Analysing Hair Types

What is analysing hair types? In my understanding, this is a careful examination of hair to understand more about its content, kind, sort, group or class it particularly belong to. In analysing hair some elements like Texture, Elasticity, Density, Porosity and wave or curl pattern should be considered because it help to determined hair types. Hair texture can be classified as fine, coarse and medium. Hair elasticity is how far your hair can stretch, healthy hair can stretch up to 50% and dry or damaged hair stretch like 20%. Hair elasticity is classified as high, normal and low. Hair density is the total amount of hair strand on the head, and in a human is about 100,000 to 150,000 hairs. It’s classified as thin, medium and thick, if hair is thick then its high in density. Porosity in hair is the ability or capacity for it to absorb moisture. Hair with high porosity absorbs moisture more easily than hair with low porosity and hair with low porosity is harder to process and can resist perms or colours. Wave pattern is classified as straight, slightly curly, very curly and tightly coiled. Race and ethnicity are not important in analysing hair.

Hair Type 1: Is fine, medium and coarse in texture but in some cases it’s no texture. This type of hair have no curls pattern is simply straight, oily and shiny. This hair type is categorized in type 1a, 1b and 1c. See the pictures of this hair types below.

Hair Type 1a Hair Type 1b Hair Type 1c

Hair Type 2: 2a is fine and thin, 2b is medium textured, 2c is thick and coarse with a frizzier look and 2b and 2c are resistant to styling. Below are pictures of hair type 2.

Hair Type 2a Hair Type 2b Hair Type 2c

Hair Type 3: Is fine in texture but when damaged its frizzy, not shiny, very hard and when touched it feels dry. It absorb water easily and shrink a bit and it’s very springy i.e if you pull it up, it bounces back to its normal curly state. 3a is loosely curled with big curls and it shiny. 3b is not big or tightly curled it’s just between 3a and 3c. 3c is very tightly curled and look so full or big. 3b show some sort of African-American hair. Pictures of hair type 3 are below.

Hair Type 3a Hair Type 3b Hair Type 3c

Hair Type 4: Is quite fine, thin, coarse and wiry in texture. This type wont shine but sheen a bit and its very thick but fragile. 4a and 4b show some sort of African-American hair. Look at hair type 4 pictures below.

Hair Type 4a Hair Type 4b Hair Type 4c

Analysing hair texture to determine hair type:

Fine hair: Fine hair is soft, thin, shine, flat, lifeless with no volume and can barely be felt if you roll it between your two fingers. 15% to 17% of women have fine hair. Blonde hair is often fine hair because it has a natural shine and very thin. As blonde hair is the thinnest, it can gain volume by using volumizing products, mousse, styling gel, colour and streaks.

Medium hair: Medium hair not as soft as fine but softer than coarse hair. It is not too thin or thick. Medium hair has a lot of body and its more voluminous than fire hair. Medium hair can be felt easily between two fingers. Medium hair can be called normal hair and most people have it.

Coarse hair: Coarse hair is hard, very thick, strong. Coarse hair has the best body or it is the most voluminous of all hair texture. Coarse hair can be felt more easily between two fingers than medium or fine hair or it feel wiry.

Analysing hair wave pattern to determine hair type:

Step 1- When hair is wet: To classify this, you have to wash your hair and notice down how long time it takes for your hair to air dry. If it dry in less than an hour your hair is fine hair or thin hair. If it dry within one hour your hair is medium and if it takes more than one hour to dry than your hair is thick/coarse.
Step 2- When hair is dry: You can also find this out after your hair is naturally dry or air dry by looking closely to your hair and if it’s completely flat and straight then your hair type is 1a, if it has a bit of body i.e its not completely flat but no obvious wave then your hair type is 1b, and if its straight overall but have 2 to 4 slight waves then your hair type is 1c, also if you see some loose wave i.e more than 4 your hair type is 2a, if it’s fairly clear waves or obvious waves you hair type is 2b, and if its more obvious waves may be with few spiral curls you hair type is 2c, also if it lots of waves with loose spiral curls then your hair type is 3a, if its abit tight waves or bouncy spiral curls then your hair type is 3b, and if its tight waves or tight spiral curls all over your head then your hair type is 3c, also if is tight ‘S’ waves pattern or curls then know your hair type is 4a, if it’s very tight ‘S’ waves or curls with zigzag pattern then your hair type is 4b, finally if it’s really very tight ‘S’ waves or curls with more defined zigzag pattern then your hair type is 4c.

TIPS:

An average head has about 100,000 to 150,000 strands of hair.
Thin hair have about 90,000 strands of hair.
Thick hair have about 120,000 strands of hair.
Normal daily fall-out of hairs is 50-20 hairs.

WHAT IS YOUR HAIR TYPE?

*Read “Hair types” post for more information on hair types here.

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