Hair Care 101: Classifications of Hair #1
I could not tell you what my exact hair type is even if you offered to give me free cinema tickets everyday for a month. It can all be very confusing for me and yet very easy for others. However, I shall still throw my 2 pence into this nearly saturated pool of Hair Care Blogs all the same.
Bottom (L-R): 1, 2, 3 , 4
There are three "forms" of hair types if you will. One describes the pattern/shape of your hair strand, another describes the size of your hair strand and the last one describes the density of your hair on your head.
Form 1: Pattern
The natural pattern of your hair lies within the spectrum- bone straight hair to the coily hair. It will fall into one or more of the following categories of hair:
1: Straight
2 (a, b,c): Ranges from wavy to curly
3(a, b, c): Ranges from curly to kinky
4(a, b, c): Ranges from kinky to coily
I don't really think the type of hair you have determines if it is going to be healthy or easily damaged. The health of your hair, and how "good" it can be, relies on how much you listen to your hair needs and if you give it some tlc.
Your hair strand can either be described as fine, medium or course.
Fine Hair: As the name suggests, are thin hair strands whose cortex has a small diameter; the hair strand most likely doesn't have a medulla. It is known to be soft and shiny but it is also prone to breakage, split ends and raised cuticles. The weakness of this hair type is due to the small diameter and the fact that the amount of protein in this hair type is considerably less than that found in others. Although fine hair can be rather flexible, it cannot hold curly hairstyles for long. You'll find that fine hair tends to be mostly straight when compared to other hair types.
Medium and Coarse Hair: These hair strands have a larger diameter than that of fine hair and a higher protein content. Both hair types are said to be the most common hair type in the world and one of their admired qualities is their ability to hold hairstyles quite well. But, a downside to this hair type is the excess volume and frizz. This is due to the fact that it can absorb a lot more moisture from its surroundings than fine hair. Although medium hair is not super soft or quite rough to touch, course has been described to be quite rough and heavy.
I guess each hair texture has their pros and cons. We just have learn to work with what we've got and conquer all our hair related issues!
Form 3: Hair Density
I doubt that I made up this classification of hair but to me, thin and dense/thick hair can be described as follows:
- thin hair means that you don't have that many strands of hair per unit area of scalp and;
- dense/thick hair means that you have tons of hair strands per unit area of scalp.
Now, these strands could be any of those mentioned in Form 2 I feel. Whether this is right or not who really cares? As long as you own whatever hair you have on your head- none, short, long, natural, chemically altered, not your "own" etc- and care for it properly, none of this matters all that much...does it?
LOVE. YOUR. HAIR.
If you have anything to add to this please let me know. I shall update my views on this as time goes on.
Till next time!
Luv, Mo xx
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