Hey my beautiful people its Nay again, I trust that all reading this are abundantly well and living their ultimate best life. Today I wanted to touch on hair types and aspects of deciding what products are good for you.
History –
It is said that Andre Walker (Oprah Winfrey’s hairstylist) created the “Andre Walker Hair Typing System” in the 1990s. He originally created it to market his line of hair care products but as we can see it has since been widely adopted as a hair type classification system.
I’m sure we’ve all seen a video or picture on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, Pintrest etc. That’s about finding your true hair type or the best products for your hair type.
This is a simple chart of the curl patterns that any given person can have on their head. Some people even have the luxury of having more than one but I’m pretty sure that everyone with more than 1 is not exactly flattered. I say this because from my salon experience I’ve seen many clients of my employees and mine saying that they struggle to have a good twist out or wash’n’go because a product that works well for their 4a hair doesn’t curl up their 4c parts. As a result multiple products have to be used on different parts of their hair.
Now this can make it extra difficult for anyone trying to find the right product because you’ll be doing it for multiple hair types. BUT knowing your hair type is only a quarter of the story.
Another factor we all need to consider is your hair porosity. Your hair porosity is essentially about your hairs ability to absorb and retain moisture. You can test your level of porosity by simply running your finger across a strand of hair, low porosity hair will feel smooth, whereas high porosity hair will be more rough and bumpy because the cuticles are open. Low porosity hair mans that your hair strands have a tightly bound cuticle layer that tends to lay flat and repel water, so you may be wetting your hair down for a while and it just seems to be falling off your hair, like oil with water. If your hair is high porosity on the other hand then your hair absorbs and can retain more moisture and water quicker. So now do you see why having 3c or 4a hair really doesn’t matter as much as social media has made it matter? You need to consider what products to use based on what’s good for low/medium/high porosity hair. Oh but the work doesn’t stop there, we have another aspect to think about that also contributes to what products will work best for your hair.
This next aspect is called hair density. Hair density is a huge factor because it can rally change the way you style/wash/treat your hair. To put it simply, hair density is the number of individual stands per square inch on your scalp. Did you know that the average person has approximately 2,200 stands per square inch on their head (that’s quite a few if you ask me)? The average person also sheds approximately 50 – 100 hair strands a day. Now don’t mistake this for hair thickness, no no no. Hair thickness comes down to how thick each individual strand of hair is. You can test this by getting one strand of hair and comparing it to a typical piece of polyester thread, split it in half because one strand of hair won’t be that thick. For the naturals, you’re going to want to get a strand of hair from the front, middle and back of your head because our hair tends to be different thicknesses throughout our head. If your hair strand is the same thickness as the tread then your hair is thick, if your hair strand seems to be about half the size then you have average hair thickness, any less than the half then you have quite fine hair.
Hair thickness and density helps determine how much product you want to be putting on your head at any one time and also you’ll have to be careful with what kinds of products you put on your hair. For example if you have really fine, putting heavy creams and oils every day or every other day can just weigh your hair down and sometimes make your natural curls looser if you do this over a extended amount of time. Also the amount you put in depends on your hair. So you can put creams and oils in your hair but in moderation because you will be drowning your hair. Treat you hair like you would your favourite plant water it depending on how much it needs but don’t over water it or it will die. If you have low porosity hair then you may have to use more product than others and you will have to really massage and work that product in so it gets into your cuticles.
Remember not to blame or get mad at your hair, your hair is beautiful and is different on every head. If you didn’t have your hair then you wouldn’t be you. Take time to get to know your hair and what works for you and it. Patience is a virtue.
My beautiful kings and queens that’s all I have for you on this episode of Hair Love I hope you learned something because I know I did. Don’t forget to go check out my hair page on Instagram @hairbynay20, follow, like, comment and share your support and love really helps.
Until my return, hold your hair up high it shines and tells a story x
Love and Peace
Nay xx
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