Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Bunching

After asking the "Lockitup" yahoo group about cutting relaxed ends.  I still don't have a clear cut winner. Those who cut above the knot, responded that their ends opened a little, but it wasn't really noticeable after a while. On the other hand, some people still have open ends after three years.  If I cut the bunched relaxed ends, I will probably loose about an inch of hair or a little more.  For the time being, I have decided to wait until I can discuss it with my SL consultant at my next appointment. So you can better understand, here are some close shots of the bunched ends.  You can clearly see how much thicker the ends are than the rest of the lock.  The relaxed hair looks like it was pulled into the lock.  You can also see that the bunched ends are at least an inch long. 

Thursday, September 23, 2010

To Cut or Not to Cut.........That is the Question

      Since it's been a couple of months since I last updated the blog, I thought I would post some recent pictures in response to a request for an update from a friend. These pictures are a little different since my hair is in need of a retightening.  My curls have also fallen out, but I still have a little body.   I also have a question of my own, as you might have guessed from the title of this post.
       In two weeks, it will be my first year lock anniversary.  It may be hard to tell, but my hair has grown quite a bit.I have continued to cut my hair to maintain my style, and because I want to cut off as much of the relaxer as possible. I do not treat my relaxed ends differently than the locked ends, so my hair routine remains simple. So what's the problem?  From what I understand, the relaxed ends slows down the locking process, because cutting the relaxer off opens the ends.  The ends will then need to form another bud to reseal. I'm not sure how big a deal this is. However, I have noticed that the relaxer has a tendency to "draw-up"  in the ends and create bunching. Some of my bunched ends are fairly large (an inch long or more), and I'm debating cutting them off to let them rebud.

Of course,  I am "SOOOOOO" tempted to just cut off all the relaxer (often called the Big Chop).  I actually have gone "under" the style and cut a lot of the relaxer that isn't needed to maintain the cut (as you can see in the following picture).  
  So what do you think? To cut or not to cut? Big Chop or just cut the big buds?