Sunday, November 15, 2009

Know Your Hair Type

When I decided to go natural I had no clue what my natural hair texture will be like and that alone made me eager to cut off my relaxed strands. I wanted to find out a lot about my natural hair, how it feels, and its versatility. I will say since been natural I have come to learn a lot about my hair and the type of products it needs. My natural hair is typed a 4 hair type and on the scale of the thickness of the strands it is a C, hence my hair is a 4c hair type due to its kinky and tightly coiled texture. I will further explain these hair types and details on why they are classified as such.

Andre Walker who is a stylist and the owner of Andre Talks Hair, had made it possible for hair to be classified and he ranks hair type 1-4 (referring to the curl or wave in a hair) and letters that follow each number a,b,and c (thickness of each strand). Type 1 for instance is naturally straight and have no curl or wave pattern, type 2 hair has a slight to frizzy wave, and type 3 hair on the other hand is very curly and has a lot of body. Last but not least, type 4 hair is kinky, very tightly coiled, and it appears to be coarse but is quite fine with lots and lots of strands densely packed together. It is also helpful to know that type 4 hair is the most fragile hair of all the hair types and the more you manipulate it the more it breaks off and lessens the growth. Below is an excerpt from Curly Hair Salon.com on type 4 hair category:

Tightly coiled type 4 hair is a lot kinkier than the type 2 and 3 hair types. Although this hair type is much coarser and appears thicker than other curly hair, it is actually quite fine.Type 4A hair has an “S” pattern to it, while type 4B/C hair is more wiry with a zig-zag pattern. Type 4 hair is extremely versatile and holds well on it’s own without the aid of styling products. Some common styles of this hair type are curly fro’s, afro puffs, two-strand twists, braids, straightening, cornrows and so much more.

Here are websites links to go learn more about your hair type:

Here are also video clips with pictures explaining further the hair types:






Note: Video clips and websites will be updated periodically

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