I finally learned how to retighten my hair! This past July, I signed up for the annual sisterlocks retightening class. My loctician is pregnant and I’m not sure how long she’ll be taking after her daughter is born, so I unenthusiastically thought it’d make sense for me to learn how to retighten my hair. *side eye*

So, I paid my $250 online and anxiously awaited the 2-hour training. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I assumed it’d be a somewhat complicated process. My loctician told me the pattern she’d used on my hair, and during my retightening prior to the class, she left two front sections of my hair undone so that I could work on them in the class.

Let the Knowledge Transfer Begin!

On the day of my training, I lucked out, since there were only 3 people in my class. We walked and each received a heavy, sealed box. I opened it to find full containers of the Sisterlocks Shampoo, conditioning treatment, leave-in, two retightening tools, a standing mirror, 4 banana clips, and several duckbill and smaller clips. Because there were only 3 of us there, we all got more of a one-on-one session with the trainer. She gave us a brief history of sisterlocks and jumped right into showing us the correct pattern to use to retighten our hair. I was surprised by how easy the process is.

By the time I left 2 hours later, I had the basic skill set required to retighten my hair. The class didn’t cover more complex topics like slippage and holes from tightening incorrectly. Those are areas you’d still need to see a loctician for. But the one thing she mentioned over and over was: make sure to section off the loc you are retightening. If the tool catches an adjacent loc, you may need to see your loctician, cut the loc, or let them be forever joined! Not good.

Is it worth It?

So, do I recommend you pay the $250 for the retightening class? YES. It’s definitely worth it if you need to do a quick touch up or if you plan to eventually retighten your own hair.

I’ve retightened portions of my hair since the training. Due to the size of my locs, it’s A LOT more time consuming than I imagined. It took well over 2 hours to finish about 35 locs. My goal is to complete the front portion of my hair prior to my retightening appointments to get better at the process and save a little money. With only 35 locs completed prior to my last retightening, I didn’t save any money…or time for that matter. Hahaha I’m excited to see the number that complete in that time period increase.

I’ll post pics before my next retightening session.