by Jackie of Engineering Natural Beauty
Dry hair is a problem for many natural ladies. I suffered with dry hair for the first 11 months of my natural hair journey. I couldn’t go more than 2 or 3 days without having to moisturize. I experimented with everything to try and keep my hair moisturized: olive oil, coconut oil and every type of butter you could think of! It also doesn’t help that I have low porosity hair.
Before
But one day, while perusing the Curly Nikki Forums, I came across a thread for keeping hair moisturized. The women in the thread were discussing using the L.O.C. method and how it helped them keep their hair moisturized for 4 to 5 days! Each letter in the title makes up the steps:
L-Liquid: You first use a liquid on your hair.
O-Oil: You seal the liquid with an oil or butter.
C-Cream: You then put a cream over the oil and liquid.
The purpose is for each layer to seal the layer before it, i.e. the oil seals in the liquid and the cream seals in the oil.
Knowing my situation, I wanted to look into this method more to see if it could work for me. So, off I went to YouTube to find a tutorial and more information. I landed on the Trendy Socialite’s video and decided give the method a try.
via TrendySocialite
I will be honest, I was skeptical. Nothing else had worked before. However, after my first application, my apprehension turned into excitement. It worked!! My hair stayed moisturized for a week … A WEEK! I hadn’t been able to go more than 2 days without having to moisturize. I started using the L.O.C. method in November and I haven’t looked back.
When I first started, the products I used were water, Jane Carter Nourish and Shine and Bioteral Curl Creme or Lacio Lacio! High Shine Leave-In Conditioner. Since then, the products I use have changed as I no longer like Lacio Lacio because it contains silicones and I no longer use them in my hair anymore. Being the product junkie that I am, my products are constantly changing and I’m forever experimenting to find the right combination. I’ve used:
- Oyin Handmade Whipped Pudding and Burnt Sugar Pomade as my oil
- PuraBody Naturals Murumuru Moisture Milk, Oyin Handmade Hair Dew and Carol’s Daughter Hair Milk as my cream.
The one thing that has never changed is using water as my liquid. Water is always the best moisturizer for hair, so there’s no need to mess with a good thing. But, no matter what I’m using, I always do the L.O.C. method.
Before
After
Love and hair grease curlies ♥!
hairscapades 
I love the LOC method. I find however that I don’t need the cream as the weather warms. Water and oil is all I need now that it’s warm out but in the winter I do:
Water
Leave In Condish (Kimmaytube or As I Am Naturally)
Jojoba Oil (& JBCO on the ends)
Jane Carter Nourish and Shine or Whipped Shea Butter
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Thanks for sharing this! I’m going to try this on my babydoll’s hair – Liquid will be water, oil will be coconut oil and cream will be shea moisture or oyin hair dew. Can’t wait til wash day!!
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Hey Nicole you may find that the coconut oil actually makes the hair a little hard. At least that’s what I noticed. I like coconut oil for pre-pooing but not sealing. Plus in the cold months it solidifies so not a great choice. Jojoba or olive oil tend to work better.
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See? That’s why I come to these forums. That helps tremendously. Thanks Michelle!
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🙂
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I use this method too, but in exploring it, I came to understand the importance of using filtered water to do this. I live in the Bahamas, and the water here is hard. So at first, this method was not working for me at all. Then one day, I decided to fill my spray bottle with some bottled water, the difference was amazing. If you try this method, and your water is hard, invest in a shower filter or use filtered bottled water.
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Great advice Razzy Jazzy!! I have a friend at work who was struggling with moisture and she just tried this this weekend after she watched a tutorial and it worked great! I had actually sent her this post via e-mail before I even published it and she told me, “I already tried it!!!” So, it was so funny because nothing had been working and she tried this just when it was going to be my next suggestion!
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Hmmm methinks I’ll be trying this myself…it would be nice to apply something that smells sweet following the nasty smell of the castor oil that I use to seal.
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her transformation is amazing!
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