What's Your Curl Type? (2025)

Like, for instance, really to brushwood them. My mother has consecutive hairsbreadth and didn't rather understand really to woody pinch my curls erstwhile I was a child, truthful she would woody pinch unruly hairsbreadth nan only measurement she knew how: by brushing it. As a result, I look for illustration a poodle successful astir each 1 of my simple schoolhouse photos. According to Syed, brushing and combing curly hairsbreadth is OK—but only erstwhile nan hairsbreadth is wet.

Unsurprisingly, pin-straight Type 1 hairsbreadth is nan easiest to comb aliases brush. However, Type 4 hairsbreadth is not 4 times harder to comb, arsenic 1 mightiness expect, but 23 times much difficult, according to Syed. And that's only erstwhile it's wet. When it's dry? “About 32 times much difficult to comb,” he says.

Curly hairsbreadth and combs not mixing is not caller accusation to curly-haired folks, but you mightiness not cognize why this is so. The shaft of a strand of consecutive hairsbreadth is uniformly tubular—“like a cylinder,” says Syed—which gives it a azygous building and a batch of strength. “Type 1 hairsbreadth is almost 2 times stronger than nan coily hair,” he says. The shaft of a strand of curly hair, however, is oval-shaped. The much oval-shaped nan shaft, successful fact, nan curlier nan hairsbreadth ends up being.

Part of this strength—or deficiency of, successful nan lawsuit of curls—comes from nan number of cuticle layers and wherever they’re distributed. “The consecutive hairsbreadth has astir six to 10 layers” throughout, Syed says, “whereas nan coily hair, wherever it is crimping, only has a mates of layers from nan wrong of nan crimp and past extracurricular six to 10. So it becomes very analyzable successful its beingness structure.”

Care and More

More vulnerable hairsbreadth intends it's much breakable. And breakage = frizz and flyaways.

“Type 3 curls (especially 3b and 3c) are highly delicate to power damage,” says Suzette Boozer, Dippity-Do curly hairsbreadth expert and personage hairstylist who has worked pinch everyone from Gwen Stefani to Janelle Monae. “It’s basal to debar difficult pressing and ever usage a value power protectant. Without this care, nan curls tin go limp, frizzy, aliases moreover suffer their shape permanently.”

This is 1 of nan reasons that using a power protectant successful your hairsbreadth attraction regular is truthful critical—it provides a obstruction betwixt nan instrumentality and nan hairsbreadth shaft to support it from weakening further aliases drying out. And speaking of drying out, if you person curly hair, you mightiness want to see trying a hydrating hairsbreadth mask aliases a instrumentality for illustration Pattern’s hairsbreadth steamer, which tin thief high-porosity hairsbreadth sorb humectants and different moisturizing ingredients much easily.

“Type 4 textures, peculiarly 4b and 4c hair, tin beryllium much difficult to activity pinch if nan hairsbreadth isn’t decently moisturized and detangled,” Boozer says. “This curl type is prone to dryness, breakage, and shrinkage, and without nan correct prep, nan hairsbreadth tin tangle aliases threat during styling. Moisture is key, on pinch gentle detangling methods and protective styling choices that sphere nan integrity of nan hair.”

Syed besides notes nan value of utilizing nan correct products—from leave-in conditioner and masks to mousse—for your type of hair. How good your hairsbreadth absorbs merchandise depends connected its type arsenic well. Type 1 has importantly little porosity than types of curly hair, but nan porosity increases pinch nan grade of curl, pinch Type 4 hairsbreadth being nan astir porous.

Hair porosity “has definite value erstwhile it comes to weather-related styling issues, and besides nan merchandise penetrations and really they make nan hairsbreadth behave successful styling,” says Syed. “Sometimes nan hairsbreadth tin go very unruly if nan hairsbreadth is very porous, because past it’s absorbing humidity.”