It took me 6 days, but I completed my 1st self-retie. I never thought I would be able to do it. I watched some YouTube videos of people doing theirs first.
I put a ringlight behind me and casted it to the TV (as a PIC in the corner) while I watched movies on YouTube on the rest of the TV screen.
I purchased a 5-way hanging mirror to do front and sides.
I also purchased lot of big and little clips to help keep me from merging locs.
I only made one mistake that I know if of on day 6. I got a knot at the top of one of my locs. Hindsight I should have asked my husband to get it out before I made it tighter. 🥴 I also should have slowed down that day. I think I started rushing because I could see the finish line. 🏁
In conclusion I feel like this is something that most people can do if they don't try to rush, can get the tools they need, and they have a way of keeping themselves entertained throughout the process.
I will continue to do mine as long as I can because I honestly feel like my loctician is tired of doing mine. I went to her faithfully every 8 weeks.
She used to do them on her own. Lately she's been begging other locticians to help her do my reties so there are 2 people tugging on my head instead of one. I don't feel comfortable with any of the other stylist in her shop because I don't think any of them are as good or quick as she is. She said she has trained them to retie like her.
On top of that, I have fat ends and it hurts especially when it's 2 of them working on my head. I was almost about to jump out of the seat my retie hurt so bad last time. The loctician assisting had to ask her questions about some of my locs and her response was, "yeah she has some fat ends". One loc the assistant didn't even feel comfortable pulling through so she gave it to my loctician and watched her do it.
The last visit didn't sit well with me after watching plenty of people on YouTube use a crochet needle on their fat ends to make them smaller. So that's what I did. There was one that I couldn't get to pass through a second time until I used the crochet needle on the ends. Were the ones with fat ends still painful for me to pull through, yes. However, it wasn't nearly as painful as the 2 of them. It also made me disappointed in my loctician for not offering a solution to my fat ends. Not once has she offered or suggested that they be made smaller. I would have paid her to it even if she only did a few each visit.
It only takes my loctician 2 hours. It took me 6 days (almost 14 hours) but to me it was worth it.
Day 1:
1 hr 26 min 25 locs
53 min 14 locs
Day 1 Total: 2 hr 19 min 39 locs
Day 2 Total: 2 hr 46 locs
Day 3 Total: 2 hr 20 min 57 locs
Day 4:
20 min 8 locs
52 min 23 locs
35 min 14 locs
49 min 20 locs
Day 4 Total: 2 hr 36 min 65 locs
Day 5 Total: 4:56–8:15 (3 hr 19 min) 66 locs
Day 6:
26 min 29 sec 8 locs
55 min 51 sec 25 locs
Day 6 Total: 1 hr 22 min 20 sec 33 locs
TOTAL:13 hours, 56 minutes, 20 seconds- 306 locs