I embraced “awkward” as that stage for me, from about 5-8 months in. My hair was very soft, more on the wave curl side, and it was going haywire transforming, right at the time I was on vacay in a place with almost no black people around. I was very sensitive because it wasn’t locking up so much as webbing out…and YES, I felt terribly awkward! But the beauty of the journey is that it makes you stop and come face to face with concepts of what is “beautiful”, and Eurocentric propaganda we are force fed historically in this country. It was a season where I had to really think about why I thought there was no real option to relaxing my hair for decades in the pursuit of long, straight hair… and also understand what was going on in me, awakening and wanting to dig deeper into my African roots, my natural roots, and have my crown reflect that deeper, more conscious state of mind. Speeding through this transformational process by “instant” locking or weaving faux locs on the babies leads to missing this most important part of the journey… IMHO it’s worth it! Awkward stage…yes, only to grow into a more confident, ecstatic, self-recognizing human being, walking in my own natural, God-given beauty!
I believe anything that "doesn't look good" is automatically labeled "ugly". When in fact I believe its about acceptance and valuing yourself regardless of outer appearance. That's what my loc Journey is teaching me. 💖✌🏿
When I experienced it, almost 21 years ago, it was called the “chaos stage”! And for me it was chaotic because my Locs wouldn’t lay down or point in the same direction - crazy looking. I wore a wig for a week but was so uncomfortable that I decided to embrace the chaos. Since then I always encourage people to embrace that stage because it goes along way in accepting your hair therefore yourself 😄
Once again, I’m in total agreement with your sentiments. While I’ve never hated myself or felt ugly, I know what emotional pain feels like. I attribute my lack of concern these days about what people think of me to my maturity (I’m 50 years old) and my spiritual growth. Btw, I just call it the starter loc or baby loc stage because I know they grow up. “There’s levels to this.”
I don’t like saying the “ugly stage”. This video was very timely and i appreciate your wisdom and delivery of an important message to us about our crowns. I just has to check myself yesterday while i was standing in the mirror and told myself to be nice to me.
....great topic for me to chime in on, I first embraced the fact that when I was in the early stage of my loc journey that vanity had to be eliminated from my thought pattern, that allowed me to make it through the early days of my journey and it still serves me well 13 years later 💌
I must say, I have not felt as though I have gone through an "ugly stage", however I have not always felt as confident as I did before beginning my loc journey. I call the start of my journey the "beginning stage". On 02/04 I will be 5 months into my loc journey and I am soo very proud of myself for sticking it out the second time around. 🙌🏾Like you, I focus on other aspects of myself that make me beautiful such as my face, body, mind and spirit. I can truly say I now feel confident entering into the public without a fresh retwist. The confidence did not come over night, but it came during the journey. As they say, "trust the process". Thank you for the video.🙏🏾You put a lot of things into prospective for me and you helped me to understand what I had not been able to place into words.🥰
I only agree with the first part of what he said. Before I got my locs started, I looked up all kinds of videos about the different loc stages. I never knew there was an "ugly" one until everybody told me it was. It's gotta go. I prefer to call it "teen" stage since they're not quite "babies" anymore. My feeds are packed with loc pages and all stages are beautiful to me ❤
I like the way you covered this topic. I like the transformative phase or the growing stage. Since it’s the time you see the most change with your locs.
I think this topic is very interesting. For me, I never felt like I was "ugly" at an point in the early stages. I didn't question how I looked until I went back and looked at pictures from the early on stage and even then I didn't think "ugly" I saw how my hair was changing. The word "ugly" only ever crossed my mind when I was loose natural and I was frustrated with my hair. Since I've loc'd my hair, I have felt nothing but natural beauty. Overall I feel like people need to call their hair whatever they need to that's going to get them through their journey. After all, "you can't have rainbows, without the rain."
I called it the challenging stage. Because indeed it presented challenges, but I knew it was all part of the journey. I don't care for toxic positivity because it can veer into denying reality.
I was in the "ugly" stage my first week but now I'm just embracing what my hair is growing into . It's a journey. Now I'm loving it more and more everyday 😍 let's see what week 3 holds lol
I’ve always thought of it as hair adolescence. It looks and feels awkward when I’m there but to other people who have or are familiar with locs, if you know, you know. I never feel ugly, just… frustrated(?) in the beginning stage of locs. I have to just tell myself “be patient” and dress them up with color or clips or something.
I am nearing a month in, and before starting my journey I saw tons of videos referring to the beginner/teenage stage as the ugly stage. I believe it’s because like you said it’s not visually looking the way in your mind you expect them to look. I myself knew that I would be wearing wigs/wraps in the beginning stage. Because I myself knew I wouldn’t feel good about myself with little worms on my head! On the flip side I know it’s temporary. I choose to refer to it as exactly what it is the starter stage that with time and patience with go into the mature stage. I feel we have to do what makes us feel good about ourselves. For some it can be something deeper! Thanks for sharing and discussing this topic.
I like calling it the awkward stage. I called it the ugly stage when I was going through it only because that's what everyone else called it. I didn't think I was ugly or my hair was ugly during this time. Of course I wasn't as confident and I wore head wraps during this time to make it through. It was also cold outside so the headwraps came in handy. A lady I know who also has locs would have all of negative comments during this time...never coming out her face by calling me or my hair ugly but she would say things like I should go get my hair done by a professional. During this time I was retwisting and caring for my hair myself. This was during the height of Covid. I eventually went to a salon when I felt more comfortable but luckily I didn't let those comments affect me. I'll be 2 years loc'd in April and my hair looks excellent. I'm so glad I stuck with it.
I choose to say "awkward" as opposed to "ugly" but either way, it's very real for some. Someone in a facebook group said his starter locs were "throwing up gang symbols." There are days (for SOME) when starter locs are too short to style and just stick out in all different directions. That may be awkward to some but not to others. Either way, it's a very real emotion. And it doesn't equate a mental health issue. And I find it inconsiderate for someone to say that's their experience and someone else disregard that. If that's not your experience, awesome! But respect someone else who says it's theirs, and offer encouragement and assistance if possible.
Nice video.. I consider they are teenagers now... sometimes I say "you are getting really hard to handle just like teenagers" I'm 4months loc'ed and still waiting for that stage they call ugly to come.... 😏
BLESSINGS QUEEN. I'm only a year into the loc world, but I just have a quick question. With locs as long as yours, do you experience headaches or soreness from the weight of your locs, or is that a myth about LONG locs?
I don’t experience headaches unless it’s too tight or it’s in a bun for too long. However that’s not a myth, some ppl absolutely feel like their long locs are heavy, fortunately that’s not me. Have a blessed journey 💕
I loved my locs up until I took my first style down a couple days ago . I’m only seven months in . Idk what it is but when I took my style down I wasn’t feeling my locs at all and I’ve been feeling this way since then . maybe I miss having my hair “done “ all the time ? Idk I’m on my second set .. I really just don’t remember this stage being ugly lol maybe that’s cause I had color last time and it looked “prettier “.
Hello let me say I love the length your healthy looking likes. I have locs that are 2 years and four months old and I colored the and over processed them at least 4 times during my journey. At this time my hair is a honey blonde and my new growth is brown I want to color them but at this point I want to cut them off. To me some of them are hard and dry even when I put water on them. What do I do I have so many mixed feeling
Different products/ingredients. Like mandelic acid, glycolic acid, azelaic acid, kojic acid, retinol, etc. Once I settle on what’s the most effective for me I’ll make a video. I don’t want ppl buying a bunch of products because that can be counter productive due to interactions and make the problem worse.
I call it the “ baby stage “ because you have to nuture feed care cherish love a baby to grow healthy. Live LOCDtastic!
Well said!
I embraced “awkward” as that stage for me, from about 5-8 months in. My hair was very soft, more on the wave curl side, and it was going haywire transforming, right at the time I was on vacay in a place with almost no black people around. I was very sensitive because it wasn’t locking up so much as webbing out…and YES, I felt terribly awkward! But the beauty of the journey is that it makes you stop and come face to face with concepts of what is “beautiful”, and Eurocentric propaganda we are force fed historically in this country. It was a season where I had to really think about why I thought there was no real option to relaxing my hair for decades in the pursuit of long, straight hair… and also understand what was going on in me, awakening and wanting to dig deeper into my African roots, my natural roots, and have my crown reflect that deeper, more conscious state of mind. Speeding through this transformational process by “instant” locking or weaving faux locs on the babies leads to missing this most important part of the journey… IMHO it’s worth it! Awkward stage…yes, only to grow into a more confident, ecstatic, self-recognizing human being, walking in my own natural, God-given beauty!
The Growing Stage , remember words is powerful say the wrong thing could curse yourself .
True but intentions are stronger
Thank you for touching on the toxic positivity movement
I will be using that term “toxic positivity.” It’s really a thing!
It’s so non-helpful
I honestly didn’t go through an ugly stage. I was just proud that I finally had locs. I’m almost two years in and I still feel the same way.
I believe anything that "doesn't look good" is automatically labeled "ugly". When in fact I believe its about acceptance and valuing yourself regardless of outer appearance. That's what my loc Journey is teaching me. 💖✌🏿
When I experienced it, almost 21 years ago, it was called the “chaos stage”! And for me it was chaotic because my Locs wouldn’t lay down or point in the same direction - crazy looking. I wore a wig for a week but was so uncomfortable that I decided to embrace the chaos. Since then I always encourage people to embrace that stage because it goes along way in accepting your hair therefore yourself 😄
Once again, I’m in total agreement with your sentiments. While I’ve never hated myself or felt ugly, I know what emotional pain feels like. I attribute my lack of concern these days about what people think of me to my maturity (I’m 50 years old) and my spiritual growth. Btw, I just call it the starter loc or baby loc stage because I know they grow up. “There’s levels to this.”
I don’t like saying the “ugly stage”. This video was very timely and i appreciate your wisdom and delivery of an important message to us about our crowns. I just has to check myself yesterday while i was standing in the mirror and told myself to be nice to me.
....great topic for me to chime in on, I first embraced the fact that when I was in the early stage of my loc journey that vanity had to be eliminated from my thought pattern, that allowed me to make it through the early days of my journey and it still serves me well 13 years later 💌
I must say, I have not felt as though I have gone through an "ugly stage", however I have not always felt as confident as I did before beginning my loc journey. I call the start of my journey the "beginning stage". On 02/04 I will be 5 months into my loc journey and I am soo very proud of myself for sticking it out the second time around. 🙌🏾Like you, I focus on other aspects of myself that make me beautiful such as my face, body, mind and spirit. I can truly say I now feel confident entering into the public without a fresh retwist. The confidence did not come over night, but it came during the journey. As they say, "trust the process". Thank you for the video.🙏🏾You put a lot of things into prospective for me and you helped me to understand what I had not been able to place into words.🥰
I only agree with the first part of what he said. Before I got my locs started, I looked up all kinds of videos about the different loc stages. I never knew there was an "ugly" one until everybody told me it was. It's gotta go. I prefer to call it "teen" stage since they're not quite "babies" anymore. My feeds are packed with loc pages and all stages are beautiful to me ❤
Hello I'm starting my locs and I call it the challenging stage
The whole journey is beautiful
I like the way you covered this topic. I like the transformative phase or the growing stage. Since it’s the time you see the most change with your locs.
I think this topic is very interesting. For me, I never felt like I was "ugly" at an point in the early stages. I didn't question how I looked until I went back and looked at pictures from the early on stage and even then I didn't think "ugly" I saw how my hair was changing. The word "ugly" only ever crossed my mind when I was loose natural and I was frustrated with my hair. Since I've loc'd my hair, I have felt nothing but natural beauty. Overall I feel like people need to call their hair whatever they need to that's going to get them through their journey. After all, "you can't have rainbows, without the rain."
I called it the challenging stage. Because indeed it presented challenges, but I knew it was all part of the journey.
I don't care for toxic positivity because it can veer into denying reality.
You are on point with this video 👏🏿
I was in the "ugly" stage my first week but now I'm just embracing what my hair is growing into . It's a journey. Now I'm loving it more and more everyday 😍 let's see what week 3 holds lol
I’ve always thought of it as hair adolescence. It looks and feels awkward when I’m there but to other people who have or are familiar with locs, if you know, you know. I never feel ugly, just… frustrated(?) in the beginning stage of locs. I have to just tell myself “be patient” and dress them up with color or clips or something.
I am nearing a month in, and before starting my journey I saw tons of videos referring to the beginner/teenage stage as the ugly stage. I believe it’s because like you said it’s not visually looking the way in your mind you expect them to look. I myself knew that I would be wearing wigs/wraps in the beginning stage. Because I myself knew I wouldn’t feel good about myself with little worms on my head! On the flip side I know it’s temporary. I choose to refer to it as exactly what it is the starter stage that with time and patience with go into the mature stage. I feel we have to do what makes us feel good about ourselves. For some it can be something deeper! Thanks for sharing and discussing this topic.
I like calling it the awkward stage. I called it the ugly stage when I was going through it only because that's what everyone else called it. I didn't think I was ugly or my hair was ugly during this time. Of course I wasn't as confident and I wore head wraps during this time to make it through. It was also cold outside so the headwraps came in handy. A lady I know who also has locs would have all of negative comments during this time...never coming out her face by calling me or my hair ugly but she would say things like I should go get my hair done by a professional. During this time I was retwisting and caring for my hair myself. This was during the height of Covid. I eventually went to a salon when I felt more comfortable but luckily I didn't let those comments affect me. I'll be 2 years loc'd in April and my hair looks excellent. I'm so glad I stuck with it.
I interchange the terms “challenging phase” and “awkward phase”.
Agreed. If we think about it each stage brings its own challenges😉
Great video Keisha!
Well said 👏🏾
I choose to say "awkward" as opposed to "ugly" but either way, it's very real for some. Someone in a facebook group said his starter locs were "throwing up gang symbols." There are days (for SOME) when starter locs are too short to style and just stick out in all different directions. That may be awkward to some but not to others. Either way, it's a very real emotion. And it doesn't equate a mental health issue. And I find it inconsiderate for someone to say that's their experience and someone else disregard that. If that's not your experience, awesome! But respect someone else who says it's theirs, and offer encouragement and assistance if possible.
Nice video..
I consider they are teenagers now... sometimes I say "you are getting really hard to handle just like teenagers"
I'm 4months loc'ed and still waiting for that stage they call ugly to come.... 😏
I'm just over a year in & I don't consider this my ugly stage lol I'm in the cocoon phase mmkay lmao! I love every minute of it ☺❤ I love my crown 🥰
BLESSINGS QUEEN. I'm only a year into the loc world, but I just have a quick question. With locs as long as yours, do you experience headaches or soreness from the weight of your locs, or is that a myth about LONG locs?
I don’t experience headaches unless it’s too tight or it’s in a bun for too long. However that’s not a myth, some ppl absolutely feel like their long locs are heavy, fortunately that’s not me. Have a blessed journey 💕
@@KeishaCharmaine thank you so much♥️
I think the "ugly stage" is really cute 🥰
I loved my locs up until I took my first style down a couple days ago . I’m only seven months in . Idk what it is but when I took my style down I wasn’t feeling my locs at all and I’ve been feeling this way since then . maybe I miss having my hair “done “ all the time ? Idk I’m on my second set .. I really just don’t remember this stage being ugly lol maybe that’s cause I had color last time and it looked “prettier “.
I call it the Beginning or Early Stages.
Hello let me say I love the length your healthy looking likes. I have locs that are 2 years and four months old and I colored the and over processed them at least 4 times during my journey. At this time my hair is a honey blonde and my new growth is brown I want to color them but at this point I want to cut them off. To me some of them are hard and dry even when I put water on them. What do I do I have so many mixed feeling
Please get a consultation with a loctician before you make your decision
🤣😂😂 i wear a head wrap or slap jell on my ugly phase cause chile 🤣😂😂😂😂😂
Queen...what do you use to fade your acne scars?
Different products/ingredients. Like mandelic acid, glycolic acid, azelaic acid, kojic acid, retinol, etc. Once I settle on what’s the most effective for me I’ll make a video. I don’t want ppl buying a bunch of products because that can be counter productive due to interactions and make the problem worse.
I called it the messy stage.
😍😍😍
Maybe a Bad hair day
Lol…maybe a season! 🤦🏾♀️🤷🏾♀️😅
@@Windsingerful Right
KING JESUS CHRIST is returning to. Repent of your sins and get right with GOD. He is the Way the Truth and the Life.