Transitioning from relaxed to natural

Hair by Benita Blocker

Styling Options for Transitioning from relaxed hair to natural hair:

1) Wet Set Flattwists using Design Essentials Twist and Set Setting Lotion as seen in attached pictures.

2) Protective styling:  Crochet Braids, Sew-in's or regular braided styles

3) Sisterlocks, Interlocs, Locs

Transitioning to Natural

Flat Twist styling

Wet Loc Check-in at 3 years 3 months

In three days, my Sisterlocks will be three years and three months old.

It's getting there. My Pre-Rapanzel phase. 

I believe most of my Sisterlocks are definitely below shoulder length.

The back is flowing as well.

I decided to try a "Twist Out!"  Results will be in a separate article.

So why does everyone say that locs are so permanent?  Finally, I realized that they were using the wrong terminology to describe their hesistation with getting locs.  The magic word is "transitional."  The locs are not permanent, but yes, transitioning from locs to loose hair can be awkward from a styling standpoint.  So yes, loose natural hair and loose relaxed hair can transition back and forth to everyone's content.  However, if you add locs to the mixture and then want to go back to the relaxer, then people do not want to see the loose hair overgrowth at the root caused by neglecting the tightening sessions.

Each to his own.  I am still excited about the next few years to come!

Transitioning Hair: The Pin Cushion example

As I was preparing my needles for a sew-in client, I was reflecting on how this tomato pin cushion made a huge difference in my ability to prevent threaded needles from tangling. Anyone who has threaded four or five needles and laid them down flat next to each other on a table have probably ended up with a tangled web of threads that become more and more tangled until you have to cut the needles out and start over. Somebody has been there with me right?

Well, by resting the threaded needles in the pin cushion, they never ever seem to tangle because the foundation is stationary. Interesting. It seems that by keeping the "foundation/roots" straight avoids the threads from tangling. Wow! This really got me thinking about transitioning hair. The more new growth that comes in; the more challenging the manageability of naturally kinky hair gets overall because you do not have a straight foundation. So the tighter the curl pattern, the more unmanageable the hair will be unless you relax the roots, lock it, or just perform the "big chop." If none of those three options are desirable, then your hair may be a "bear" to detangle with each wash.