8 months

My braidlocks are now about 8 months old and I have not really noticed a lot of growth except when its time to tighten my hair (which I do every 4 weeks). Everyone who has seen my progress from day one always tells me that they can see how much my hair has grown. I guess because I look at my hair every day I really can’t tell until I look at pictures of my self from different months.

One of my co workers said that she thinks that my hair grows over night; I was actually shocked that she said that because she is still living the lye and I didn’t think that she of all people would even noticed. She also made the comment that she needs to find something to do with her hair because it was so damaged. I had to stop myself from getting on my “Happy to be Nappy” soap box because I have learned that if a person is not ready to let go of the lye no amount of preaching, examples or proof will stop them from slappin that crack on their hair every 6-8 weeks, but I digress back to my hair.

Even though I have braidlocks when I still band my hair (from my SL days) or at least just band the very ends. I only do the ends because they are loose and with the constant rubbing and rinsing I don’t want them to come undone more than they already are. One thing that I have started using is aloe gel. I started using this when I was on vacation. I went to Pensacola for 2 weeks and even though I live in HOTlanta it is no comparison to Florida sun and heat. After only 2 days in FL my hair was just really really dry. Since day one I have only used water in my hair but that was not cutting it anymore. I remember someone saying that Aloe gel is great for added moisture. So with this in mind I went to Wal-Mart in hopes of finding aloe gel, and since I didn’t know where any health food stores where in Pensacola Wal-Mart was my only choose. As soon as I walk into Wal-Mart is see the Aloe gel and it’s in the sunscreen/sunblock section. I don’t know if this is the same stuff that everyone is talking about using but on the front it says 100% pure, so I get it just to see doesn’t hurt to try new things. Long story short I still use it till this day. I went to FL June 1st and it is still keeping my hair nice and soft.

Things that I have noticed about my hair are that I can tell that some of my locks are really starting to lock.

When ever I’m playin in my hair where I’m used to feeling my little curls at the ends but now I feel my curls turning into little balls. That’s make me so excited because that lets me know I am one step closing to being fully locked. Something else that I have noticed is when ever I finger comb my locks in the morning after I have sprayed some water, and aloe gel my hair sheds. It’s not a lot but enough for me to notice it, and sometimes the balls on the ends my locks fall off. I guess this is just another phase that my hair will go though. Also like most people the hair in the front is no closer to being locked than it was on day one. It makes me wonder if they will ever lock, but I don’t really stress about it because I know my hair is going to do what it wants to do when it wants to do it, and its best to just leave it alone.

One of my accomplishments is the fact I can almost put my hair in a pony tail. Well right now it just an “ony tail”. I can only put it up with the front half of my hair, and still have a few stragglers that don’t want to go along with the crowd. What I can do though is put it in two little pony tails with the front half of my hair. With my two little pony tails I look like a little school girl. I actually wore my hair like this while I was on vacation. On the beach I wore a visor and the only way that I could wear it and it be comfortable was to put the top part of my hair up but since its not long enough for a full pony tail I have to put it into two.

That’s about it for my 8 month milestone I don’t know of any other significant details that I have come across that I have not already spoke on. I will say this thought just in case it’s not already obvious. I LOVE MY HAIR and I would not trade it for any other type of hair in the world. It just amazes me that it took me this long to understand that my hair is one of a kind. We are the only race of people on the face of this earth that have the type of hair that we do and I wish more women, and men would realize that it’s a gift and not a curse or something they should be ashamed of.