What is your taper?

[justme]

I've been discouraged at my thinning and thought I'd see exactly what my taper is by measuring at the main lengths along my hair. I don't know what it used to be, although I know my braid looked approximately twice as thick 4-5 years ago. My taper seems kind of extreme to me, so I thought I'd see what is 'normal' or average around here.

So what is your taper?

Here's mine, in inches:

3.25.....nape
1.75.....bra strap
1.38.....waist
1.00.....tailbone
0.50.....classic
0.25.....ends

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v201/justmelonghair/miscellaneous/justmytaper.jpg

[harley mama]

Check out this (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8353)thread.

[justme]

Check out this (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8353)thread.

I looked at that thread, but it doesn't tell where along the length the taper is. For example, do most people lose more thickness between waist and tailbone, or between brastrap and waist? Does that make sense?

[dancingmegs]

Nape: 4"
Bra strap: 3.5"
Waist: 2.5"
Tailbone: 2.25"
Classic: 2"

[Stagecoach]

Nape of Neck: 3.3/8"
Shoulders : 3.2/8"
BSL: 3"
Waist: 2.6/8"
Tailbone: 1.6/8"
Classic: 1.2/8"

From this you can see I get a lot of taper in my waist to tailbone section. But, my hair now just below waist is where I last ponytailed my hair. So the hair from my waist to ends was horribly abused by pony tail bands basicaly 24/7. I'm thinking that explaims at least some of my taper.

[vindo]

Oh I measure that every Quarter year..its usually 20% thickness left for me but I will remeasure, convert it to inches and then post here :)

[sapphire-o]

I think I'll win the "taper contest" with the steepest line graph. :)

Nape: 3.5"
BSL: 1.9"
Waist: 1"
TBL: infinitely tiny

I have been having massive shedding (3x the normal amount) for several months. The numbers reflect that. :(

[socks]

Nape: 4"
Shoulders: 3 1/3"
BSL: 3"
Waist: 2 1/2"
Tailbone: 2"
Thigh: 1"
Knee: 1/4"

At the tips, which reach to a bit past 1/3 down my calves, it thins out to about 30 or 40 hairs.

[akka naeda]

Nape - 4.25"
BSL - 3.5
Hip -3"
Thigh - 2"
Approx knee/thinnest ends - 1"

The drop between nape and BSL is partly accounted for by the fact I have a peculiar short section of hair behind my right ear which is presently about APL. It's gradually getting longer, but it seems I must have lost a whole chunk of hair all at once without knowing it!

ETA Another excuse for taper.... the drop betwen thigh and knee is because most of the time I have my hair in a plait and it becomes very obvious when I get round to trimming that the elastic, even though it's a metal free scruchie type thing is damaging the hair

[EvaSimone]

nape: 3.5"
BSL: 2.5"
waist: 1.25"

From BSL to waist is the hair that I abused the most so it makes sense that it has a pretty decent taper.

[harley mama]

I looked at that thread, but it doesn't tell where along the length the taper is. For example, do most people lose more thickness between waist and tailbone, or between brastrap and waist? Does that make sense?

Yes, it does. Actually, it makes a lot of sense! :D

[Eden Iris]

Oh man, this is going to be depressing.

Here goes:

4.125.....nape
2.0.....bra strap
1.0.....ends midway between BSL and waist

It's been almost a year since my last cut, and I'm still growing out one slightly shorter layer that is now just below BSL.

Based on this exercise, my hair thickness reduces by one-half at every measurement. So if I stop measuring it, it will never thin! Right? (Quantum physics for the deluded.)

[spidermom]

I don't have anyone around to help with the measuring, but I notice that my braid has a gradual taper from nape to ends, with the most taper occurring in the final inch. It falls off so sharply at that point that I think the majority of my hairs might have a terminal length of right about top-hip.

[Finoriel]

Finally I got around to measure, there were going on some major braided-bun waves so I had to wait for washing day and wet hair to get halfwayexact measurements.
I took the measurements in centimeters and converted them later, that´s why they are somehow über-exact (x = length / y = circumference).

nape (12,2/2,99)
shoulders (15,75/2,6)
bsl (21,65/2,17)
waist (27,95/1,77)
tailbone (34,45/1,01)
classic (39,76/0,59)
thigh (44,09/0,2)
fingertip (46,06/0)

I haven't found out how to convert the diagram into a jpg and get it online :o so the coordinates and a description is all I can give you for now. But it´s tapering in a shallow curve from nape to waist. Then it suddenly becomes steeper and +/- a straight line down to nothing at fingertip.
I guess waist is about the length when I gave up rough wet brushing with a ball tipped brush and started to care about so profane things like my hair :p back then in spring ´06. So it´s probably a combination of old damage from overstretched hairs, excessive motorbiking and sailing with loose hair, ponytails and loose hair as only known hairstyles :pumpkin: and a poor student´s diet making those parts more prone to breakage. I´m sure the thinning out is more breakage than real hair loss for me, most hairs I loose are either my longest > oldest ones or those fine hairs from the hairline which never get longer than about 10-20cm.
I will definitely save this diagram and compare it with the one next year. It will be interesting to see if the curve-part reaches down more and if the straight line get´s steeper or stays the same.

[spidermom]

Measured around a loose-ish braid by myself, in inches:
Nape: 3.5
Shoulder: 3
Armpit: 2.5
Waist: 2
Ends: 1

I realized why the bottom inch falls off so drastically. Duh! It's because the sides end up shorter when I pull them to mid-back.

[Finoriel]

*squint* loose braid?
Maybe the ends are thinner, because they are not braided? :wink:
I´m pretty sure that it´s not really effective to measure the thickness and taper with a braid. Braid bumps, tassel and all the rest... :flower:

[spidermom]

no tassel; I braid all the way to the end. I figure it's a pretty fair representation of my taper even if not measured as others might prefer.

[Elainehali]

4.11 nape
3.25 shoulder
2.75 bsl
1.75 waist

and my chart cause I'm a nerd like that =D
http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d112/elainehali/taperaug30.jpg

[Finoriel]

Sorry Spidermom for apparently offending you. It wasn't my intend to make you post a gnarly reply. It´s really not about my or your preference. Your hair > your preferences, are the only ones which count :) Measure as it pleases you, it really wasn't my intent in commenting on that. But because you decided to post your data in this thread, I figured you´re interested in comparing and helping the OP, wondering about the odd numbers by yourself and maybe did not think about the problems with your experimental set-up. So I was just mentioning them. It was solely about the occurring measurement error and therewith comparability of your data. When it´s measured in a completely other way, it´s impossible to compare your taper to the one of the OP or to anyone else. And that´s what the OP asked for: to compare tapers to see in which areas it is likely and normal to become more. Sure, measuring more or less compressed ponytails with a not calibrated tape in inch on the back side of your body, etc. etc. is far away from being exact :wink: I´m well aware of that. But measuring on a braid bump and on a braid dent can make a difference of roughly 0,5 inch at the thicker parts of a braid. Even two measurements of you own braid would not reproduce the same taper. A tassel was another logical point, couldn't know that your braid has none. As an avoidable failure in the measureing process I was just mentioning this. You see? That´s all I was trying to say. :flower::shrug:

[vindo]

Taper from hell here! :rolleyes:

Top : 11cm / 4.3"
Ponytail: 10.5 cm / 4.1"
Nape: 10 cm / 3.9"
Shoulder: 7cm / 2.8" (arrgh, biggest gap! :()
BSL: 6cm / 2.4 "
Midback: 5cm / 2"
Waist: 4cm / 1.6"
Hip: 2.5cm / 1"
TB: 1.5 cm / 0.6"
Ends: 0.7 cm / 0.3"

[spidermom]

Finoriel, I wasn't offended. I can see that my reply sounded a bit snarky now that I look at it in retrospect, though. I don't think that other people can see that I have a taper unless my hair is braided, which is why I thought to braid it. First I looked at it to see that it tapers gradually and evenly from nape to ends, there's no sharp drop-off anywhere except in the last inch, and I already figured out why that happens.

[julya]

I measured my taper a couple of months ago, measuring the circumference every 10 cm. I have a pretty gradual taper the whole way down.
Nape 8.9 cm
skipped the 10 cm circumference
at 20 cm from nape 7.9 cm circumference
at 30 cm from nape 7.8 cm
at 40 cm from nape 7.6 cm
at 50 cm from nape 6.9 cm
at 60 cm from nape 6.3 cm
at 70 cm from nape 5.5 cm
at 80 cm from nape 3.4 cm

[dor3girl]

Will have to do a measuring (I have been meaning to, anyhow)--my ends seem very wimpy when wet--so the taper is pretty good.

[dor3girl]

Mine might seem confusing, cause I mixed inches with cm.

Currently my taper looks like this:

at 13" my taper is 6.5 cm
at 17" my taper is 5.8 cm
at 21" my taper is 5 cm
at 25" my taper is 4.4 cm
at 29" my taper is 3 cm
near ends my taper is 2 cm

[Unnamed]

I always thought this was interesting (and I've checked this every three months or so).

Quick warning, it's not pretty: It tapers to nothing, and I don't really start with much! My hair is an i with a low ii pony.

(1) Nape: 2.375"
(2) 4" 1.875"
(3) 8" 1.625"
(4) 12" 1.375"
~12" bsl
~16" taper from loosing about half of my hair in early 2005
(5) 16" 1"
~16" waist
~20ish dye line
(6) 20" .875"
~22-23? brush damage taper
(7) 24" .625"
~26-28" classic
(8 ) 28" .5"
(9) 32" .25"
~33-34" mid-thigh
(10) 36" .1" (practically nil--can't actually measure it)
Longest hair at ~38"/lower thigh.

Graph of circumference (in inches):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/UnnamedGryffon/OddsNEnds/HairGraph_Circ_Sept08.gif

Graph of thickness (area), ouch (in square inches):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v514/UnnamedGryffon/OddsNEnds/HairGraph_Thick_Sept08.gif

ETA: I've always had a steep taper around shoulder blades to waist or so, but I don't know if that's natural or from shedding a lot often (untreated hypothyroidism). Also a steep taper right off, because I have a lot of short hairs around my hairline that just don't grow much longer than that. :lol:

I do still have old measures, too, from both pre and post shed, although I didn't take 'em for over a year because the numbers were that bad so don't know how low any but the nape got.

[Katze]

I might win...

crown 3 inches (all my hair gathered in!)
nape 2.75 inches
shoulder 1.5
APL .75
BSL too thin to measure.

I was looking at my braids last time I had them and wondering what it is that makes my hair so thin. Yes, it is layered, accounting for the shoulder-to-BSL taper. But I keep trimming (which is why my hair has hardly grown) to even it up and still have THE most severe taper of anyone I know.

Could it be that my hair just terminates at BSL?!?

Also, I am waiting for the fabled pregnancy growth and am not getting it, and am shedding as much as I was before...sometimes I think I am just doomed to have thin hair.

[UP Lisa]

Mine is about 2.75 at the nape to about 1 at hip.

I also have hair on the sides and front (my former bangs) that don't grow much past chin length.

[Euphony]

HA! I finally found my tape measure and have been meaning to do this out of my own curiosity.

Nape=4.25"
BSL=3.5"
Waist=2.5"

I'm very curious to see what this will be once I don't have layers anymore. BTW longest layer is BSL.

[Euphony]

Oh ummm now I have a question. I'm wondering if I'm measuring my thickness of iii incorrectly. I always measure that at my nape, am I supposed to measure it somewhere else? I see some answers here like Emi's showing measurements before nape. And I see others here that have their thickness in their profile as iii but their nape is below 4".

Help...

:flowers:

[Finoriel]

In the text about the hairtyping system (http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8954) it is stated in the third classifier article, that the maximum thickness should be measured where your ponytail is thickest. Which is usually not at the nape when making a low ponytail. For most people that point is around the crown area / top of head, just because you can gather more baby hairs, shorter hair from the hairline or longer fringes there. So making a ponytail at the point where the most hair fits into it makes sense for measuring :wink: even if it may look slightly ridiculous and you would not wear that normally.
According to the hair typing system my thickness is iii even if that thickness already has tapered at the nape where a low ponytail sat, when making the taper measurements for comparison purposes with other nape ponytail measurements.
Clear as mud huh? Hope that helps and does not add to the confusion :Wink: but that´s the best way I can explain it.

[Euphony]

In the text about the hairtyping system (http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8954) it is stated in the third classifier article, that the maximum thickness should be measured where your ponytail is thickest. Which is usually not at the nape when making a low ponytail. For most people that point is around the crown area / top of head, just because you can gather more baby hairs, shorter hair from the hairline or longer fringes there. So making a ponytail at the point where the most hair fits into it makes sense for measuring :wink: even if it may look slightly ridiculous and you would not wear that normally.
According to the hair typing system my thickness is iii even if that thickness already has tapered at the nape where a low ponytail sat, when making the taper measurements for comparison purposes with other nape ponytail measurements.
Clear as mud huh? Hope that helps and does not add to the confusion :Wink: but that´s the best way I can explain it.
Yours is one of the ones I noticed that confused me. So I probably have thicker hair than I though - dandy :rolleyes: But then again I guess it's not an issue since I've always had to deal with this much hair, I guess now I'll just be more aware of how thick. Which will actually be nice since I've gotten a bit confused on why some members with a 4.25" or so thickness can do things with their hair at my length that I still can't.

Hmmmm off to measure for thickness.

Thanks so much for your explanation Finoriel, it is actually quite clear. For some reason I figured with not having bangs my nape would be the thickest since in essence I can put all my hair in there...but actually I guess that is incorrect.

[freznow]

Nape is what I use, but it seems to be again about preference. If someone wants to use their thicker measurement of higher up (if it is so) or to count 3.9" as iii, I have no problem with any of that. I just do what's easiest for me.

Back to the original post. I posted a similar thread... what seems like ages ago! It was probably a year or so ago. From the small sample that posted, it seemed that a drop between shoulder and BSL was 'normal'. I'm not sure what the reason for that was. I still have that drop. Still not sure if it's from damage or just natural or what. If I get a chance I'll do some more measuring, though.

[Euphony]

OOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhhhhh it does make a difference - and quite the fashion statement :D

Okay here's mine again then
Crown=4.6" (that's frightening then, I wonder what it was before my huge summer shed)
Nape=4.25"
BSL=3.5"
Waist=2.5"

[Euphony]

Nape is what I use, but it seems to be again about preference. If someone wants to use their thicker measurement of higher up (if it is so) or to count 3.9" as iii, I have no problem with any of that. I just do what's easiest for me.

hahaha it actually drives me batty when members use 3.9" as iii, but iii is so broad as it is compared to the other measurements. I see an updo that someone with 35" or so inches of iii hair and I'm all excited until I try it and can't shove all my hair into it. But of course iii is 4.0" and above, not almost 4.0".

Thinking about it now I should've been using a higher pony to measure my thickness as I had a slight scissory accident about a year and a half ago, and I have a horrific amount of baby hairs on top of my head.

[HairColoredHair]

Nape: 4"
BSL: 2.75"
Waist: 2.25"
Tailbone: 1.75"
Classic: 1.5"

Not as bad as I thought, excepting the intial drop after nape (part of which are my bangs which are barely to BSL, so may not have counted.

[zift]

I found my old measurements before I shave my nape and had the cut and thought they would be useful in this thread:)
crown:4.7"
nape:4.25"
shoulder:3,5"
BSL:3"
mid-back:2,5"
waist:2.25"
hip:1,8"
tailbone:1.7"
classic:1,5"
mid-thigh:0.75"
It might not be obvious in numbers but my hair tapers more around waist/hip level.:)

[AprilElf]

Here's my best attempt at measuring the circumference of my hair at lengths I've never measured before! That is, I've never measured where BSL or hip is on me. :o
So the results are probably not as exact as they could be, but give a good idea of my taper anyway.

Nape: 4⅛" (4.125")
BSL: 2¾" (2.75")
Waist: 1¾" (1.75")
Hip: 1¼" (1.25")
Tailbone: 1"

Interesting to see that from BSL downwards, there's a pattern to the difference between measurements. They halve each time, so subseuqent measurements are -1", -0.5", -0.25". ;)

[justme]

In the text about the hairtyping system (http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8954) it is stated in the third classifier article, that the maximum thickness should be measured where your ponytail is thickest. Which is usually not at the nape when making a low ponytail. For most people that point is around the crown area / top of head, just because you can gather more baby hairs, shorter hair from the hairline or longer fringes there. So making a ponytail at the point where the most hair fits into it makes sense for measuring :wink: even if it may look slightly ridiculous and you would not wear that normally.

I didn't know that! I've always measured thickness at nape or barely above it. Hmmm...I'll have to measure again sometime soon!

[Katze]

Crown 3 "
Nape 3 " (yay!)
Shoulder 1.5 "
BSL .75 "
ends .1 "

[shikara]

I find this thread very interesting! Will have to measure mine a little later. How about yours?

http://i1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb328/lmarie29/th_a5642814.jpg (http://s1200.photobucket.com/albums/bb328/lmarie29/?action=view&current=a5642814.jpg)

[MissManda]

Crown: 4.5"
Nape: 4.25"
Shoulder: 4"
APL: 3.75"
MBL ~2" from Ends: 3.25"

[Seeshami]

Nape- 4 inches
Shoulder- 4
Bsl- 3.60
Waist-2

I have layers though, in the last few inches so I would probably be uniform or very close to if I had a blunt hem line. And in all fairness the naughty mess is freakish and does as it pleases, my discomfort being top priority. I am going to try and grow to classic but I might not be able to tolerate the weight of it in a bun. Any one want some naughty mess thickness? I will happily trade for waves.

[luxepiggy]

Nape....... 3.0"
Bra-strap. 2.0"
Waist...... 1.5"
Hip......... 1.25"
Tailbone.. 1.0"

[Guenever]

Doing this on my own, I don't know the exact measurements at BSL and MBL, but the numbers give a clear indication of taper from h*ll :rolleyes:

High Pony: 3,5"
Nape: 3,0"

Down the length:
2,9"
1,96"
1,18"
0,98"

And finally:
~0,59" at the ends (about 30")

Sigh, how I wish I could skip some of this natural taper -_-

[Kelikea]

My hair is in a braid, but I will measure at every 3 in increment. My pony is at ear level.
Ponytail: 4 1/8 in
3 in down: 4
6 in down: 4
9 in down: 3.5
12 in down: 3.5
15 in down: 2.5
18 in down: 2 in circumference, and then there is only 3 in left of tapered tassle too difficult to measure. My braid is about 21 inches long.

[MsBubbles]

Crown: 3"

Nape: 3"

APL: 1.5"

BSL: 1.5"

Waist: 1"

Very ends at 34": 1"

I don't have much faith in my measuring skills from APL down, though.

[woolyleprechaun]

Crown 4"
Nape 3.5"
APL 3"
BSL/ends 1"