hair types r pretty important

I think hair type should be a part of the profile cause you know, you can connect with people you have the same hair type as and swap styles without worrying about it not coming out toootally diff, etc, know what i mean? i just think its pretty important am i alone/wrong? let me know! please and thanks

I think knowing your hair type is definitely helpful for exactly the reasons you state. I think the problem is that so many people see some hair types as "better" than others, when I imagine the whole point of hair typing in the first place is to help people realize that your hair can be healthy and beautiful no matter its type. I think that's where the disconnect happens.

am i alone/wrong? let me know! please and thanks
I don't think that you are wrong. There are some threads that reference hair types in the title and I think those are helpful.

I have to try products, techniques and tools for myself to know if they work for me and remind myself that I will not necessarily be able to replicate what someone else does. My hair type/curl pattern may be the same, but there may be differences in my hair's composition(texture, porosity) my environment(humidity, dew point) and my body(nutrition, supplements, water intake and stress levels ). I have seen regimens that layer products to the extent that it is difficult to identify which product addresses the problem I have and whether it can perform independent of other products. I usually will look up the ingredients and compare them to things that have or have not worked for me to esitmate the probability of success.

zinny 4a kinks I agree that knowing and understanding your hair type is important but as greenyourdecor stated people do see some hair types as "better" than others and that is quite unfortunate. I myself am still trying to full figure out my hair type, I think I am a 4A mostly but I could be wrong because I notice 3 distinct curl/wave patterns throughout my hair.

Hair types are definitely important, especially when you have 3 different types (like I think I have). I would love to see pics and posts on hair types because it will help transitioners and naturals with product info and styling.

I also think it is important and I "still" don't know what my hair type is. I think I am 4b or 4c but I hesitate to ask most times because some people really hate the whole idea of hair types. I've read lots of articles to figure this out but I'm still not sure. The lack of curls (or very small ones) and thickness is why I think 4b or c. Can someone help me determine this. Here is a pic posted after a wash with no product............. Thanks

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

pie wrote:I also think it is important and I "still" don't know what my hair type is. I think I am 4b or 4c but I hesitate to ask most times because some people really hate the whole idea of hair types. I've read lots of articles to figure this out but I'm still not sure. The lack of curls (or very small ones) and thickness is why I think 4b or c. Can someone help me determine this. Here is a pic posted after a wash with no product............. Thanks

[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

yea i would say your hair is like 4b/c its really pretty too and thick!! Im 4a..i have lil ringlets and coils all over but my hair is very very thick ...but i do think hair typing is important when it comes to knowing how to take care of your type of hair...for example naturals that are in the 3 type family cant use as heavy styling product because it will weigh their head down..my friend is a 3c and i let her try my qhemet AOHC..it was a greasy disater!!

For all you ladies interested in typing your hair I have a "guide", I say guide because it's formulated to what /I/ interpret hair types to be, so Andre Walker may say otherwise! I also only used the types on my head, from 3b-4b, I don't use 4c, so if you fall in those categories it /may/ help you. Here's the link: http://kinks-n-stuff.blogspot.com/2010/10/my-hair-types-yes-all-4-of-them.html

I like hair types out of curiosity because there's so many, even within a 3c hair type, some one may have frizzier curls then another. I've never really used it to help me find products, but I think it may be helpful for styling too. Maybe I would give a product a try if someone had hair types similar to mine.

@pie, I agree with rayray, you look 4b

Falcon Tress is right. I think there has been confusion, (myself included), between hair type and curl pattern type. I can't remember the lovely lady that posted the link for www.livecurlyfree.com. I want to say that the link came from LynnieLuv.

Anyways, the article mentions how texture type and porosity are important when taking care of your hair:
Texture: fine, medium, coarse
Porosity (how well your hair absorbs moisture): low, medium, high

I believe in this because I can have the same curl pattern as another poster, but I can't use the same products as that person. My hair hates Shea, Giovanni, coconut oil, and is turned off by the Kimmaytube mix, etc. It just turns into a haystack with too much protein.

How big, small, and undefined the curls are mean nothing if you can't find the texture/prosity/ph of
your hair. All hair is not the same based on curl pattern only. Your hair may very well reject the ingredients in several products (again Shea butter!!!!!)

Love what Fleur just said..Maybe we have defined our hair by curl patterns, and that is just one distinctive characteristic of hair type. So that has to be taken into consideration. For instance, there are companies that design their products based on curl pattern, but then I like my other fellow 4a's use the product made for us, and it is disaster for me and glorious for another. My hair loves the heavy cream by Qhemet Biologics, but some other 4a's are saying its too heavy for their hair.


Pie...love your hair, btw...I cannot really tell what it is but I do agree just based on pic, its maybe 4 something...But if wet it may reveal something else..It is just curl pattern..I dont know if it is thick or dry etc...

Green your decour...so right..too much stock on curl patterns...it will begin to be a problem soon, although I do believe it can be a helpful tool.


Treece and Ray...agree whole heartedly...that we have to know our hair, and then work to use products that will help it.

Blessings Naturals

I think it is important and helpful especially when you are talking about how your hair reacted to a certain product...

The hair typing system was created to help others for various reasons , styling and products swapping as some reasons but some people tend to use the hair typing as a way to turn their nose up at other people for that reason i chose not to use the hair typing system i'm transitioning and when i cut it off if someone ask me my hair type i'm going to tell them my hair is natural , curly , kinky , coiled lol

i agree with you all. just last week my friends/clasdsmates and i were talking about hair.
its interesting that in my class of 22 ppl 18 are female and everyone is natural but a few ppl. But we all have different textures. The majority of them wear their hair straight all the time and have suffered from obvious heat damage (when worn curly, their hair has straight pieces at the ends)

short story:

Tuesday my friend V was on youtube during one of our breaks trying to decide if she should twist her hair (she thinks it looks scalpy on her) and she was comparing her hair to naptural85's. And I said "i have hair similar to hers [naptural85]" (4a coils) and V said she has 4b/c hair. Then the convo turned to hair typing because some of the girls never heard of it ; they thought we were talking about hair color. After a brief hair lesson, another girl (with 3b hair) said that V's hair is the worst type, at the bottom of the pole. And everyone laughed. I didnt think it was funny because V actually looked like that hurt her feelings a little. Im not saying the girl meant any intentional harm, but this kinda why I dont like the hair typing.

[sorry for the long post just wanted to share ]

^Very sad-smh !

I think that hair typing by curl pattern alone is rediculous because there are far too few options. If God in his infinite wisdom could create people in so many shapes, color, and sizes, what makes people think that he only made 4 (okay 8 if you include the subcategories) kinds of hair. When we try to judge people based on their hair type we are just going back to the good/bad hair & dark/fair skinned mentality.

Oh and to answer the question, hair typing has not helped me as much as experimenting with styles and products has. I'm still not sure which box to check as far as my hair type goes. I just try things to see if they work for me.

KCC09 wrote:i agree with you all. just last week my friends/clasdsmates and i were talking about hair.
its interesting that in my class of 22 ppl 18 are female and everyone is natural but a few ppl. But we all have different textures. The majority of them wear their hair straight all the time and have suffered from obvious heat damage (when worn curly, their hair has straight pieces at the ends)

short story:

Tuesday my friend V was on youtube during one of our breaks trying to decide if she should twist her hair (she thinks it looks scalpy on her) and she was comparing her hair to naptural85's. And I said "i have hair similar to hers [naptural85]" (4a coils) and V said she has 4b/c hair. Then the convo turned to hair typing because some of the girls never heard of it ; they thought we were talking about hair color. After a brief hair lesson, another girl (with 3b hair) said that V's hair is the worst type, at the bottom of the pole. And everyone laughed. I didnt think it was funny because V actually looked like that hurt her feelings a little. Im not saying the girl meant any intentional harm, but this kinda why I dont like the hair typing.

[sorry for the long post just wanted to share ]

That story was messed up! I guess I never really thought about that, I didn't think people actually hurt others that way but I guess that's just my ignorance. No one's hair should be at the bottom of anything. We all have different hair that will do styles differently, and handle products in a different way. Shouldn't make anyone's head of hair any less good or bad.

Meh. I don't think hair type is very helpful for a couple of reasons. First, people aren't exactly on the same page about hair types. What some people think is 4a others might call 4c, and so forth. So I think from person to person a description of hair type in that system can be really unreliable, besides the fact that many people have a variety of types on their heads.

On the other hand, I do think that having a general idea of what type of hair a person has can help you get an idea of whether you can approximate their hair style(s).

In any case, I've still found that some people have hair that I believe to be like mine, but products and styles have very different effects on our hair.

Discovering what you like and what works, product- and style-wise, I've found to be a fairly independent journey. So I don't really think having hair type in one's profile is any more helpful than, say, photo.

Once I started guessing my hair type, I found better products. When I was transitioning I didn't know what type of products to look for so this was a HUGE help.. things got better from there.

Great discussion. I never assigned a number to my hair because first of all, I never knew there was a curl pattern/typing system when I was transitioning. I still haven't done it because I don't think it'll make an impact on my hair care needs. I am becoming more knowledgeable about what ingredients I need to embrace and those that I need to stay away from. Again, these are just my views on curl pattern typing alone.

Thanks to everyone who helped me figure out my hair type.

fleur_nouvelle wrote:Falcon Tress is right. I think there has been confusion, (myself included), between hair type and curl pattern type. I can't remember the lovely lady that posted the link for www.livecurlyfree.com. I want to say that the link came from LynnieLuv.

Anyways, the article mentions how texture type and porosity are important when taking care of your hair:
Texture: fine, medium, coarse
Porosity (how well your hair absorbs moisture): low, medium, high

I believe in this because I can have the same curl pattern as another poster, but I can't use the same products as that person. My hair hates Shea, Giovanni, coconut oil, and is turned off by the Kimmaytube mix, etc. It just turns into a haystack with too much protein.

How big, small, and undefined the curls are mean nothing if you can't find the texture/prosity/ph of
your hair. All hair is not the same based on curl pattern only. Your hair may very well reject the ingredients in several products (again Shea butter!!!!!)

I echo the thoughts of Fleur. I am a 3C but it is more important to note that I have Low porosity, cottony, medium textured hair. Some of the best product recommendations I've received has been from a 3A curly whose hair has the same properties. Although our curl sizes are different, the manner in which our hair responds to products is quite similar. Be mindful of following someone's advise, recommendation solely because their curl size appears to be like yours. The 2A - 4C system is only an indicator of curl size, not inherent curl properties.

@suns4i6e, that's true. When I first heard of the typing system, I thought that typing was just part of the whole going natural experience. It wasnt until after reading blogs and such that I realized there were such mixed feelings about it.

I have coily hair that maybe classified as 4a, but my hair doesnt look like nor behave like other "4a" girls I've seen on youtube and other sites, although we have the same coil/curl pattern. So in my opinion, knowing your curl pattern will help you to learn to take care of it, but that doesnt mean you have to assign a certain type to your hair to do that.