Hair Characteristics for Hair Care

EN (English)

Hair Characteristics and Types

1. Curl-pattern (1-straight , 2-wavy, 3-curly-coily, 4-kinky-coily) : How your hair looks like?

Important for hair manipulation (work in sections, detangling process, approriate tools) and products choice (based on ingredients and their importance or concentration in a given product).

2. Density (Low/Light/Sparse, medium, High/Heavy/Full) : How much hair do you have?

Tests:
1. Do you see your scalp without having to manipulate your hair?
2. Bun size (<2inches, 2-4 inches, >4inches) ?

Important for product texture choice. Accordingly, one can choose light (low density), thick (high density) or a mix of light and thick products.

3. Width (Thin/Fine/Small, medium, Thick/Large/Coarse) : How large is your hair strand?

Tests:
1. Take a hair strand an compare it to half of the width of a thread (<, =, >).
2. Take a hair strand and put it in front of a light. If you can't see the strand then your hair is fine, otherwise it is medium to thick/large.

Important for product texture choice. Accordingly, one can choose light (fine strand of hair), thick (thick strand of hair) or a mix of light and thick products.

4. Porosity (low, normal, high) : How you hair absorbs products?

Tests:
1. Put a clean and dry strand of hair on the top of a glass of water. After 15 minutes, if it sinks then your porosity is high, if it is in the middle of the glass then your porosity is normal, and if it is still on the top then you have low porosity.
2. When you wash your hair, if your hair dries very quickly, after less than 15 minutes, then you have high porosity.
3. Deep condition with a moisturizing deep conditioner without heat for 30 minutes. If your hair doesn't feel moisturize enough (soft, souple), then you have low porosity. Then, deep condition with heat (plastic cap, heat cap) for 30 minutes and see if you notice a difference. If not or little difference, increase the time (45 minutes, 1 hour or more if needed) and document the differences observed until you don't see no noticeable improvements.

Important on how to ladder various products by using for instance LO/LB methods or LCO/LOC methods (L-Liquid, C-Cream, O-Oil, B-Butter). LCO is recommended for low porosity whereas LOC is recommended for high porosity. Porosity is also important during the process of deep conditioning. Hence, low porosity should use some heat (plastic cap, heat cap) while deep conditioning.

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