How to Identify Your Hair Type
When it comes to healthy, beautiful hair, the most common mistake most people make is using the wrong products for their hair type. That’s because most of us were never taught how to properly identify our hair’s unique needs.
At Croissance, we’re all about helping you love and care for your natural hair and that starts with understanding it. Here’s your complete guide to figuring out your curl pattern, porosity, and density and why they matter more than you might think.
Curl Pattern: Understanding Your Texture
Your curl pattern describes the shape your hair strands form naturally, when they are dry and free of any products. According to the Andre Walker Hair Typing System, your hair is typically categorized using the Type 1–4 system:
• Type 1: Straight – No curl or wave.
• Type 2: Wavy (2A–2C) – Light bends or beachy waves.
• Type 3: Curly (3A–3C) – Defined S-shaped curls.
• Type 4: Coily/Kinky (4A–4C) – Tight curls or zig-zag patterns, very delicate.
The subcategories (A to C) indicate how loose or tight the curls are. For example, 3A curls are big and loopy, while 4C coils are very tight with little definition.
Why does this matter?
Your curl pattern impacts how much moisture your hair retains, how it tangles, and how it reacts to styling.
For example, persons with Type 1 hair often times struggle with their hair being overly greasy, it may lack volume or they have difficulty getting their hair to maintain certain styles. On the other end of the spectrum, persons with Type 4 hair may experience their hair drying out quickly, a lot of tangling and easy breakage.
Porosity: How Your Hair Handles Moisture
Porosity is your hair’s ability to absorb and retain moisture. Knowing what porosity level your hair is at will go a long way in helping you take care of your hair and create an effective hair care routine. There are three types:
Low Porosity – This is where the cuticle layer is tightly packed, making it difficult for moisture to get into the hair strand, so water and products just sit on top.
- Signs: Hair takes forever to dry and products tend to build up quickly.
- Care tip: Use lightweight, water-based products and warm water to help open the cuticle.
Medium (Normal) Porosity – The cuticle opens and closes normally, allowing sufficient moisture to be absorbed and retained.
- Signs: Hair stays moisturized, holds styles well.
- Care tip: You have a lot of flexibility with your hair. No need to do anything drastic so you can stick to a balanced moisture routine.
High Porosity – The cuticle is raised or damaged (often time from heat or coloring. Sometimes however, it can just be genetics).
- Signs: Hair absorbs water quickly but dries out fast and is prone to frizz.
- Care tip: Seal moisture in the hair by coating the strands with oils (e.g castor or olive oil) and avoid chemical or harsh heat treatments.
How can you test your hair porosity?
There are highly accurate and professional methods that can test your hair porosity, but for most of us, some simple (and free) at home test can give us a pretty good idea of our hair porosity. One of these methods is called the ‘Wet Test’.
To get accurate results using the Wet Test, you need to make sure that your hair is washed clean, is dry and doesn’t have any products, oils or butters in it. These can create a barrier that will prevent water from being absorbed and will prevent accurate results.
The next step is simply to get into your shower and wet a section of your hair for about 2 minutes.
Low Porosity
If your hair takes a long time to get wet and appears to repel water (like dasheen leaf), then you likely have low porosity hair.
High Porosity
If your hair becomes wet almost instantly and get heavy and weighed down quickly because of the water, its likely that you have high porosity hair.
Medium/Normal Porosity
With medium or normal porosity hair, the water will likely rest on the hair strand for a little while before being absorbed into the hair. It doesn’t get soaked and heavy very quickly either.
One key takeaway though, is that it is entirely possible for a person to have more that one level of porosity in their hair. For example, a section of hair may have been damaged by bleaching, leaving the cuticles raised and as a result, that portion of hair will have a higher porosity than the rest of the hair.
Density: How Much Hair You Actually Have
Hair density refers to how closely your hair strands are packed together on your scalp. It is not the thickness of each strand. How can you know your hair’s density? Very easily. Just get a mirror and look at your hair under natural light and check the following:
Low Density
If you can easily see your scalp without parting your hair much, then your hair density is low.
• Care Tip: Go for light, non-greasy products that won’t weigh your hair down.
Medium Density
With medium density hair, your scalp is visible only when your hair is parted.
• Care Tip: Most products will work well in this type of hair and styling is usually easy.
High Density
High density hair has lots of strands per square inch, and the scalp is hard to see.
• Care Tip: Use thicker creams and butters to help manage volume and reduce frizz.
Why Does All Of This Matter?
At the end of the day, your hair is uniquely yours and understanding it is the first step in being able to manage and grow it. Start by identifying your hair type, porosity and density and this will allow you to choose products that work best for you, understand why your hair behaves the way it does, avoid dryness, breakage and overall frustration and you can create a routine that you can actually stick to.
If you need help figuring it out, feel free to send us a DM on Instagram @croissance.tt, WhatsApp (1-868-389-9482) or email us at [email protected] and we’ll be more than happy to help!