my locs are back
on june 9 2020, i cut my locs. it wasn’t just another haircut - this was a decade of my life in my hands. it was peak lockdown season and people worldwide were forced to introspect and make big life decisions. for a lot of people, this meant cutting their hair, for others, it was learning to make banana bread, but i digress.
my loc journey started in 2010 - about two years before i officially went to the salon to get it done properly. i had stopped using my comb and wore caps most of the time. over time, i had locs free-forming at the back of my head, and after rocking the look for a bit, i had it done right. i started out with interlocking, but i quickly switched to palm rolling.
when paystack got accepted into ycombinator in 2015, my cofounder and i moved to the bay area for a few months. i no longer had access to my usual loctitian and finding one in white people country wasn’t exactly the most straightforward thing to do. since my locs were borne out of neglect, i thought maybe a little more neglect wouldn’t hurt. i was wrong. by mid 2016, some of my locs had started thinning out and i ultimately had to shave my sides and back.
while i enjoyed rocking this look, i continued to wonder what my hair would have looked like if i had a full head instead. unfortunately, getting back to it would mean cutting my locs and starting over. no chance. i loved my look and couldn’t imagine myself without my locs, so i kept the look. that is, until the pandemic hit.
being stuck at home for months on end presented the opportunity to do a reset and get the full head of locs i’d always wanted. i had a lot of undergrowth and if i waited a few months, i could restart my locs and reinstall the ones i cut off. what i failed to anticipate was how much i was about to be thrust into the limelight. i mean, take a moment to imagine an alternative timeline where i had flamboyantly styled locs as mr. buhari handed me a national award. yum.
things weren’t going like i anticipated. what i thought would be a few months of growth turned into 3 years. i almost started blaming it on old age because i couldn’t understand why my hair stalled on me. through this period, i learned to embrace each version of myself. whether or not my hair matched my mental image, this was me. sure, i missed my locs, but letting that yearning overshadow my reality felt counterproductive.
sometime last year, i started wearing a bonnet to bed and got myself an assortment of products from jamaican mango and lime. okay, i exaggerate - it was just the shampoo, conditioner, and a spray oil. by q3, i had a mild afro. yay. i restarted my locs on the 14th of november, 2023.
since the plan was to reinstall my old locs eventually, i figured it would be great to get loc contributions from friends to install alongside mine. the thought of having a piece of people dear to me on me at all times was priceless. a few of them indulged me and at least 3 people cut off their locs sometime in the last two years and sent me everything. my locs were also taking shape quickly and by mid year, i was ready to begin the reinstallation. i decided on the set of locs i would install from, and set a date with my loctician for oct 25.
i got on a video call with a colleague when i was done and he commented on how much i was beaming with excitement. for context, he’d known me with my locs for at least 4 years before i cut them. he was not wrong. i am excited and glad to be back!
