Hair

The curl chart runs from 2A to 4C, nine patterns in total. Straight hair sits outside it, since type 1 has no curl to classify, which is why curl charts start at 2A while hair type charts start at 1A. The number gives the family: 2 is wavy, 3 is curly, 4 is coily. The … Read more

Fine hair describes the width of a single strand, not how much hair grows on your head. A fine strand is narrow, light and flexible, which is why it goes flat quickly, shows scalp oil sooner, and loses a set long before a thicker strand would. Someone with fine hair can have a great deal … Read more

Men’s hair runs across twelve types, from pin-straight 1A to tightly coiled 4C. The number gives the family, straight, wavy, curly or coily, and the letter narrows it within that family. The chart below puts each type next to its common name and the cuts that tend to suit it. Reading the chart is quick. … Read more

Men’s hair falls into the same twelve types as anyone else’s, from pin-straight 1A to tightly coiled 4C. What differs is how hard it is to read them, because most men wear their hair shorter than the length a pattern needs to show itself. That single fact explains most of the confusion around men’s hair … Read more

A colorist worth booking for a trend asks about your hair history, patch tests the dye, strand tests anything risky and tells you honestly how many sessions the look will take. Check the license with your state board too. In Georgia, most renewals require continuing education in health and safety. A shade can go from … Read more

Type 4 is coily hair. Instead of waving on a flat plane or spiralling into loops, the strand folds at sharp angles into tight coils and zigzags, and it does so from the scalp outward. The three subtypes differ in how visible that pattern is. 4A shows defined coils on its own, 4B shows a … Read more

Type 3 is curly hair. The strand wraps around an axis into a visible spiral, which is the single trait separating it from wavy hair that bends along a flat plane and from coily hair that folds at sharp angles. The three subtypes are sizes of the same spiral. 3A is a loose loop, 3C … Read more

Type 1 is straight hair. No spiral, no repeating S, no pattern of any kind from root to tip, which is what separates it from every other family on the chart. It splits into three subtypes, and the split is not about how straight the hair is. All three are straight. What changes across 1A, … Read more

Type 2 is wavy hair. The strand travels in an S that repeats along a flat plane, which puts it between straight hair that never bends and curly hair that wraps around an axis. The three subtypes are not degrees of waviness so much as answers to one question: how far down the strand does … Read more

The answer repeated everywhere is 1A, the pin-straight, very fine type at the far end of the chart. It is also an answer nobody has ever measured. No published study has counted how common each of the twelve hair type codes is. The claim circulates because it has been copied between beauty sites for years, … Read more