A boho loc installation is judged at the tip. The locked section is a technical result, but the loose curl at the end is what the client sees in the mirror and what she photographs. It is also the component most likely to fail first, because the curl is where an extension is handled most and supported least.
1. Matching Tip Diameter to Strand Gauge
A tip that is materially thicker than the locked strand reads as an add-on rather than a finish. A tip that is thinner disappears inside the loc and the style looks flat. The working relationship is that tip diameter should sit at or just above the locked gauge, which is why a 0.4cm to 0.6cm tip on a finer strand reads as handmade while the same tip on a heavy strand reads as an accessory.
2. The Shedding Test, Done Properly
The correct test happens before installation, not after. Take one strand, wet it, comb the curl section from the tip downward twenty times over a dark cloth, then dry and compare the curl pattern to an untested strand. A curl that has relaxed, or a strand that has left visible fibre on the cloth, will do the same thing on the client's head within a maintenance cycle.
3. Building the Tip Pattern Instead of Accepting It
- Uniform tip clients: pre-formed curly-tip strands, chosen so every loc ends at the same place. Fast to install and easy to reproduce on a return visit.
- Textured, mixed clients: hand-wrapped curl strands placed selectively, which gives variation across the head and a genuinely handmade read.
- Volume-led clients: a wider-gauge booster at the perimeter, where density is most visible and where a single small tip would look sparse in photographs.
4. Keeping the Finish Through the Maintenance Cycle
Curl tips survive retightening when the tip is not used as a handle. Train the maintenance routine explicitly - support the locked section, never pull from the curl - and record which tip format was used on the installation. On the second visit, the same specification reproduces the same finish, and the client's decision to return stops being a matter of chance.
The Curly-Tip Boho Loc Suite
Pre-formed curly-tip loc extensions, hand-wrapped curl strands and a wider-gauge boho booster, matched so a stylist can build the tip pattern rather than accept a single default.
