When it’s time to retwist your locs, it’s often challenging to find the best products to use — there are so many out there.
We’ve checked out seven of the best loc retwisting gels, butters, creams, and pomades on the market. Keep reading, and you’re sure to find the perfect product to help retwist your locs.
Related: The Best Black-Owned Loc Products
1. Lion Locs Loc Gel Moisturizer
The Loc Gel Moisturizer from Lion Locs is vegan and organic. This moisturizing locking gel is made for all loc hairstyles — every age, color, and size. It uses a two-in-one formula, making it our top choice for loc retwisting products.
Lion Locs uses a unique, healthy formula that leaves no debris, buildup, or residue. And while it looks white in the container, it applies to your hair completely clear. Not to mention the neutral scent that everyone can enjoy!
In addition, this moisturizing loc gel promotes hair growth, repairs cells, prevents breakage, and protects your dreads from heat with ingredients like aloe vera, vegetable glycerin, and argan oil.
Looking for the best products for loc retwisting? You found them.
2. Knotty Boy Tightening Gel
If you typically get your locs retwisted using the palm roll method, this tightening gel by Knotty Boy can help — and a tiny amount will go a long way. It’s made with aloe vera that promotes shine, sucrose and Xanthan gum for a good hold, and various ingredients for scalp care and hydration, including:
- Hemp seed
- Lime oil
- Vitamin E
The inclusion of Xanthan gum helps with hydrogen bonding in the hair cuticles, smoothing your roots without leaving a flaky residue.
3. Jamaican Mango and Lime Locking Gel
This locking gel has a stronghold like wax without the greasy buildup. Plus, with its nourishing cocoa butter and mango, this retwisting gel helps seal moisture and provides various necessary nutrients, vitamins, and fibers for healthier locs.
The Jamaican Mango and Lime gel includes lime and green tea extracts that soothe your roots during retwisting, have antioxidant properties, and have antiseptic qualities to keep your scalp healthy and clean.
4. Darcy’s Organic Styling Pomade
This product is a healthy, conditioning pomade that works well for those without super dense hair. It doesn’t have a heavy feeling, and while it is light, the included beeswax helps hold your locs together.
Darcy’s pomade is entirely organic and made with peach kernel and coconut oil for deep penetration to moisturize your scalp. It also contains vitamin E, which may promote hair growth.
5. Knatty Dread Loc Cream
If you don’t want to use hard wax in your dreads while retwisting, this cream from Knatty Dread is a lightweight alternative, with a cream-like consistency instead of a hard, waxy one.
It’s also made with all-natural ingredients and contains lanolin and shea butter, which are perfect for retwisting locs if you have fine hair.
6. Carol’s Daughter Loc Butter
This Loc Butter from Carol’s Daughter contains soybean, corn, shea butter, and cocoa as the primary ingredients, meaning your locs will get plenty of moisture while retwisting.
The soybean oil is known to penetrate deeply into the hair shaft, sealing in moisture and protecting locs from the outside elements between wash days. Plus, it’s beneficial for those with skin conditions like eczema or sensitive scalps.
Related: How to Maintain Frizzy Dreads
7.Murray’s Gel Loc-Lock
This loc gel from Murray’s is a water-based product made for retwisting your dreads. It’s packed full of benefits from nuts, vegetables, and fruit extract oils focused on scalp and hair health.
Murray’s Gel Loc-Lock also includes amino acids that are crucial for stronger, longer, thicker locs and olive oil to protect them from the elements naturally.
Before Retwisting Your Locs
First of all, it’s typically best to consult with a loctician before retwisting your locs on your own; everyone’s hair reacts differently to treatments and the different loc stages have different timings for re-twisting.
Some people may have to retwist their locs often while others need to do so less frequently. If you get the timing wrong, use the wrong products, etc., you risk causing damage to your locs, including breakage, thinning, and hair loss.
Don’t damage your locs; use Lion Locs!
When Do I Need to Retwist My Locs?
While your locs continue to grow, so does the hair underneath. After a time, your locs will start stretching out in various directions, and some might unravel, resulting in a disheveled look.
Then, it’s time to retwist your locs to help them grow in the right direction, keep your locs tight, and stop them from unraveling.
Locs in their starter phase will likely need to be retwisted every few months, but you can retwist mature locs as often as every couple of weeks. However, unless you want crisply parted locs, you can go much longer before re-twisting.
How to Retwist Your Locs
Regardless of the method, you used to start your locs, the method you’ll use to retwist them will be largely the same.
Before you begin, you’ll need plenty of clips and hair ties, a loc gel, and silk or satin wrap that you use to cover your locs.
Related: How to Keep Your Locs Fresh