How to...find out your hair type part 2

Side note: You might be thinking, why is finding out my hair type important?? Mainly because it's really useful when looking for products or finding a routine that works for you. Looking at pictures of women or reading about women with a similar hair type to me has helped me find a good routine and product regimen.

For example, I have coarse, 4a (with some 3c and a little 4b) hair. My hair likes Castor oil, which might be way too heavy an oil for people with fine strands. It also absorbs water like crazy  and loves products like glycerin which absorb water from the air. Curl defining products sometimes work my hair whereas those with 4b hair might find that those products don't work as well, due the tighter curl pattern of 4b hair. I've found, for example, that Kinky Curly Custard was pointless on the 4b section of my head, whereas my 4a and 3c sections got some joy from it. This isn't necessarily true for every 4b , but it gives some pointers.


Density

Density is the amount of hair strands in a given area on your head (lol this sounds so scientific)...one can have fine but dense hair. ie. the individual strands are fine, but there are lot of strands in a given area. This can be deceiving because people with this hair type might be prone to thinking their hair is strong and can handle a lot of heat, manipulation etc, but this really isn't the case.

Hair density affects styling choices. Very dense hair can be hard to get into buns etc, just because there's lots of it!

LOIS pattern


This is another hair typing system that you might find in use on other hair blogs/ natural sites.  The letters basically denote the shape or pattern of the hair strand. Some people like it better because it can often lessen the 'good hair' 'bad hair' stuff that can come along with the 1,2,3,4 typing system. Also, afro hair can be fairly straight but still have an afro/ fluffy texture strangely enough. Like this girl...

L 
This is hair that mostly is not curly or coily but not perfectly straight, having bends or waves. A lot of black people surprisingly will have some of this hair type, I know for example that the front of my hair, although it is 'afro' texture, the strands are actually wavy/ straight, they just stick up more instead of lying down flat.


O
This is a very common pattern in most black/mixed/afro hair. O hair is the shape of coils, looking like an O basically!


I 
This is straight hair with no bends/ waves.


S
This is a very common pattern with black hair as well, The hair strand looks like a wavy, bumpy line.

Hope this helps someone on their internet searches!!

Just wanna reiterate..there is no 'worse' or 'better' hair texture. Yup, some textures require different products or are trickier to figure out than other textures, but that's also because a lot of our techniques for dealing with black hair have been lost through years of trying to get it to behave like what it isn't. Be proud of your curls,kinks, coils, straights and waves! It's all beautiful and uniquely designed by YOUR creator!

Peace, Love and Hair Grease folks! xx