HH Sustainable Hair: 2018

Intro

If you’re interested in figuring out the “optimal” hair care routine for your hair, you can use a hair typing system. It will give you pointers to what works for a lot of people with your hair type, but there’s no guarantee it will work for you since we’re all unique. You’ll just have to try! Hair typing is useful to pinpoint problem areas if you feel that your hair isn’t doing well but you’re not sure what to do about it.

I mainly use the FIA Hair typing system. It has three classifiers: curl pattern, hair strand thickness, and volume of hair. There’s also Andre Walker’s system, which is similar to FIA and from which FIA developed, and the LOIS system. I’m using the FIA system since I prefer its classifiers, and I’m also adding in a two more classifiers – porosity and elasticity – since these are also important!

Here’s a breakdown of all the steps to this FIA/HH system:

Intro

First classifier: Curl pattern

Second classifier: Hair strand thickness

Third classifier: Density

Fourth classifier: Porosity

Fifth classifier: Elasticity

Conclusion

First classifier: Curl pattern

Type 1: Straight hair

1 A: stick straight
1 B: straight with some “body” or a slight wave – it doesn’t look wavy but “voluminous”
1 C: straight with “body” and a few single S-waves

Type 2: Wavy hair

2 A: loose, stretched out S-waves

2 B: short, defined S-waves (looks like braid waves)
2 C: defined S-waves and a few singling spiral curls

Type 3: Curly hair

3 A: loose spiral curls

3 B: tighter ringlets
3 C: tight corkscrews

Type 4: Kinky hair

4 A: defined, tightly coiled S-curls
4 B: less defined, tightly coiled Z-curls

4 C: undefined (unless with products), tightly coiled Z-curls

For pictures of each curl pattern, see Lesson 8.5!

Second classifier: Hair strand thickness

F – Fine

Your hair has thin strands of hair that can’t (or almost can’t) be felt between your fingers, if you pick one strand and roll it between your index and thumb. If it can be felt, it has a super-thin silky feel. Many Scandinavians has this type of hair.

M – Medium

If you roll this strand of hair between your index and thumb, it can be felt well but it is soft and smooth. This type is common among Caucasians.

C - Coarse

When you pick up one of these hair strands between your thumb and index, it feels stiff and rough. This type is common among Asians and Native Americans.

Note

African hair typically varies a lot more in hair strand thickness than other ethnicities! You can also have coarse hair even if you are Scandinavian, or fine hair if you are Asian, and so on.

Third classifier: Density

Pull all of your hair into a ponytail, and measure the circumference. This can be a bit tricky. I’m not very good at it myself, and usually vary between 9 and 11 cm in circumference if I redo this test over and over. You can use a measure tape or a string, and then measure the string with a ruler.

This method is not ideal if you have short hair, a fringe, or a texture that doesn’t let you pull all hair into your ponytail. If you use this method, you may then have to “guesstimate” according to how much of your hair you couldn’t get into the ponytail. There are other methods out there, such as counting all the hairs in one square cm of your scalp – but this would take a ridiculous amount of time, in my opinion.

i : Thin hair is less than 5 cm (2 in)
ii : Medium hair is between 5-10 cm (2-4 in)
iii : Thick hair is more than 10 cm (4 in)

Fourth classifier: Porosity

Hair porosity refers to how well your hair can take in and retain moisture. This is related to how flat your cuticle lays. The cuticle is the outer layer of the hair, and looks sort of like fish scales. If the scales lay flat, you have low porosity, since moisture both has a difficult time getting in and a difficult time getting out. If your cuticle is uneven, the scales are open and moisture can both get in and leave easily. Porosity is mostly genetic. Curly types tend to be more porous due to the twists and turn in their hair that makes the scales open up more. But porosity can also come about due to different types of damage such as mechanical (brushing, etc.) or chemical (hair dyes, etc.).

To test your porosity you use “the float test”. Take a strand of hair and put it in a cup of water. Leave for 5 minutes or so. If your hair is still floating, you have low porosity, and if it has sunk, you have high porosity. If it is sort of in between, you may have medium porosity.

Another way of testing your porosity is picking up a hair strand between your fingers and running your fingers down the hair strand. If it feels smooth, it’s low porosity. If it’s “a bit” bumpy, it has medium porosity. And if it feels “really” bumpy, it’s high porosity. I don’t like this type of test because it can easily be confused for hair strand thickness (fine/medium/coarse), which is a different thing.

LP – Low porosity

Low porosity hair has scales that lay flat and overlap. It is usually resistant to penetration of moisture, hair products, and chemicals used in hair processing. Due to being resistant to penetration, low porosity hair can be quite dry simply because when it does dry out, humidity in the air can’t easily get into the hair.

Avoid: protein

Low porosity hair can have issues with products containing protein, since it has a tendency to build up on the hair. The hair will feel stiff and like straw, and starts to snap off easily. Protein is used to patch up damaged cuticles, so you don’t need it anyway!

For more information on protein, see the “Fifth classifier: Elasticity” further down!

Avoid: heavy moisturisers

Heavy moisturisers have a tendency to just sit on top of the hair for low porosity types, rather than absorb into the hair due to the tightly wound cuticle. If you use moderate heat when doing hair treatments with heavy products, the cuticle will open up somewhat and allow more of e.g. the deep conditioner or oil to penetrate into the hair.

Use: light moisturisers

What is considered a “light” moisturiser vs. a “heavy” one can be very individual, but moisturisers with a high spreadability – such as jojoba oil – is a good bet when you know that not a lot is going to absorb into the hair. Otherwise you risk getting greasy hair.

Use: humectants

Humectants can under some circumstances and for some hair types cause a lot of frizz, but low porosity types generally are more resistant to this problem. Humectants attract moisture to you hair and hold it there, which is good when moisture generally has a difficult time getting in in the first place. Aloe vera, glycerin, and honey are a few good humectants.

MP – Medium porosity

Medium porosity hair is often the most manageable moisture-wise. Moisture can both get in and out at a suitable level. It’s easily styled and processed, but if you have too much fun heat styling and processing it can become damaged and highly porous instead!

Use: some protein

Protein can benefit medium porosity hair, but…

Avoid: too much protein

Don’t use it too much, and you can get the same problems low porosity hair faces with protein – straw-like, stiff, and brittle hair.

For more information on protein, see the “Fifth classifier: Elasticity” further down!

Use: heavy moisturisers

Heavy moisturisers can definitely benefit medium porosity hair, but don’t expect them to be absorbed into the hair right away. You may have to wait a little bit or apply moderate heat.

Use/avoid: humectants

Since medium porosity hair typically absorbs and expels moisture at an appropriate level on its own, humectants are typically not important. Especially avoid in high humidity climates since it can draw in too much moisture and cause frizz. Also avoid humectants in too dry conditions, since instead of attracting moisture to your hair from the atmosphere, if there’s not enough moisture in the atmosphere, the humectants can start drawing moisture out of your hair instead. I would advise that you use humectants occasionally when your hair feels dry due to e.g. a drying treatment, excessive use of hairspray, etc.

HP – High porosity

High porosity hair can be a genetic thing, but it can also come about due to chemical processing or other damage done to the hair. Especially bleaching is a major cause of high porosity hair. Genetic high porosity is more common among curlier types than straighter types due to all the twists and turns in the hair strands, which make the scales of the cuticle raised. But, certainly not all curly hair is highly porous. In high porosity hair, too much moisture is able to both get in and get out of the hair. It will be prone to frizz. When the scales are raised hair strands tend to “catch” on each other’s scales, making tangling an issue.

Also hygral fatigue is an issue here. The hair strand “swells” as moisture goes in, and “shrinks” as moisture goes out. If it swells and shrinks too often, this “stretchy” property of hair gets worn out, and the hair gets brittle and may snap off. This can happen to any hair type that gets wet and dry too often, but it’s only really a big issue for high porosity hairs since they swell/shrink more than others, and more often. Other types may only swell/shrink in the shower, while high porosity hair will also do so in humid weather.

Use: protein

Highly porous hair can often benefit from a little protein every day. It temporarily “patches up” the cuticle making the hair feel smoother, and prevents moisture from leaving the hair.

For more information on protein, see the “Fifth classifier: Elasticity” further down!

Use: heavy moisturisers and sealers

To prevent highly porous hair from losing moisture, you can use heavy moisturisers and sealants to lock it in. Heavy moisturisers will penetrate into highly porous hair more easily than for other hair types, and will also “take up space” so that the humidity in the air isn’t absorb and lost to such a high extent. Sealers will sit on top of the hair strand, causing a film on top of the cuticle that will prevent moisture from escaping through the holes in the cuticle.

Use/Avoid: humectants

High porosity hair may very well benefit from humectants in “medium” climates, but in very dry and very humid conditions they can either draw moisture out of your hair, or draw too much moisture into your hair. In “medium” climates, however, humectants can help the moisture stay in the hair.

Use/Avoid: anti-humectants

Anti-humectants can repel moisture from your hair, and is useful in especially very humid climates. This will give your swell/shrink property of your hair a break (and less frizz!). In very dry climates, it’s better to rely on moisturisers and sealers, and possibly protein, to lock in the moisture.

Fifth classifier: Elasticity

Hair elasticity has to do with how elastic the hair is. If you pick a wet hair from your head and pull at either end it can do one of three things.

1. It stretches, and stretches, and stretches… and then snaps. Alternatively, it stretches, and when you let go, it doesn’t return to its original state. It stays stretched. It can also feel gummy. If this is the case, you have high elasticity.

2. It stretches, and when you stop pulling it returns to normal. You have normal elasticity.

3. It doesn’t stretch much at all before it snaps off. It will probably also feel a bit stiff. You have low elasticity.

HE – High elasticity

If you have determined that you have high elasticity, you’re probably overloaded on moisture. Adding protein to you hair will help fix this. Depending on your porosity you may want to use regular products with protein, such as shampoo and conditioner, or a less regular treatment every now and then, such a deep conditioner. High porosity hair does well with adding protein often, since it has many holes in the cuticle, while medium or low porosity hair should consider a protein treatment every now and then, but not too often. If you overdo it with the protein you can suddenly find that you have low elasticity instead!

NE – Normal elasticity

If you have normal elasticity, you should keep doing what you’re doing! No need to add moisturizing deep conditioners or protein treatments. Your hair may do well with products like that – or you may upset the balance and get high or low elasticity instead.

LE – Low elasticity

Low elasticity hair is also called “dry” hair, because – you guessed it – it needs moisture. You can get low elasticity for various reasons, such as a dry climate, too much protein in your hair care products, high porosity, etc. It’s all fixed with a moisturizing treatment.

Moisture-protein balance

As you probably can glean from the sections on elasticity, over-moisturised hair can be remedied with protein, and over-proteined hair can be remedied with moisture. This means that hair needs a moisture-protein balance. Hair with normal porosity typically has a natural balance between moisture and protein, but low and high porosity types can struggle. Low porosity types already have a lot of protein naturally in the cuticle (the hair, including the cuticle, is actually made out of protein!), so much that moisture can struggle to get in. High porosity hair, on the other hand, has gaps in the protein cuticle letting moisture in and out too quickly. As such it makes sense to ad loads of moisture to dry, low porosity hair, and both moisture and protein to dry high porosity hair, for example.

Conclusion

If you’ve stuck with me all the way to the end, you may be wondering what to do now. What I did, was after I’d researched all of this, I took out a pen and paper and noted down keywords for each type I had. Like so:

I’m 2 A, F, ii/iii, LP, NE

2 A – I’m wavy, so I can get poofy if I brush too vigorously

F – I’m fine haired, so I’ll be mindful it snaps more easily than thicker hair strands

ii/iii – I actually have a fair lot of hairs, which means losing a lot of hairs each day is normal

LP – getting moisturisers into my hair is difficult, I should try hot oil treatments, and use high spreadability sealants

NE – my elasticity is fine, so I should continue using moisturising conditioners and weekly deep treatments

I didn’t feel that I had any issues or had to change anything about my routine. But, as I said in the beginning, this tool is useful to pinpoint problem areas if you feel that your hair isn’t doing well but you’re not sure what to do about it.

Sources

The Wavy Hair Library

http://pedaheh.blogspot.se/2012/04/how-to-classify-your-hair-with-fia.html

Black Hair Spot

https://blackhairspot.com/blog/hair-talk/fia-hair-typing/

Naturally Curly

https://www.naturallycurly.com/texture-typing/hair-porosity

Popsugar

https://www.popsugar.com/beauty/How-Do-Elasticity-Test-2440922

Bustle

https://www.bustle.com/articles/124772-how-to-tell-if-your-hair-needs-protein-or-moisture-so-you-can-choose-the-right