OMFG I'm a little over half done taking out my locs. I ended up going to the party with my bangs in twists, and the lower third in twists (dyed blue, y'all!), and my locs in a ponytail. It worked! And I don't think anybody knew the difference because no one at work would even know what to look for.
Dyeing my hair in the back was AMAZING. I used less than a quarter of the amount of dye I usually used when my hair was locked back there, and rinsing it out took only a few seconds, rather than like ten minutes of the water never running clear ever. It was AMAZING. Dude.
I've noticed a few other things with my loose hair now. I love lists.
scalp feels better overall. Lately, I have been having a lot of itching, and some scabbing (TMI?), and I wash my hair every week, including a long-rinse, and apple cider vinegar rinse every other wash.
gel that I used to twist locs seemed to give my scalp a bad reaction, but when I used it to give some shine to my twists, I had absolutely no problems. I do not understand this. My best guess is that the locs were tugging just a little all the time, and my scalp was just kind of mad about it in general, so everything was starting to irritate it.
same with coconut oil, I used extra virgin coconut oil on my hair with no problems before locs, and for the first two and a half years of locs, then all of a sudden, my scalp was like NO! NO DON'T TOUCH ME. And now that I'm taking the locs out, my hair is all YAAAAY COCONUT OIL again. O_o
I have no explanation for these things. I notice that I did have some kind of build-up or lint in the locs - reminds me of when you take out braid extensions after a couple of months, and there's build-up at the attachment point, but instead it's throughout the loc. I'm not sure what one would do about this, since lint/build-up seems to be a universal problem. I don't like saying that locs are inherently "dirty", because that's a negative connotation that a lot of people get, and I don't really buy into it. But I was pretty obsessive about keeping build-up out of my locs, AND my locs are tiny, so it's not like stuff could get "stuck" in the core (or so I would think), but... there you have it.
I'll just say, my head was not liking whatever might have been happening. I started getting worried when I put braid extensions over my locs, and suddenly, my scalp felt better, and I had far less itching (after the locs were "hidden" in the synthetic hair). O_o ::side-eye::
I started with 530 locs (yes, I counted like two years ago - though some may have been combined since then). Now I have 179 left to take out. UGH and it's like in the thickest part of my hair (center/crown), and a lot of them are SUPER tiny, and I'm like MAYBE THE BOZO LOOK IS NOT BAD I'LL JUST USE SCISSORS. No. Not really. But kind of. It's okay, I'll get through it. Maybe I'll post some before and after pics or something. Or maybe I'll just keep running my mouth about it without ever letting anyone see. XD Who knows? I just know I can't wait to experience my loose hair again (all over). I miss MAH FRO, y'all. MISS. And I'm a little bit tired of this half n half stuff. It's awkward having to DO stuff to my hair every day to camouflage the mish-mosh.
