How to Identify Your Hair Type

Identifying your hair type is important for its care, maintenance, treatment and styling. Surprisingly, not many of us know the type of our own hair. This results in choosing the wrong kind of hair products, which are not meant for our hair type, and hence we do not get the desired results.

The first step to identify your hair is to identify your skin type. The scalp shows the same behaviour as of your skin. If you have dry, normal, oily, normal to dry or normal to oily skin, your scalp also follows the same pattern. Hair types are usually the same as skin types; but they are further classified as straight, wavy, curly, thick or thin.

Normal hair is shiny and a balanced secretion of oil from the glands is in the scalp. Dry hair is prone to damage and tend to break out because of insufficient oil secretions from the glands. This type of hair is coarse and rough and requires proper conditioning. Oily hair has highly active oil glands, which secrete a lot of oil. Oily hair is also shiny but it needs frequent washing; otherwise, the oil glands clog due to dirt and can even attract bacterial infections.

Human hair can be straight, wavy or curly. Variations occur in each type of hair type, and this is the reason why every human being has different hair from his fellow beings. To identify the hair type, one should wash the hair with normal shampoo and allow it to dry without using towel or hair dryer. Once your hair is dried completely, you are ready to identify your hair type.

Your hair is one or combination of the following patterns:
1. Flat and straight
2. Little body but no wave
3. Two or three waves but overall straight
4. Loose waves
5. Distinct waves
6. Slight curls
7. Lots of loose spiral curls
8. Bouncy curls
9. Tight curls
10. Tight S-shaped curls
11. Tight S-shaped curls falling in zigzag pattern.

Once you determine the type and extent of wave or curl in your locks, you can move on to the next step. Find out the thickness of a single strand of your coat and of you overall curl. For this, take a clean single strand of your coat and hold it in front of your eyes. If it is barely visible, or felt with your fingers, it is fine hair. Medium coat is visible and felt easily with your fingers but it is still soft like a cotton ball; coarse hair is thicker, definitely visible and feels slippery and wiry when held between fingers.

To identify the overall thickness of your coat, gather your hair in a pony tail and measure the circumference. Thin hair will measure less or equal to 2 inches; normal coat will be between 2-4 inches; and thick hair will be 4-4+inches.

Knowing the exact type of your hair can lead to healthy and beautiful hair with appropriate maintenance and care.


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