How do you know if you have fine hair?

[cmnt831]

I've been thinking about how I can obtain samples from my parents and sisters, as well. Dh and I will be having a birthday party very soon. I'm sure I could collect samples then....

Here are the results of Dh's hair samples. He only gave me 5 and they were terribly hard to see, but his hair is blond and light brown so that could be why. 54, 54, 56, 52, 54. I thought they would be way finer than that, since they look so compared to mine, but it may be the color is what's throwing me off.

I'm going to measure some more of mine when I get finished with house chores.

[Idun]

I will start by sneaking around my relatives houses and try to steal hair from brushes. It is kind of weird to ask for hairs, isn´t it?

I´ve been thinking, will it not be more difficult to measure the thickness of curly hair seeing as the shape of the strands are more flat?

[growingmyhair]

hmm, so now I think I have not F/M ii hair but F i (didn't realize the i thing was about ponytail circumference, I thought it's about the way one's hair looks like when it's dry - cause mine got LOTS of volume although it's quite thin)

[cmnt831]

I will start by sneaking around my relatives houses and try to steal hair from brushes. It is kind of weird to ask for hairs, isn´t it?

I´ve been thinking, will it not be more difficult to measure the thickness of curly hair seeing as the shape of the strands are more flat?

Uh, yeah, it's weird to ask, but luckily my family has come to expect strange questions from me by this point.

Dh and I both have curl to our hair, but it's really easy to pull it straight, so I don't think that counts. I don't know anyone with truly curly hair to test.

Oh, I've been meaning to ask, which order have you been measuring? 1, 2, or 3? I've been doing 1 and hadn't thought to try the others to compare.

ETA: I've just realized I've been reading my mm tape incorrectly!! I'm going to have to measure everything again. Oh, well, more fun for me, I guess.

[cmnt831]

hmm, so now I think I have not F/M ii hair but F i (didn't realize the i thing was about ponytail circumference, I thought it's about the way one's hair looks like when it's dry - cause mine got LOTS of volume although it's quite thin)

Mine does this, too. I thought I had really thick hair until I squished it down to measure the circumference. I think having waves, plus fine flyaway hair gives the illusion of more volume.

[Anje]

I may have to dig out the laser pointer and measure mine as part of my procrastination on the paper I'm writing. (I'm literarily constipated right now...) I suspect that henna has mine plumped into the F/M category -- mine's as fine as most hair I see, but it varies a lot more than some of the flaxen-haired baby-fine folks out there.

[cmnt831]

Yeah, now I'm confused. I was definitely measuring wrongly, but I'm still coming up with the same numbers? 56, 46, 54, 56 so far on brown and 65 on my white hair.

I also discovered that measuring order 1 and order 2 has a bit of a discrepancy in the thousandths place, which sometimes affects the hundredths place. I don't know if it's me, my light, my wall, the test itself, or what.

Am I just being nit-picky? Probably. I'll measure more later. Thank goodness this is just hair and not medicine....

[Idun]

I have been measuring order 1 because for some reason I can´t get a clear order 2 and I don´t get an order 3 at all! I forgot to ask about that! My laser pointer has wavelenght 650-660 nm. Or am I doing something wrong? I place the hair at 2,5 m from the wall.

[cmnt831]

I have been measuring order 1 because for some reason I can´t get a clear order 2 and I don´t get an order 3 at all! I forgot to ask about that! My laser pointer has wavelenght 650-660 nm. Or am I doing something wrong? I place the hair at 2,5 m from the wall.

That's what my wavelength seems to be, too. I'm at 2 M from the wall, so maybe that's why I get a marginally more clear order 2. Order 3 is pretty dim for me.

I started at 1 M yesterday, but then saw the instructions on the site called for 2 M or more. There was a small difference in measurements from the different distances.

Do you think this is an accurate test? Maybe I should just say I have hair-sized hair and leave it at that.

[Idun]

I think there is clearly room for error in this test, so you got to take the results as approximates. I especially find it hard to decide exactly where the order starts as the red beam tapers into nothing with some hairs. Also a millimeter seems to be too large a unit. And I imagine the way you have tightened the hair in front of the laser light might matter. It´s impossible to get exactly the same for each hair.

ETA: That´s why it´s a good idéa to measure many hairs...