What Is a Professional Loctician? My Answer After 26 Years of Doing This Work

By Ann-Marie Christell, Seienstyle

The short answer

A professional loctician is a hair specialist who creates, maintains and cares for dreadlocks. That is the definition you will find almost anywhere.

But after more than 26 years of doing this work, I have come to believe the definition leaves out most of what matters. So let me answer the question the way I would if you were sitting across from me with a cup of tea.

How I became one, long before I knew the word

I grew up in Fagersta, a small town in Sweden. As a teenager, I would sit in front of music videos and stop breathing every time someone with dreadlocks appeared on the screen. They looked free. They looked completely themselves.

In 1996, a friend of mine came home from a language holiday in London, full of stories about Kensington Market and all the people with dreadlocks she had seen there. She wanted some of her own. We went to the library, found almost nothing, and tried anyway. The result was not beautiful. I am grateful there are no photos.

But something started that day. I made dreadlocks for friends, then friends of friends, then strangers. There was no YouTube, no online course and no one to ask. I learned through years of trial and error, and in time I built a salon in Stockholm where some of my clients have been coming to me for ten, fifteen, even twenty years. People began to travel from Canada, the United States and all over Europe to have their dreadlocks made.

Nobody called me a loctician back then. I just knew this was my work.

What a loctician actually does

On the surface, my work includes a handful of services:

• Creating new dreadlocks on loose hair, on any hair texture
• Maintenance, guiding in new growth and loose hair and keeping dreadlocks healthy over the years
• Extensions, for people who want length or volume without waiting a decade
• Repair, when dreadlocks have been made with a method that did not suit the hair
• Synthetic dreadlocks and mermaid hair, for people who want to play, try the look or change their style
• Guidance, so clients know how to care for their hair at home

That is the craft. And it is a real craft, separate from general hairdressing, with its own techniques, tools and knowledge. A haircut might take an hour. A full head of dreadlocks can take eight to twelve hours. That changes everything.

What the definition leaves out

More than twenty years ago, a young woman sat down in my chair for her first dreadlocks. By the first dreadlock, she was telling me her marriage was ending. By the third, she was crying. By the sixth, she was telling me things she had not told her closest friends.

I did not know what to do. I tried to comfort her and give advice. When she left, I sat in my empty salon and cried too, because I had been holding something I did not yet have the tools to hold.

That day taught me what no technique ever had. This work is not really about hair. The hair is the doorway.

When someone sits in your chair for a whole day, with your hands gently in their hair, something softens. They have often dreamed of their dreadlocks for years. Sometimes decades. They are crossing a threshold in their life, stepping into a version of themselves they have pictured for a long time. And you are the person holding the door open.

Later, I trained as a breathwork and meditation teacher, partly to learn how to hold those moments well. Today, I would say that a professional loctician holds space for an inner transformation, and the dreadlocks are how they do it.

A professional loctician takes care of their own body

For many years, I worked five or six days a week, often eight to twelve hours a day. I was taught a technique that made my hands bleed, and I thought that was simply part of the job. I finished many days wanting to lie down on the floor. My fingers went numb. I seriously thought about quitting.

Instead, I went into every detail of how I worked: how I held the crochet hook, how I stood, how I positioned my client, which chair they sat in and which stool I sat on. Out of those changes, the Seienstyle process was born, and it is the reason I am still doing this work, without pain, 26 years later.

So to me, a professional loctician is also someone who takes care of their own body. Bleeding hands are not a badge of honour. They are a sign of a technique that needs to change.

A professional loctician takes care of their own life

I want to be honest about something else. Some years ago, I burned out. I had built so much and was holding so much that something in me simply stopped. I kept doing hair, but quietly. I stepped away from social media for years, and almost let the business I had spent two decades building fall apart.

It took me a long time to come back to myself. When I did, I rebuilt everything more slowly. A year and a half ago, my husband and I moved to Provence. Today I live close to nature and the seasons. On my days off, I am in the garden we are building from scratch, moving rocks and digging planting beds. Every three months, I travel back to Stockholm to care for my clients there, and I stop in other cities along the way.

I share this because I think it belongs in the definition too. A professional loctician is someone whose life can hold the work. The ones who last are the ones who rest, set boundaries and come back to themselves between clients.

What I believe makes a loctician "professional"

There is no single worldwide licence for locticians, and the rules differ between countries. So to me, the word "professional" is about more than paperwork. A professional loctician:

• Has trained properly in a method, and keeps learning
• Can say yes to every hair texture, so no one is ever told their hair is not right for dreadlocks
• Works without wax, glue or heavy products, so the hair can breathe and mature
• Works gently, without hurting the client's scalp or their own hands
• Is honest about what to expect, from the first weeks to the years ahead
• Takes care of the person in the chair, not only the hair
• Takes care of themselves, so they can keep doing this for decades

These are the beliefs the Seienstyle process is built on. Dreadlocks made this way begin to mature within two to three months, without the long awkward stage so many people expect. I used to reassure clients in the mirror that their dreadlocks would look amazing in a few months. Now I get to see the glow in their eyes on the very first day.

If you are looking for a loctician

Look at their finished work, including dreadlocks they made years ago. Ask about their method and whether they use products. Ask how long the appointment takes and what aftercare looks like. And notice how they make you feel. Do they listen to what you are picturing?

Today I work as a traveling loctician rather than from a fixed salon, and I begin with a video consultation with every new client, so I can understand your hair and your dream before we meet.

Locticians I have trained in the Seienstyle process can be found on my page of certified Seienstyle locticians.

See the certified Seienstyle locticians

If you are dreaming of becoming one

My students often tell me that I did not only teach them a technique. They say I taught them a new way of working, and sometimes a new way of living. Some were hairdressers. Many had never worked with hair. One left hairdressing because of allergies and now runs her own dreadlock business. Another started as a single mother in New Zealand and now runs hers.

If something in you is stirring, start with my free three-part online training. It gives you an honest picture of this path before you invest in anything.

Join the free training The Proven Path to Become a Loctician

When you are ready to learn, The Professional Loctician Online Course teaches the Seienstyle process step by step, with one-on-one video coaching calls with me. I also offer a two-day, one-on-one in-person training. And I do not leave my students after they are certified. They keep coaching and support from me for as long as they need it.

The Professional Loctician Online Course

So, what is a professional loctician?

Someone who makes beautiful dreadlocks, yes. But also someone who can sit with a person through one of the meaningful moments of their life, and help them walk out feeling more like themselves than when they came in. Someone who protects their own body and their own heart, so they can keep doing this work for many years.

That is what I have spent 26 years learning to be. And it is what I love to teach.

If you would like to talk, whether you are dreaming of your own dreadlocks or of becoming a loctician, email me at [email protected]. I would love to hear your story.

With love,

Ann-Marie