrivel up. Also the left side appears to be longer than the other side, it could be that the curl is loser there, I am not sure, but that has always irked me, even during my traditional locks days, oh well. I do more braid outs though, which kind of work to offset the issue of shriveling, now that I am retightening more frequently.

Below is a pic I manage to salvage of one of my braidouts. It's blurry and the bottom of it got chopped off, but it should satisfy you until I put up some better shots from my next braid out. Take care until then.