Hair Types

 Is my hair normal, oily or dry?
What is normal? With the terms ‘normal’, ‘oily’ and ‘dry’ it is
impossible to describe our hair accurately. We challenge the prevailing standard of dry, normal and oily hair. Hair can be fine, straight, limp and ‘dry’,  or  coarse, curly, frizzy and ‘dry’, or ‘oily’ at the roots and ‘dry’ at the ends… and so on. Each of these hair types could also be coloured, bleached, ‘permed’, as well as short or long – all different but all ‘dry’. We should assess hair by its size and shape. That is whether the texture is fine, medium, coarse, or afro and whether its is straight, wavy, curly or frizzy. Then take into account what has been done to it, and use all of that information to choose a hair care routine suits the individual’s hair.

Hair Structure

*Be careful not to confuse lots of fine hair with medium or course textured hair. If the shaft of the individual hair feels thin and delicate and lacks body, even if there are many of them, then the correct category for your hair type is ‘Fine’.

Ethnic Hair Groups
There are three basic ethnic hair groups: Caucasian, Asian and Black-Afro/Caribbean. Hair types vary from completely straight to tight wiry curls, and from fine and flyaway to coarse and frizzy, giving widely differing behaviour patterns.

•Caucasian
•Oriental/Asian
•Black-Afro/Caribbean

Each have their own distinct characteristics. They look different, feel different and respond differently to product applications.

Caucasian
Caucasian hair varies hugely due to the mix in ancestry – often a wide combination of genetic influences. It is oval in cross section, tends to be fine to medium in diameter, and varies from straight to wavy – curly. It is also the only ethnic group with large variations in colour, from white blond to browns, reds and black. Amongst Caucasians, over 70% have fine textured hair. Generally blonds have the finest hair texture. Darker shades tend to be coarser, and redheads have the coarsest hair.
 

Black-Afro/Caribbean
Black-Afro/Caribbean hair has a flat cross section. Flat hair has a twisted hair shaft, and intermittent variations in diameter as the twisting occur, causing recurring weak points along each hair. Due to their curliness, the hairs wrap around each other, making black hair much more vulnerable, and difficult to groom and style. Black hair is not necessarily truly black, but rather a combination of black and red pigment giving rise to shades from almost true black through to dark brown and auburn (the latter in less than 10 per cent)

Asian
Asian hair is round in cross section, and therefore is usually straight or slightly wavy. It is black or dark brown, and has the thickest diameter and the greatest strength of the ethnic groups. Asian hair also has the capacity to grow to a greater length than other hair types. It is common to see Asian Oriental women with hair to the waist – which is uncommon amongst Caucasians

When people describe their hair as being ‘thin’ or ‘thick’, they are usually talking about the scalp coverage and volume their hair gives. This depends on the number of hair follicles, the thickness of each hair shaft and its configuration (straight or wavy). The average number of follicles is about 100,000 to 120,000. In general, blonds (because their hair is  often fine ) have the most, redheads the least (because their hair is often thicker).

People with thin hair have more hair on their head. Thick hair covers more area as a result there are fewer hairs on the head. Each hair has its own natural oil supply. Since there are more fine hairs, thin hair has more oil sources. Thick hair has less oil production and takes in more oil. These differences in hair diameter lead to different hair needs.
 
In general, the finer your hair, the more you actually have in numbers and higher the number of hair folicals, the higher oil production.

The shape, size, length and configuration of the hair, along with any processing that has been carried out on it, affects handling and grooming requirements. Those with fine limp hair spend a lifetime trying to make more of it while those with coarse fuzzy hair are always trying to control it – and make it ‘lie down’.