Having someone else wash your hair can be a relaxing experience. One Rockford creative is digging deeper than her customers’ roots. WNIJ’s Yvonne Boose visits the loctician’s salon to check out the vibe.
A loctician is a person who twists or coils hair. When these sections are not manipulated or washed over time, they turn into locs. The style is called locs because the individual coils fuse together.
The twists are done by hand or with styling tools. The fusing process can take weeks or longer depending on the person's hair. It's normally been worn by Black people, but other ethnicities also wear the style.
The smell of incense floated in the air at Inner Strength Therapeutic Loc Services off Broadway Street in Rockford. The lights were dim, and the walls plastered with art, including a large image of a woman with long stylish locs.
Purpose Simba is the owner of the salon. She set the mood with soothing music. A fish tank sat near the waiting area; there were books for people to enjoy as Simba preps.
On this day, Asiah Price lay back in a chair and rested her head on a porcelain washbowl. Simba ran the water and waited for the perfect temperature.
She wet Price’s hair, added shampoo, and started to move her fingers up and down, while saying positive words and prayers.
“As we're releasing all the no longer service you through this rinse," Simba prayed, "take a moment to envision all of your stresses and worries going down the drain. For indeed, everything always works out for you, so there's no need to stress, and it's nothing to worry about.”
Price visits Inner Strength every six to eight weeks.
“Every time I leave here, I feel like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders,” she said, “like just being able to vent and like [to] someone that understands, and she's just like a warming personality. She's easy to open up to, for sure.”
Simba ran away from home at the age of 14 because she said it was a toxic environment. But her salon reflects something totally different. The salon’s peaceful atmosphere gives Simba a chance to relax. Something she couldn’t do as a child.
“I didn't get whippings for no reason,” Simba said, “but I got whippings for everything, and the whippings were way more extreme than the actual you know, like, I've been hogtied with ropes. I've been, like, beat execution style with paddles wrapped in duct tape and extension cords, you know, seeing four leather belts wrapped in rubber bands.”
Despite that tumultuous experience, she said she knew she was destined to be a light for others… and she got that chance at Hartgrove Hospital, a psychiatric facility in Chicago.
“Running away is considered endangerment to yourself and others,” she said. "So, I was hospitalized too, and when I was hospitalized at Hartgrove at 14 and 15, they had me leading the day groups, you know, like group classes. You feel me? Like I gave my insights, and I touched on things that they were actually going to speak on.”
Simba is from Chicago but said she enjoys Rockford because it’s much slower. Her salon space is a low-key environment. There are two wash stations, but Simba normally has one person in the salon at a time. This gives her the opportunity to connect with a client. It's the kind of place where a client might drop in just to say "hi."
“I don't have to share with other stylists or other people that's not like-minded,” Simba added. “It's therapeutic on its own, because it's just me and the client, you know, and it's real, it's genuine, it's authentic. I don't really sugarcoat anything, and I can be myself.”
Simba said her goal is to make the salon a one-stop shop for all things that promote healing: herbal remedies, massages, and whatever magic — as she calls it — that comes from her God-given gifts.
