Dreadlocks are gorgeous, no matter their size, but who doesn’t want thick ones, right? Unfortunately, sometimes your beautiful locs don’t grow out the way you want them to. Just because you don’t have the mane you want yet, doesn’t mean you can’t have it. Here are a few tips to get your locs thicker.
Related: How to Get Lint Out of Locs
Tips for Getting Your Locs Thicker
Here are tips we’ve found that work to make your locs thicker and healthier looking:
Give Your Locs a Break
Many loc-wearers have been erroneously taught to groom their locs frequently. They shampoo and groom their locs, including palm rolling or interlocking far too often, resulting in tighter, slimmer locs. If you want to grow thicker locs, you’ll have to groom them far less frequently. Your locs don’t need to be retwisted any more often than every six weeks (at least). Don’t be so focused on your locs having perfectly neat roots and fizz-free lengths all the time. While you may not achieve mega-locs this way, you can maximize their thickness.
Be Mindful of the Products You Use
Just because a product is promoted for locs or dreadlock care, doesn’t mean that it’s any good. The dreadlock market, especially the black dreadlock hair care market is massive. But not all of the products are created equal. Look for products made with natural, high-quality ingredients from companies that love and respect your lovely locs the way you do. Poor quality products produce excessive buildup in your hair, leaving them dull, thin, and weak.
Are you looking for an ethical loc-care company that understands that your locs aren’t just a hairstyle, they’re a lifestyle? Look no further. We create organic, vegan, residue-free products you’ll love! Check out Lion Locs today.
Be Gentle
One of the most effective things you can do to produce thicker locs is nothing at all. Manipulating your locs too often or wearing tight, restrictive hairstyles will create tension and bring about just the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve. Your locs flourish on their own. Spritz them with a good, residue-free leave-in conditioner and let them grow.
Pay Attention to Your Scalp Health
We know this is obvious but, your hair grows out of your scalp. If you want thick, healthy hair to grow, you need to pay attention to the health of your scalp. Keep it clean, hydrated, and moisturized. Get good blood circulation with gentle scalp massages or with other techniques like loc brushing.
Related: Should You Get Locs? Here’s Everything You Need to Know
Rethink Your Diet
Thick locs come from healthy hair. Unfortunately, your hair is one of the last things to receive nutrients in your body because hair isn’t an essential system. This means that your hair won’t benefit from your health until certain nutrients are abundant in your body. So, when you’re thinking about how to thicken your locs, don’t just think of the things you can do externally - think internally as well.
- Drink loads of water
- Get plenty of protein - meat, fish, legumes, nuts, etc.
Other essentials include:
- Zinc and Selenium
- Iron
- Vitamin C
- Omega 3s
- Vitamin A
- Vitamin E
- Biotin
Eat a nutrient-rich diet, full of fresh fruit and vegetables. And avoid crashing dieting. This takes a toll on your hair and can cause it to become thin and brittle.
Make Two into One
Combining locs is one of the easiest ways of making your locs thicker. You simply take two thinner locs that are side by side and make them into one thicker, stronger loc. You can do this a couple of ways:
- Take each loc and create a two-strand twist. Later when retwisting, twist them together. They will eventually grow as one thicker loc, although with two ‘tails.’
- You can use a crochet tool by holding the two locs together while you repeatedly pull hair from one through the other until they are ‘knit’ together. As long as the locs are close in length, you won’t have to deal with the two ‘tails’ result of the first method.
- You can combine the above methods. Pull the two locs together in a two-strand twist, then use the crochet tool to ‘knit’ them together.
While combining is an obvious choice for getting thicker locs, it may not work over your whole head. It may create tension at the roots of some of your locs, weakening them and causing breakage. And this could ruin the uniformity of your original sections.
Stop At The Top
When you retwist or palm roll your locs, don’t go down the entire length of your locs. Restrict your grooming to just the roots and new growth. When you retwist or palm roll the whole loc, you create tension at the roots and make the rest of your loc tighter. They may look neater, but they will become thinner.
Sleep Tight
Protect the well-being of your locs even in your sleep, and they can grow thicker and healthier. In addition to moisturizing, sleep in a silk/satin cap to prevent moisture loss overnight. This will also protect your locs from picking up lint from your linen, breakage due to friction, and tension on your roots.
Make Your Peace with Frizz
People are so conditioned to keep such immaculate locs that they’re slowly killing them. The general advice around the frizz that develops over the length of your locs is to palm roll them or crochet them inside of the loc. Don’t do either. If you want the appearance of thicker locs, let the frizz stay. It doesn’t look bad, and in time it could add another layer to the exterior of your locs.
Related: How to Stop Your Scalp From Itching if You Have Locs
Last Words on Thicker Locs
Although using the methods and tips outlined above will not give you super-thick locs (necessarily), they will help you to maximize the thickness of your locs. The major culprits of breaking, dry, dull, damaged locs are excessive retwisting or palm rolling, poor quality loc care products, destructive maintenance practices, and insufficient loc protection. We recommend that you be gentle with your locs, moisturize them, and let them be. You’ll be enjoying thicker, healthier locs in no time.
Are you looking for insights into all things locs? We believe that taking care of your natural locs shouldn’t be a hassle. We provide vegan, residue-free loc hair products. Check out Lion Locs for more information.