Wash / Dry and 2nd retightening with Napplocs Tool

Here are pics on the day following washing my hair and the day after once my hair was fully dried prior to retightening. As I promised myself I began retightening my hair with the Napplocs tool on 8 June after slightly over 3 weeks and finished in 4 days. I did go past 10 hours I know that. I'm finding I'm slow and have maybe 10 minutes going fast before I get bored.

I've decided to see if it will work better to pull through the tool in one way each week to cut down the timeframe of doing my hair. As next time I won't be doing a full rotation I'll make sure to leave a little bit of regrowth so my hair lays properly. I'll be writing down where I need to start from each time, although my feel for the insertion points are getting better.

What else have I noticed?: The micro size tool does fit but I have lost some of the budding knots at the end of my locks when pulling through the tool due to the tight squeeze. I'll try and combat this by not retightening so close to the root for those ones and being gentle with the pull-through. The small size is just a little too big to use for now. Another thing I noticed when retightening hair to the front is that even if I end at a 12 at the front instead of a 12 at the side, my hair still lays properly with partings on either side and isn't in my face so much.

Hair damp:


Hair dry:

What is in the bag?

Ok this is a really crap picture but I finally got hold of my Nappylocs tool. I ordered the micro and small size. Although I have used the Sisterlocks Clip tool up to this point, I felt my thumb was hurting too much and I was getting frustrated at having to clip each lock so have discontinued using it.

At first I attempted to use the microl size version but it kept slipping from my locks. So armed with a nutcracker (no pliers) and a cloth I covered the Nappylocs tool to protect the metal (as I saw in another blog) and began squeezing. It took a big squeeze to finally get the tool to stay on my locks. There are a few locks that I have to hold when pulling through the rotation to stop the lock slipping from the tool, but not many.

So you’re probably thinking what do I think of it, do I find it easier and quicker and does it hurt to use? The answer to that in a nutshell is excellent, yes, no. At first it took a while to get use to and I did have a bit of a disaster where I caught another lock and attached two locks by the thinnest piece of hair. Luckily my trusty Mum managed to unpick it for me. But unfortunately I did it for a second time at the front left of my head. This wasn’t because of the tool, but due to the fact that it took me a while to really get the feel of the tool. I still have two locks attached but just decided instead of splitting them to join them, so that’s my first two headed dragon in the making.

The time taken to retighten my hair was a week, I did put in some hours – the total I do not know but it was a longer process due to me being a bit slow, cautious and the fact that my last retightening I completed on my own was 23 March 2008 – so that makes 7 weeks 6 days of not retightening my hair. This wasn’t due to neglect, I just was busy with exams and thought it would do no harm. I did pay slightly as I do have some that have unravelled which I had to spend time redoing about 3 inches of hair.

I have learnt my lesson big time – I actually completed retightening on 22 May so that makes 6 days total. Next time I will do it every 3 weeks 4 max so I don’t start having second thoughts about my sisterlocks. I mean I did get slightly stressed and even had thoughts of braidlocks and combining alot of my hair, but then after I retightened my hair, flicked it a few times and took a few pics I knew that I would not go back.

On the left is the micro and on the right is the small size tool.

Still retightening

My goal is to make sure I am done by Wednesday 12th! Ok so I am slightly or should I say very bored of retightening but I know it is necessary as it’s now a week since washing my hair and nearly four weeks since my last retightening. The reason being is that I really do want to retighten my hair every 3 weeks and definitely not every 6 weeks which was when my consultant then would retighten my hair. I am keen to take as little time possible and regularly maintain the locks, even though I still like the 6 week regrowth look. I have completed around 6 rows of the back and am retightening on a row by row basis. I watched another Tyler Perry movie last night: Daddy’s Little Girls.

The need for the Nappylocs tool

I have heard of this tool and researched it since the beginning of 2008 by looking at blogs etc. I will be purchasing this tool at some point very soon and using it instead of the clip tool. The reason is that anything that saves my poor thumb from getting red and a dent in it after retightening with the clip tool is a good thing. Apart from less irritation the nappylocs tool is also a far quicker concept where I do not have to clip the metal bit onto each lock – which usually ends up snagging one of my hairs that are keen to lock.

I will let you guys know as soon as I have purchased and start using this tool.

These pics are of my face as I don't do very much of those shots and also the hair pulling was in memory to my first picture on here where I have just had my hair in sisterlocks.



The way I do my hair so far. I mainly took this pic as a guide for me so if it is a little detailed this description that is why! The elastic band at the top holds the hair I will not be attempting to touch. The white clip holds the hair that I will be retightening. The bigger clip on the left holds the the hair in the white clip in place. The small clip just below the white clip on the right holds the hair of that row to be retightened. The bigger clip holds that section of hair in place on the right. Lastly the hair that has been retightened at the bottom is held with a clip.


This represents a classic snag of hair that was caused when I pulled the hair through and the clip came loose taking a bit of an end away. It's very annoying as that had a little ball of a knot starting to lock.