Thin Twists to Thick Locs

In the 10 years that I’ve been locking my hair, the past 4 years, with this set of locs, has been my favorite! Watching my hair evolve from tiny, thin twists to thick locs was so beautiful to me. I miss those earlier stages! I always say that, but really the baby locs stage with all the frizz and unraveling was the best part! You can see the evolution of my thin twists to thick locs in my video, “4 Years With Locs”. I also answer some really great questions that were asked of me on Instagram last week in the video “Loc Journey Questions”. So this post is meant to be a reflection on my journey thus far— from the thin twists on day 1 to my thick locs in year 4.

My Starter Locs

My locs were started at the salon I was working at during the time. I started with twists and a diamond parting system. The goal was always to have thick locs so that’s why my foundation appears to be so much larger than my twists. I did use product on my hair to start my locs. It was an aloe-vera based locking gel like the Divine Hold.

Unfortunately, after playing in my locs for a few weeks, I realized the locs in the front-half of my head were too small. That is were the picture of the thin twists is from. Since, this was my 3rd set of locs, I knew not to “wait and see” what these thin twists were going to look like as they matured. Instead, I combed out the locs in the front-half of my head and re-parted them. I went from 44 locs to 38.

Combining My Locs

A few months later, I felt like a few of my locs in the back, on the side, and in the front were too small as well and I combined those. To combine them, I used two-strands and a micro-crochet hook. Only 2 out of the 3 sections that I combined are still intact. I eventually uncombined (is that a word?!) the locsI put together in the front because it was putting too much tension on my edges. So, to this day I have 36 locs.

From Thin Twists to Thick Locs

My hair changed significantly within the first 18 months. In the beginning, whenever I retwisted my hair it always appeared really skinny and thin. Then, when I washed my hair I had a lot of volume and fullness. So, naturally, I washed my hair often (once a week) and only retwisted every 4 weeks. I was really happy around that 18-24 month stage when my locs started to remain thick even after retwisting. Now, I wash my hair less, every 2-3 weeks, because it takes about 2.5 hours for my locs to dry when I leave them straight. So, after 4 years with this set of locs, I can say that I am in love with this set and don’t see myself actually cutting them anytime soon (although I think about it every time I have to sit under the dryer 😩).