Whether discussing hair or men, I've always thought that question was a little difficult to answer: "What's Your Type"? The simple thing to do (and what I've done for most of my natural life - - haha, little pun there) is just say I DON'T KNOW!! But I've become more and more curious about what "type" my hair would be categorized as. I recently submitted A Head Of MY Hair to a cool site I discovered called thenhbdirectory.com which is like a one stop shop for natural hair blogs of every category. One of the main questions, of course, is what is my type; so I decided to do some digging.
For the natural hair novices, there are 3/4 main types with a few sub-categories:
- Type 1 - Straight (1a, 1b, 1c)
- Type 2 - Wavy (2a, 2b, 2c)
- Type 3 - Curly (3a, 3b, 3c)
- Type 4 - Coily/Kinky (4a, 4b, 4c)
(Check out vissastudios.com for some helpful hair typing tips)
- Type 1
a. 
b.
c.
b.c.
- Type 2
b.
c.
- Type 3
b.
c.
- Type 4
b.
c.
Even with the pictures and the definitions that I got from many places (my main source for typing myself was naturallycurly.com) I still found it a little daunting to settle on a type, but I think I'm like a 3c/4a mix. Depending on my hair's mood for the day it will go through changes, but I think 3c/4a is a reasonable compromise…it can go 4bish sometimes too if I leave it untended (no wash/styling/product additions) for a few days.
SO what's the point?
Really, why should I care what number or letter of the alphabet my hair is considered? Doesn't that just create another point of separation between folks…another way to put us in a box? Well, maybe…but the goal is to take these categorizations and use them to find the best products and haircare regimens suited to your type because it is definitely a difference between what you need to use and how to achieve the maximum hair health amongst types.
Have you had a tough time figuring out what to call your hair or do you know your type?
