The Good the Bad and the Ugly of Hair Typing

whew! I'm glad I've finally finished writing up on hair typing systems. I was beginning to feel like I was back in School researching and doing write-ups. I only gave you three hair typing systems, and though there are many more out there I feel that those three are the ones you probably need to know. They are the most commonly used ones and the ones you'll see every where.Hair typing is as controversial topic as any in the hair community and frankly its usefulness has been debated over and over again across natural hair sites and forums everywhere. Here are the pros and cons of hair typing I picked up from Mane Man


Pros

• Hair typing systems can give the otherwise uneducated consumer a wealth of information VERY quickly.  For instance, I never thought about my hair “type”  before reading these charts. I thought all hair was basically the same, but after doing the research, I had a basic understanding of what products my hair needed to flourish, and how to best accomplish certain looks.

•  Hair typing systems can help you not only understand what your hair type may be but it also gives you an opportunity to look into other types and compare your mane.  This may help bring more clarity to your own understanding of the material and where to begin in your journey.

• Some systems include a more holistic view of hair, which can help you understand how your texture, density and porosity affect how you use products to get your desired result.

Cons

• Unfortunately, the systems generally focus mostly on understanding your curl pattern and not focusing on other arguably more important issues such as porosity.

•  In my personal experience, this breadth of information can also be confusing without further guidance. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at hair typing charts in an attempt to better understand my hair and walked away from the computer baffled.  I've since discovered that I may have multiple hair types…go figure.
  
  
• Typing has become a “raced” way of looking at hair. There are many who believe the misconception that white people have straight "good" hair and  Black people with white ancestry have better hair than those without. A good example of the raced view of hair is the Andre Walker controversy.