Monday, August 23, 2010

Loc Spotlight: Konima from Expanding Beauty

Gather 'roun kids as a fellow loc rocker, Konima, tells us her loc story...

I’ve had my locs for about 31/2 years now. This set of locs were started by a dear friend who also happens to be a fantastic loctician (shout out to Papelle!) and started by comb coils. I knew I wanted small locs but not too small so that I could still maintain them myself. She gave me a beautiful set that I love and nurture to this day!

 My first year of locing I would twist my locs once a month, using a mixture of aloe vera gel with some oils thrown in. Since I’m pretty active I rinse my locs a lot and shampoo once a week. About a year and a half into my loc journey it was suggested to me that I switch to latching my locs because the wear and tear of the constant twisting would thin out my locs and cause breakage! I researched the hell out of interlocking, bought myself a Nappyloc tool and despite the learning curve(my euphemism for frustration and time factor increase) I now happily maintain my locs with latching, depending how fast my hair grows I do a re-ti every 2 months.



 I’m quite pleased that my locs are strong and I have avoided the thinning and breakage that would have occurred, the other nice plus is because I don’t need to use a twisting gel I have less buildup and latching doesn’t unravel through my constant rinsing and weekly shampoos. I spritz my hair daily with a mixture I mix up, condition with a herbal rinse after I shampoo and once a month I clarify by using Bentonite clay which doubles as a great conditioner! I also dye my hair every 4 months with henna. That’s pretty much it for my maintenance, I keep things quite simple, because I’m lazy and focus on making sure my locs stay hydrated and healthy.


I love my locs for oh so many reasons but the top ones are that it’s a beautiful way for me to have healthy hair, going to a sylist is now an option and not a necessity, it fits in with my active lifestyle, gives me a lot of styling options and they look great without any styling at all!


Visit and follow Konima's blog.

2 comments:

Radical Selfie said...

Your locs are beautiful and so are you, Konima! I'm glad you gave a positive perspective on interlocking. I do it about once every 4 months on both my daughters' hair and about once every two months on my own locs. When done right, it is (as you mentioned) a great way to decrease dependence on locking gels, etc.

I'm off to check out your blog...

Expanding Beauty said...

Brittany you Rock!!!! Thanks so much for the shout out! yeah!!!!