Hey guys, so if you follow me on Instagram (Which you should btw- @sarahfynn), you would see a post I posted about 4 weeks ago regarding a topic I was researching for my blog. The question was:
Is hair typing absolutely necessary, or are we placing too much importance on it? Do you also know your hair type and how much has that as affected your choice in products or routines?
Firstly, I want to thank all those who responded. J Greatly appreciated. Secondly, sorry it took a while to actually finalise this post lol. I originally wanted to write this 3 days later but then more people started commenting, I travelled to Germany and the rest is history lool.
Anyway first let’s talk about hair typing, what exactly is it?
In its simplest definition, it is a system created to help determine the various textures (Type 3, 4 etc) of hair among women with curly or wavy hair. So to type your hair, (there is a picture chart below and above) you would use it to compare your hair in its natural state with and pick the one that matches closely with it. The different variations e.g. type 4a, 3c etc depend on how closely your curl match the ones in the curl group e.g. type 4, type 3.
From my Instagram response and also other women I have spoken to, it seems most of the ones that know their hair type are the ones on the natural game. As in they have a lot of knowledge about their hair and how it behaves and also how to manage it. These were the women who have been natural for a while now. On the other hand, newly naturals also knew their hair type for obvious reasons that they were transitioning and also every video/post you see talks about how their hair is type 3 or 4 so that may then have driven them to find their own (I could be wrong).
But does this information really matter?
Some people said knowing their hair texture allowed them to find products that better worked for their hair or were geared towards them. Others felt it helped them choose what videos to watch on YouTube and what hair styles their texture could produce.
What I also found though was discrimination where some types of hair were seen as good hair and better than others. Type 3 regardless of variation were mostly seen as good, nicer, beautiful and easier to manage whilst type 4 was dry, brittle and difficult to manage and ‘nappy’.
My thoughts
First I didn’t really type my hair (Type 4c and actually I didn’t know my exact variation until this year at natural hair week 2015, yh that real) until a year ago I think and I have been natural for 5 years! Then I found that I was really frustrated with my hair not been as perfectly defined as I would see other girls (mostly with type 3) with (I didn’t know of hair typing at this point. I thought all naturals were supposed to have perfectly defined curly hair). My twists outs and whatever outs were not defined as well. My hair as with other girls with this hair type can testify to shrinkage, it’s no joke! I was left wanting my ‘curls’ to be defined as type 3 and if they didn’t turn out like that I thought either the product was defective or my technique was wrong. Obviously, as I have grown in my journey I realised I have no ‘curls’ and my hair will never look like that and that IS FINE!
What I DON’T AGREE with is the discrimination? Wasn’t the whole point of been natural to have healthy hair? And isn’t healthy hair ultimately good hair? Be it type 3 or 4 or 4f. Another thing I don’t understand are these variations? Every year I swear a new letter is added lol, sometime ago I heard about type 4f? Really 4f? What I also don’t understand is no head of hair is exactly one type of texture so what happens then?
Anyway, to me hair typing is not absolutely necessary. You can survive without knowing your hair type. After all, before it was created I am pretty sure naturals were doing fine. I also believe too much importance is been placed on the exact variations and obviously companies are banking on this. (I am happy though that I haven’t seen (so far) any products that transform one hair type to another with promises of ‘better manageability e.g. from type 4 to type 3 or 2 BUT if you have PLEASE let me know) knowing my texture has had some impact in my routine in that I know my hair is mostly coily not curly, what hairstyles I can do and to some degree the products I use too.
So I want to leave this post open ended. Do you this it’s important? Has it had an impact in your hair journey? Please let me know your thoughts!
The pictures below are some of the responses I got from Instagram, feel free to added you 2 cents J
Until next time
Love
Sarah
Responses
sarah fynn 
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