Month 20

And in the spirit of the season I wish each of my lovely readers a safe and merry Christmas and a prosperous new year.

Today my locs have reached the final quarter of their second year and compared to last December they have come a long, long way. It was about this time last year that my locs had just entered what I now look back on as the 'rough stage' when my hair refused to take shape. This year my locs are fully formed and much easier to manage. They're a comfortable 4.5-5 inches un-stretched which isn't much in twelve months but that's ok for now.

My two strand twists are three months old and I've since put in a few more for fullness. They are the most well behaved starter locs I've had. The buds are making their way down towards the tips and the two strand twist pattern is hardly noticeable. I'm looking forward to beyond this phase perhaps in the next three months by which time I'll be closing in on my 2 year milestone.

I'll leave you with a few pictures as always.

finally starting to see a length difference

DREADLOCKS ARE...

**Photography ownership is held with the blog account holder. DO NOT use without permission.**

Locspiration: Long Locs

I had to share...

I've been secretly crushing on a particular set of dreads for a while and just this week I fell in love with another. Their locs couldn't be more different but I admire them equally.

Locksylicious aka @thyka_layone

Cosmos aka @cosmotoomuch

They both have various other social media pages including facebook, pintrest, and, twitter.

I have a long way to go to get long, beautiful locs and it helps to look a head and see the fruits of other people's labour. I'm so inspired to keep growing my locs through all the challenges, concerns and doubts. Thanks to blogs like theirs I've been able to really visualise how my own locs may turn out and it's exciting.

I hope you enjoy the unique qualities of each of these ladies. Let me know what you think, post crushes of your own and be sure to drop in with a message for these two loc'd women by clicking the links above.

UPDATE: Dec 13 - I've just found this beautiful lady on instagram - mwilliams7

I'm certainly inspired going into the new year.

DREADLOCKS ARE...

**Photographs are publicly available on Google images. Original owners: please send quires/removal requests to naturalocs@hotmail.co.uk**

Curly Edition: Twist Out

Hello all, so since I've gained a little more length I thought I'd give styling another go. This time I used two strand twists to create a crinkle effect.

And here are the results:

The best thing about twist outs, as opposed to braid outs or bantu knots, is that you can retain over 80% of your length and still get the textural effect. The only down side is that two strand twists can unravel at the root while they're drying and it results in a less polished look but I just held them in place with duckbill clips.

I think I'm going to wear this style for my concert.

DREADLOCKS ARE...

**Photography ownership is held with the blog account holder. DO NOT use without permission.**

Month 19

I'm just so pleased with my hair this month. my twists are two months old and have progressed so quickly compared to my comb coils. I've coloured them, styled them and shampooed them as normal and they behave just like the rest of my hair. I'm now palm rolling them to help the buds form nicely.

My locs are doing just fine as well, they're growing steadily. A number of locs have a tiny area near the root that seems to be starting to loc up by itself. From the scalp my hair is just a normal retwist but about half an inch down there's this spongy, puffy section that then merges into the rest of the loc. As I mentioned before, I hope this spongy area is a bud but I'm not really sure how this works. I understand that there will always be an inch or so of roots that are never loc'd at any one time but how does new growth become loc'd? Can anyone explain?

I'm still moisturising with 100% virgin raw coconut oil after every wash and I retwist my hair two or three times a month. Ponytails and hats are my go-to styling options nowadays as the twists in the front are starting to stick up more and more. By comparison I'm really noticing how tame and flexible my locs are in the back. 

They actually move now!

Remember to check out the naturalocs tumblr page for extra loc photos.

DREADLOCKS ARE...

**Photography ownership is held with the blog account holder. DO NOT use without permission**

Update Continued: Budding

Did I guesstimate that budding would begin in a couple of months? Well I think it's started already! I could be wrong but they look an awful lot like my first set of buds, starting at pretty much the same time, I've just noted, so I'm going with it. I was quite unsure sure at first because I didn't retwist after shampooing my hair but I re-coloured recently and noticed several buds when I went through my hair. Most of them seem to have formed where the new growth meets the two strand twist which I first thought was just unravelling but I tried to pull a twist apart and it didn't budge.

Buds: From what I can tell a bud is a swollen bulge that feels somewhat thicker and firmer (but still spongy) than the rest of the loc. They can start at different points in the loc but most commonly towards the middle. Towards the end is common if your locs are particularly short to start out with. They usually form between month 2 and 6.

Now close-ups of locs and buds in particular aren't easy to photograph but I tried to capture a few of them for you:

this is what I hope is a bud on one of my 18 month old locs.
I say hope because my new growth is
now over an inch (as seen by the black roots)
and it hasn't started loc'ing yet.

this is a bud just barely forming. It's not visible
but if you were here you'd feel where it will grow in
(the frizz near the centre)

and my twists are now irreversible from the root

they appear quite distinctly in silhouette here

So far, in almost six weeks I've experienced:

Shrinkage^

Frizz/Fuzzies^

Budding^

And currently all three are happening at the same time i.e. shrinkage started before budding but shrinkage hasn't stopped even though budding has begun and of course frizz will be with us throughout.

For some reason the developing (^macro) stages of baby locs are much clearer to see in these two strand twists than they seemed to be in my comb coils. I'm sure it's due to a number of differing factors including the additional length, and being more informed/prepared and, possibly the starting method too.

DREADLOCKS ARE...

**Photography ownership is held with the blog account holder. DO NOT use without permission.**