Let's Talk About Human Hair Texture

Now, people take the natural hair movement and throw it into all sorts of different divisions branches, and groups, for 3A, 3B, 3C, 4A, 4B, 4D, and 4C hair types for this net. They are trying to exemplify one texture above another.

 That's not really what this was intended for. It was actually intended to help people understand what it was their hair could do. And I wanna share with you guys some different attributes.

 So type 1 hair is straight hair. You don't see A, B, and C because straight is just straight. So type 1 is just it. It's just straight. Now don't ask me why the straight hair came first. Whatever the case may be, that's just the way the system was written up.

 We've got type 1 hair, which is straight hair. This is a rather uncommon hair type. You don't see it in a lot of communities. It tends to be more so in Asian communities, and some Latino communities. You don't really see it a lot. Even in Caucasian hair. Most Caucasian hair has at least a slight wave to it, which leads us on to type 2 is wavy here. And now, of course, with that, you've got type 2 A, type 2 B, and type 2 C. The letters in this instance indicate the tightness of the wave or the tightness of the curl. So you've got type 2 a, which is a very loose wave, type 2 b, which is a medium wave, and type 2 c, which is a tighter wave here, just a step underneath a curl.

 That leads us to type 3 is curly hair. 3A, which is more of a loose curl. 3B, which is somewhere in the middle, and 3C, which is a curl. It's just a step under a coil. From there, we have type 4. Now type 4 is the area where a lot of people get confused.

 So let's dive into type 4 and what it is. At first, you just had Type 4. It was like type 1. It was just by itself. But then after the chart kind of got started, a lot of you were finding that they didn't quite fit in there after having 4A, and 4B added.

 Now 4A is more of like A. Imagine a phone card and old school phone card obviously. But it's tightly coiled in there, but it's not extremely tight. This texture is excellent for locking. It's excellent for cone coils, excellent for finger coiling, and things like that. But it's not to be confused with other textures, which I'll dive into later because I have some pet peeves about it. Then we have 4B. 4B is not oily or curly at all. When it's dry, it looks a lot like another texture which we're getting 2, but it's actually a type of its own altogether and it's more of a zigzag type of texture and it has kinks and bins and things like that, but it doesn't have a defined curl or ringlet to it at all.

 Then you have 4C. 4C is a very tight coil pattern. This is honestly my favorite pattern because it is the most versatile out of all of the hair types, but it doesn't get a lot of love, especially in a natural hair community. And I think a lot of people see content that's made for them that isn't really for them.

 I hear a lot of people saying that they have 4C hair, which is not a thing. So if they have 4A hair, instead of just presenting themselves as type 4, they present themselves as type 4C knowing it's gonna get clicks and views.

 Truth be told, while your hair may look like it's a different curl pattern because it's dry and it's picked out when you wet your hair, that is going to be the true determination of whether your hair is 4A, 4B or 4C.

 Some people would want to know, like what type of gel should I be using for my 4C hair or for my here, things like that. And honestly, your curl pattern doesn't have a lot to do with the products that you use, but it does have something to do with it.

 And I wanna deal with that momentarily. So you'll find the higher your number is, the more you'll need to reinforce and instill moisture in the hair. Everyone's scalp produces a certain degree of natural oil, and the oil is able to slide down the scalp. And that natural oil that your scalp produces is an excellent moisturizer. It is unlike any other oil that you can find that is outside of the body, and it is just more efficient at moisturizing the hair. That being said, you'll find a lot of times straighter hair stays more moisturized, and shinier is able to deal with a lot more abuse because that natural conditioner flows down onto the hair a lot easier. They benefit more cause their oil is doing that quite a bit. You'll also find marketed to this texture and to type two textures. You'll see a lot more marketing towards dry shampoos, and things like that to help extend them in between wash days so their hair still looks clean rather than looking excessively oily because you don't want it to look stringy and oily when your hair texture is like this here.

 Now as you move on down the hair type scale, two types, 3 and 4, you'll notice hair begins to defy gravity. Because of its defining gravity, what ends up happening is that oil, instead of flowing down the shaft of the hair because the hair is going up, is now flowing down onto the face, which means those conditioning qualities are really doing more for the skin and keeping the skin moisturized while sometimes making it more acne prone as well. But you'll also find that this is why people often say things like black don't crack. That's because that moisturizer, that conditioner that typically would flow down the hair on straighter textures is flowing onto the face on more curly textures. It keeps the skin more supple, soft, and youthful looking as a result because it keeps it moisturized instead of supplementing as much moisture on your skin, you end up having to supplement moisture on your hair instead.

 For curly textures, even for certain waves, you may find that a spray cream, leave in conditioner, something like that works a bit, a spray cream, leave in conditioner, something like that works a bit better on the hair. The cause for this is that it adds more richness to the hair and helps you to kind of seal a bit more. It's a bit thicker, so you're able to instill more moisture into that hair. Now on even more deficient hair types, you'll find the standard creams like this one here end up working a bit better cuz you can see it's much thicker. So it's helping out not only with moisturizing but with sealing a bit more moisture in here and giving a bit of a thicker, richer moisture. Same thing for these here. And you'll notice all of these are pretty low because we use them all in our house at some point or another and we've got hair types that need all types of moisture here. So I want to make sure that we're kind of covering all of our bases there.

 Now you'll also find that as you move on down the hair typing scale from 1 to four, you also find more of a need for sealing that moisture in. The more curly your hair is, the more moisture-deficient it typically is because it does defy gravity. So a lot of times it's not enough just to have a moisturizer on there. You also typically have to seal it with silicon and oil, butter, or something like that on the hair, which honestly, butter is oil too.

 Now, there are things that you need to understand when you're looking at certain hair types. For instance, I have to naturally know that type 1 hair is not going to do finger coils. It's not possible for that. So that's where hair typing comes in. Well, whereas type 3 hair might be okay with locking, type 4 hair is excellent for locking.

 If you're trying to do two-strand twist out or up do's where you're using two-strand twist, things like that, usually types 4A and 4C are better for that. Whereas type 4B, because it doesn't have a curl pattern at all, is a little bit less likely to stay together in those twists. It does come unwound a lot easier. So you'll find if you have B hair, your hair benefits more from braided hairstyles than it does from anything else.

 I hope that you all enjoyed this sharing topic and found it helpful, and I'll share a new topic in my next one. Bye.