Thickness dysmorphia?

[Salmonberry]

I just wanted to share an observation I've had and find out if anyone else has ever felt this way after joining the site and beginning their hair journey.

My whole life, I've had hairdressers, friends, and acquaintances tell me how thick my hair is. I've gone through life accepting the fact that I have thick hair. I joined this site last summer and got really excited when I got to measure and type my hair. I did all of the measurements, typed my hair and measured ponytail thickness. You can probably imagine how dismayed I was when my thickness came out around 3 inches and wasn't considered thick by LHC standards. I shamefully selected ii from the drop-down menu and looked myself over in the mirror. Had I lost a lot of hair recently? No. My hair looked just as thick and nice as it always had.

I also see a lot of people here with ii thickness commenting on how thin their hair is. I can totally understand the desire to have thicker hair. I mean, in theory, the thicker it is, the longer it can get before the ends get super thin. But, ii thickness is not thin. In fact, many ii's have thicker than average hair, and I've seen them on this forum. Some i's don't even look thin. i's with fine hair appear to have plenty of hair, the hair is just finer so when it's smooshed into ponytail holder it takes up less space.

I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't want thicker hair, but the general concesus around here that anything below a 4" circumference is considered thin seems a bit off base. I want to make sure I'm not the only one who believes this.

I'm a ii, and I have thick hair, and I'm not afraid to admit it. :)

[neko_kawaii]

I've always considered my hair to be average. Turns out at 3 in, it is!

[meteor]

Good point! Thanks for the thread! I would add to the "thickness dysmorphia" that some LHC members may display also "length dysmorphia" and "condition dysmorphia".
I've seen so many threads where the person wants to cut it all off due to how "bad" their hair looks (and it usually doesn't), instead of just embracing what they've got and giving their hair more love and care. It will get better then.
I also think many people compare their hair either to some rare longhairs or to photoshopped pictures in the media.
We need realistic expectations to avoid unnecessary unhappiness and stress ... which can ironically lead to bad hair too! :cool:

[leslissocool]

My hair looked really thin for most of my life, by pictures you's think I was an i. Then I started to grow and eat healthy, and I'm a 4.5 (so between the ii and the iii).

As controversial as my POV is, I think ii is standard and I think many people actually have thick hair, but with all the abuse the industry supports, those ii people become an i (breakage, flat ironing, bleaching) and so the ii people's hair is seen as "thick".

This happened in my family, my hair is seen as extremely thick. It's not, I'm the only one who doesn't really bleach and flit irons. My sister's hair might be actually twice as thick as mine is if she were to grow it and care for it's health (and not change hair color every month).

I'm not trying to bring you down by any means but rather take in consideration possibilities rather than say there is some kind of hair dysmorphia. If anything, I think there is a lot more hair dysmorphia outside of the LHC : thin hair can't grow long, need to trim hair SUPER OFTEN and it it's not growing it's because you have bad genes, ect.


.

[goldloli]

If it helps, in real life I rarely see people with above ii thickness. Actually, most girls i'd say were i-ii range and I live in a very populated student area, so it's not a small sample size. Due to this i'd probably consider the higher end of ii to look thick by comparison. Then there are fine haired people with low measurement such as waitingsolong, that i consider to have very thick looking hair despite what the tape measure says.

I have quite thick hair, it should be a iii but due to taper from a few things, i had to mark ii/iii... which i was a lil ashamed of like you were, even though that's still totally thick!

[Syaoransbear]

My circumference is 3" as well and I've been told that I have THIN hair all my life. I actually felt better when I came to this site and realized that it was average, but I also felt insecure and confused when I heard people call that thickness thin.

[Salmonberry]

I did measure again today since the last time I measured I was a collarbone length. (I'm at APL now) I did two measurements and one came out at 3.25 and the other at 3.5. I guess with the extra length, some of the natural taper grew out. It's still not "thick" though :p

Yeah I know that there are definitely people with thicker hair than mine, and I can understand people who have the desire to have thicker hair. I guess it just comes down to what is considered normal, and does having "normal" thickness make us lacking in some way? I guess I want call it dsymorphia because I see several people here with beautiful, thick hair complaining about how thin it is.

[lapushka]

I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't want thicker hair, but the general concesus around here that anything below a 4" circumference is considered thin seems a bit off base. I want to make sure I'm not the only one who believes this.

I'm a ii, and I have thick hair, and I'm not afraid to admit it. :)

You're totally right with that observation. ii *is* thick, and normal and average. There are always extremes, and I believe iii and beyond is kind of extreme.

[schweedie]

My hair looked really thin for most of my life, by pictures you's think I was an i. Then I started to grow and eat healthy, and I'm a 4.5 (so between the ii and the iii).
...
This happened in my family, my hair is seen as extremely thick. It's not, I'm the only one who doesn't really bleach and flit irons.
Isn't the ii category between 2 and 4 inches? So your hair would definitely be considered thick by most standards! :)

OP, when I joined here I thought for sure I had thin hair - and when I measured, it turned out that my pony circumference was 3' and I was a solid ii. I was shocked. Now that it's gone down to 2.25 I look back and realise that what I used to think was thin, really wasn't. So yeah, thickness dysmorphia is definitely a thing I recognise.

[leslissocool]

Isn't the ii category between 2 and 4 inches? So your hair would definitely be considered thick by most standards! :)

I read you need a 5 to have an iii :confused:. My hair is very odd, I don't have much of it but each strand is really thick and coarse. That's where the volume comes from.


OP: it's more than ok to be average, and it's more than ok to be above and below average. There are members here who thin their hair out. many times, thick hair can have taper due to breakage and I think that's often what people complain about. I had to cut a lot of hair (it was damaged, maybe for some people it wasn't but against my virgin hair it was very damaged chemically) to have the thick hemline I wanted. I'm not saying my v cut wasn't gorgeous (it was) but my ends were very thin.

I honestly see many i heads and I am just blown away, their hair looks so soft!

[MsBubbles]

My circumference is 3" as well and I've been told that I have THIN hair all my life. I actually felt better when I came to this site and realized that it was average, but I also felt insecure and confused when I heard people call that thickness thin.

Yep, mine too. In fact when I joined here, my hair was 3.25 after years of highlights, plus layers! I was told for years by every single hairdresser (and my Mother) that my hair was hopelessly 'thin'.

[spidermom]

I've always thought of my hair as monstrously thick, but it ranges from 3.8-4.25.
Not so monstrously thick after all. But it sure looks it!

[Salmonberry]

I've always thought of my hair as monstrously thick, but it ranges from 3.8-4.25.
Not so monstrously thick after all. But it sure looks it!

Yeah it does. :) Perhaps hair texture factors into it as well. Your hair is wavy, and I'm a 1c/2a (sort of wavy). Wavy/curly hair appears thicker especially when worn loose. Straight hair, on the other hand, appears thinner. Maybe that has something to do with it.

[s-a-m-a-r-k-a-n]

My whole life, I've had hairdressers, friends, and acquaintances tell me how thick my hair is. I've gone through life accepting the fact that I have thick hair. I joined this site last summer and got really excited when I got to measure and type my hair. I did all of the measurements, typed my hair and measured ponytail thickness. You can probably imagine how dismayed I was when my thickness came out around 3 inches and wasn't considered thick by LHC standards. I shamefully selected ii from the drop-down menu and looked myself over in the mirror. Had I lost a lot of hair recently? No. My hair looked just as thick and nice as it always had.



Ha ha!!! That are exactly my thoughts!! Unbelievable, it's like I would write it.
I think this site, because of its bias, gathers many people who have exceptional hair. In the wild (in real life), like one of the people here wrote earlier, it is not that common to observe the ultimate i-s and iii-s. What's more, they often have styles that don't let us assess their real thickness. They don't go around in ponytails. They often have pixies or heavy layered hair. We, the ii people could have been proud of our "3 inches" simply by being devoid of comparison. I am a teacher at high school, observing 16-18 year olds. In my country, people at this age are relatively "natural", so many virgin hair in ponytails. I can see that there are plenty ii-s and very little iii-s. Perhaps, this is also the matter of genetics and ii is quite thick in where I live. But as I joined this forum and saw some of the member's iii and iv hair! Gosh!! I felt so down at heart and wanted to cry. I must constantly remind myself that LHC is a special place, gathering special people, and being average among these wonderful heads of hair here is still ennobling. Well, just my :twocents:

[vindo]

When I studied the hairs biology I also learned about a few averages. And a very common ponytail circumference is 7cm/ 2.8 inches (this seems to be true for the users on my forum too, we did a survey). So anyone with a thickness above that is more or less above the average, same goes for under, they would be a little under the average, still in the normal range though and not thin.
Someone who has a circumference of 9cm/ 3.5 inches, does have considerably more hair, someone with 5.2cm/ 2 inches a good deal less, so sometimes it is a bit hard to understand the difference when all these get thrown into one category - ii .

However, we also do see a lot of ii/iii or iii's here, because they will generally feel more positive about growing their hair than people with a i or i/ii hair type.

Before hair loss I was ii/iii and I still constantly got told how thin my hair was due to my taper and some other factor like straight, soft hair :lol:.

I try to use the measurement to see if my thickness is changing (hair loss, regaining hair) or to give hair twins an idea of my hair type. I am not interested in hair forum p***s comparison ;). I thought it was a nice idea at first, but it makes to many longhairs worry about their thickness too much. It is almost like the battle of clothing sizes and weight.

Okay, I had to convert my ponytail circumference to inches right now, because I don't care enough to remember, and after my recent hair loss, which ended in March I am at 3.1 inches and that is not a bad place to be :cheer:
I won't complain, even though I have the type of hair that looks thin to everyone.

[Quixii]

People kept telling me how thin my hair is, but when I joined LHC I measured 4". I haven't measured recently, and the last time I did I think it was down to 3.5", but I keep trying to figure out - why are people telling my hair is thin, when it seems to be a bit thicker than the average?

So I've honestly just stopped thinking about it. :shrug: It doesn't really matter how thick or thin it is, but it's what I've got.

[auburntressed]

Eeh... In real life, I have never met anyone whose hair was as thick as mine, though I am well aware that they exist. On LHC, I've seen TONS of people whose hair seems to be thicker than mine, and it was a little jarring at first to see the sheer numbers. But as for real life people - the concept of thickness seems so suggestive to them, because they typically do not measure their ponytails to really see. So I have seen people who have really quite thin hair complain about their "thick" hair, and people whose hair is totally average gripe about having thin hair. It seems to be the case that, in real life - anyone who feels their hair is thick has thick hair, and anyone who feels thin is thin. There is no objective measurement like we have here, so that may influence new people's perspective when they finally get down to measuring. Also, a lot of thick and thin perception off the boards comes from texture. I had a roommate who constantly bemoaned how "thin" her hair was, but it was not thin at all. She rolled her eyes at me as I measured her ponytail, and it came out to a whopping 3.5". She refused to believe that was on the higher side of average, because her hair was board straight and fine textured. I think that she'd been brainwashed into thinking she had "thin" hair by a slew of coarse, curly haired family members. But in reality, her hair was quite a bit thicker than most people I have known over the years.

[jeanniet]

I think thickness is pretty relative. What matters most is how your hair feels to you. Volume (that is, wave) counts for a lot, too, in terms of manageability--and for me, it all comes down to difficulty in handling, lol. I have wurly iii hair, spent most of my life fighting it, and whatever people say, iii is not all that great. I think ii hair is about perfect, but I also love the look of fine, thin, straight hair. I'll never have it, but I sure admire it on other people. So if your hair is "only" i, you should know that somewhere out there is a iii secretly coveting it!

[Mesmerise]

Well there are iis who do have reasonably thin hair ;). There's a HUGE difference between 2" and 4" circumference (a person with 4" will have more than twice as much thickness as a person with 2").

I think, though, someone could have an apparently "average" thickness, but have a lot of hair, just hair that compresses a bit.

I have a friend with super thick hair (it's easily a iii but I've never measured it) and it's thick all the way to the ends (even at TBL hair). I mean, her ends are thicker than the top of mine! She will call a hairdresser for an appointment and tell them she's got thick hair. She will really emphasise how thick her hair is so they know what they're going to be dealing with. Then she'll get there and they'll freak out because they haven't enough time to trim her super thick hair because their idea of "thick" or even "really thick" is NOT nearly as thick as her hair!

[Jesabel]

That's like me my hair circ is over 3", 3.5" perhaps (I'll have to measure and check again!) and I have always got people like my hairdresser telling me how lovely and thick my hair is. I think it's because although my strands are fine, I have a tonne of hair so it's "thicker" than the average person's with quite fine hair which I like :) so when my hair is cut quite bluntly is feels so thick to me purely because there is so much hair there even though it can be somewhat compressed down.

[mzBANGBANG]

When I measure my pony circumference with crazy braid waves I sometimes get an inch more than when my hair is straight. It's also super fine. After realizing the difference I definitely stopped paying attention to that part of the typing method.

[aet2009]

I always feel like my hair is thin but constantly get told how much hair I have. Turns out, I measured it at a solid 4", not including my large chunk of bangs. I guess my hair is thick. :)

[eternallyverdan]

To be honest, I don't think the thickness measurement is a particularly useful one. There doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between how hair looks/feels and how thick it is when you pull it into a tight ponytail and measure it. Anything from coarseness to drying technique to hair type to product use to different measuring methods to how clean your hair is can drastically change your i/ii/iii classification, and really the ii category covers so much of the middle of the bell curve that only really exceptional people are going to be anything else.

In sum, I guess my advice would be to ignore that number and pay attention to all of the lovely things people say about your hair! If it looks nice and feels nice then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

[PolarCathy]

OP, based on your avatar, your hair is thick!

On a more serious note, I too think thickness is overrated. And yet I left this site more than once, recently just a few weeks ago mostly because of how "thin" my hair has become (due to a huge shed) at 3.5". Sure from 4.5" that's a bit of an annoyance, esp. because it's ratty, that makes it look worse, but not thin at all per se.

[goldloli]

When I measure my pony circumference with crazy braid waves I sometimes get an inch more than when my hair is straight. It's also super fine. After realizing the difference I definitely stopped paying attention to that part of the typing method.

Yes this is a valid point i've seen posts by tight curlies who post over 4" measurements but their hair wasnt straight for the measuring. I know on myself my measurements have fluctuated as much as an inch from having more body that day.

Years ago i lost around half my hair from medication, and when i told the doctor he thought i was being a hypochondriac because my hair still looked thick.

[anitacs9101]

OP, when I joined here I thought for sure I had thin hair - and when I measured, it turned out that my pony circumference was 3' and I was a solid ii. I was shocked. Now that it's gone down to 2.25 I look back and realise that what I used to think was thin, really wasn't. So yeah, thickness dysmorphia is definitely a thing I recognise.

Same thing happened to me! When I signed up and saw the requirements for each hair thickness, I was sure I'd be an i or thin ii. Then I measured in at 4". I was ecstatic :p



Someone who has a circumference of 9cm/ 3.5 inches, does have considerably more hair, someone with 5.2cm/ 2 inches a good deal less, so sometimes it is a bit hard to understand the difference when all these get thrown into one category - ii .



Well there are iis who do have reasonably thin hair ;). There's a HUGE difference between 2" and 4" circumference (a person with 4" will have more than twice as much thickness as a person with 2").


To be honest, I don't think the thickness measurement is a particularly useful one. There doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between how hair looks/feels and how thick it is when you pull it into a tight ponytail and measure it. Anything from coarseness to drying technique to hair type to product use to different measuring methods to how clean your hair is can drastically change your i/ii/iii classification, and really the ii category covers so much of the middle of the bell curve that only really exceptional people are going to be anything else.

In sum, I guess my advice would be to ignore that number and pay attention to all of the lovely things people say about your hair! If it looks nice and feels nice then you have absolutely nothing to worry about.

Agree with all of ^^ this ^^

[MaryMarx]

My hair has always been thin. Still I measure in at II, which kind of doesn't make sense.
But the thing is, my hair tapers A LOT, if I measure a low pony it would probably be I-category. But I don't. :D

[Louise148]

My hair is not currently at a length where all my layers can get into a ponytail so I can't say what the circumference will be but I know it won't be much. I have recently learnt it is best if I avoid, as best i can, the discussions about ponytail circumference othersise I start obsessing about the thinness of mine and I think I start to percieve my hair as thinner than it actually is. :(

[bunzfan]

Thank you for starting this i always look at the really thick hair on here and think wish my hair was thick like that but, i dont have thin hair exactly its at about 3.8 last time i measured. For a while i was desperate to have super thick hair but then i thought hey, i bet at my length i wouldn't even be able to bun it so i'm happy with what i have even if i still cant do some impressive big updo's yet i cant only really just do a nautilus :rolleyes:

[kitschy]

People tend to freak out over my thickness - especially when I drop in at a hairdresser for a trim. Once my hair is wet, they comment that it really is on the thin side. My hair can go from 3.5" when it is freshly washed and dried to 2.75" after several days of oiling after a wash.

I don't measure anymore. It means absolutely nothing. Besides that, at my age I am bound to lose some thickness - and I don't need to have that additional worry in my life.

[Mayflower]

I never used to have an opinion about hair thickness, not my own and not that of others. I only noticed extremely thin or extremely thick hair in real life. Then I came on here and saw super thick braids and was like "What?? I want hair like that!" but since then I've learned a few things.

First of all, hair can look thin when it's not and hair can look thick when it's not. Very recently I saw a picture of a braid a member posted here, and the braid was super thick. Then I looked at her signature picture, with hair that didn't look thick at all, because it was straight and silky.
But on the other hand, people with what looks like crazy thick hair, in most cases, have a texture that's poofy, fluffy, frizzy, wavy etc. etc. So = crazy volume. I can manipulate my hair's texture to look like iii+ and I get several comments in real life about how thick it is. In reality, it's more like ii/iii and it can look entirely different if I moisturise the living **** out of it, wear it straight and shiny and with no volume at the top (I hate those days :p).

Also, I always thought braids give a real, thrust-worthy indication of the thickness of one's hair. But, hair can be tightly braided or losely braided, and it can be pulled out a bit to make it look thicker. If I braid my wurly, frizzy, voluminous hair and pull some sections loose, I can get a braid as thick as my wrist. But, again, if I use some leave-in conditioner and braid it nice and tight (my sleep braid), it looks average if anything. :shrug:

Sorry for the blurry post, I just think you should realise these things in order to not get "fooled" by the pictures here. It's very easy to get down about your thickness if you see all the nice pictures here. But, on the other hand, it's also cool that there are so many ways to manipulate the visual thickness of your hair by braid/bun waves, not brushing your hair, etc. etc. And of course, then there are the differences between M/C hair that is iii, and F hair that is iii. It's just numbers.

[oktobergoud]

I just wanted to share an observation I've had and find out if anyone else has ever felt this way after joining the site and beginning their hair journey.

My whole life, I've had hairdressers, friends, and acquaintances tell me how thick my hair is. I've gone through life accepting the fact that I have thick hair. I joined this site last summer and got really excited when I got to measure and type my hair. I did all of the measurements, typed my hair and measured ponytail thickness. You can probably imagine how dismayed I was when my thickness came out around 3 inches and wasn't considered thick by LHC standards. I shamefully selected ii from the drop-down menu and looked myself over in the mirror. Had I lost a lot of hair recently? No. My hair looked just as thick and nice as it always had.


I feel exactly like this! People used to tell me how thick my hair was and hairstylists too!! And now I'm growing it out after many years and I'm surprised to find out my hair is so 'thin', while it's actually a solid 3 inches, which is totally average. The longer it grows, the thinner it feels. I even measured again last week and it seems like I even gained a quarter of an inch of thickness, but it just FEELS thinner. I even looked at old pictures because I thought I had lost hair and I'm constantly comparing my ponytail to others (not just on the board but a lot in 'real life' as well). I can now finally braid my hair (even do a tiny single English braid) and am just so disappointed to find out how thin it is! :(

It's kinda frustrating! And when someone here comments on how thick my hair is, I just want to say 'but it really isn't!!'. My hair is mostly fluffy anyway haha, so it LOOKS thick, but to me it isn't? :x

But you're right, it's not thin at all :) I guess we all get hair dysmorphia here, length or thickness-wise!

[WaitingSoLong]

I have always got people like my hairdresser telling me how lovely and thick my hair is. I think it's because although my strands are fine, I have a tonne of hair so it's "thicker" than the average person's with quite fine hair which I like :) so when my hair is cut quite bluntly is feels so thick to me purely because there is so much hair there even though it can be somewhat compressed down.

I call this "dense" hair. My younger son has extremely dense hair. I could hardly get clippers through it at all. Yet his "thickness' is average.

My hair stylists used to tell me I had thick hair once they ran their combs through it. I have DENSE fine hair.


To be honest, I don't think the thickness measurement is a particularly useful one. There doesn't seem to be much of a correlation between how hair looks/feels and how thick it is when you pull it into a tight ponytail and measure it. Anything from coarseness to drying technique to hair type to product use to different measuring methods to how clean your hair is can drastically change your i/ii/iii classification

Hair dye can dramatically change your thickness as well. That was one of the things that motivated me and my peers as teens to dye our hair, because it would change the texture and thickness.


My hair has always been thin. Still I measure in at II, which kind of doesn't make sense.
But the thing is, my hair tapers A LOT, if I measure a low pony it would probably be I-category. But I don't. :D

My hair measures 3" if I gather it all up on top of my head. At my nape, it measures around 2.75". Just a few more inches down and it is 2". New hair is constantly growing in so there will always be shorter hairs that don't get into the ponytail the further down you go.


I never used to have an opinion about hair thickness, not my own and not that of others. I only noticed extremely thin or extremely thick hair in real life. Then I came on here and saw super thick braids and was like "What?? I want hair like that!" but since then I've learned a few things.

Same here. I remember sitting behind a girl in junior high whose ponytail was as big as my forearm. She hated how thick her hair is.

Honestly, the only super-thick hair I see IRL is on teenaged girls. There are girls that have two braids and just one is as thick as my single braid.

I don't really want thicker hair, but I would like thicker braids. I just don't like how thin my hair looks when braided, especially if I do dual braids of any kind. I am always amazed people here often comment on my "thickness".

But if I brush out some triple paranda braids, I will have enough volume to look like a IV!

[Anje]

Hairdressers have commented for years on how thick my hair is, especially when they start handling it, yet I've got a measly 2.5 inch circumference. Go figure, huh? My personal take is that a lot of thickness for the person handling it has to do with how the hair behaves. My hair's fine and compacts down, but when you're handling it, it still goes on and on.

[jacqueline101]

My pony tail is 3 inches thick it doesn't feel thick to me but by some standards it's thick.

[Coolcombination]

I'm exactly the same. Was told all through my life I had super thick hair. Upon typing I was 3" and ii :(

[Neneka]

My thickness is now 8 cm/3,1''. My bangs isn't yet long enough to count. I thought my hair was really thin and I have heard it all my life. It's the texture. You can see that it looks thinnish in my avatar.

Thin hair is not a bad thing. It can be really beautiful and delicate looking. There is a lot of threads full of beautiful pictures of thin hair. :)

[meteor]

People tend to freak out over my thickness - especially when I drop in at a hairdresser for a trim. Once my hair is wet, they comment that it really is on the thin side. My hair can go from 3.5" when it is freshly washed and dried to 2.75" after several days of oiling after a wash.

I don't measure anymore. It means absolutely nothing. Besides that, at my age I am bound to lose some thickness - and I don't need to have that additional worry in my life.
This! Thank you for saying this so well.
When you add curls or oils into the mix, the thickness concept morphs significantly...
I am 5'', and it's quite thick, but it doesn't matter except that braids looks good, but it's hard to do updos and even wash (hard to get certain sections of the scalp squeaky-clean without pulling hair much). And yes, the longer it grows the thinner it "feels", because the curl pattern gets stretched out and it's no longer all in my face, the way it was at APL-BSL. Besides, I oil so much that I don't feel the thickness anymore.
I really wish people didn't stress out over the issue of thickness. Unless you are seriously shedding or have bald spots, hair of any thickness is awesome! :)

[Hiriel]

I've always thought of my hair as monstrously thick, but it ranges from 3.8-4.25.
Not so monstrously thick after all. But it sure looks it!

Yeah, ponytail circumference doesn't always translate directly into how hair looks either. My hair is approximately the same thickness as yours, most of the time just above 4 inches. In any kind of hairdo - braid, pony tail or bun, it looks thicker than it is, but down it looks less thick than it is, certainly much less thick than yours. Don't know why.


And yes, LHC skews perspectives rather badly. I've learnt to live with that :)

[Miss Catrina]

I've been told by hairdressers and rude people that I have thin hair - then I went to hair school, and came here, and realized I'm more in the low-average thickness range. I've seen a lot of people with hair a LOT thinner than mine.

[lapushka]

I've been told by hairdressers and rude people that I have thin hair - then I went to hair school, and came here, and realized I'm more in the low-average thickness range. I've seen a lot of people with hair a LOT thinner than mine.

IRL, F hair is often mistaken for "thin" hair. There's a lot of confusion surrounding the difference between the two.

[arcane]

I've always been told I have thick hair. And when I joined with extremely damaged hair that was constantly shedding I was still measuring in at 4.25" which doesn't seem to be considered that thick. Right now I'm going through a lot of new growth, recovering from a massive shed last year and giving up dye and last I measure the most compressed measurement was at 4.5 inches and there is still new hair coming in. And my hair has volume so it tends to look huge. HOWEVER, my hair doesn't look thick in braids. It actually looks average-thin, and I think it's just how I braid, and how it compresses down. I don't think anyone should put much stock into how thick a hair looks, it can be manipulated so easily even if the person doesn't realize it.

I also don't want any more thickness. My hair is heavy and my scalp gets so warm. And it's already a pain in the behind to get my scalp clean (my hair is also really porous so it gets so heavy when wet that it's awkward to get my fingers down to my scalp).

My boyfriend has fine curly hair and his hair always looks so huge (we like to say he has Hero hair, it's essentially identical to Jon Snows hair from Game of Thrones) but it's also thinner than it actually looks. I think he'd be a ii if he ever grew it long enough to measure, but it's so so voluminousness that it appears so thick.

I think it's also best to remember that long hair is a luxury. That's how I look at it. I don't have a right for my hair to look a certain way. Sure it's nice, and I like it, and whatever, but really in the end it is just hair.

[cooklaezo13]

I was told all my life that I have very thick hair. Every hairdresser I've ever been to comments that I have a ton of hair. Yet my ponytail circumference is only 3.5" so its really just barely above average. My braids look really thick though. When I do double braids, they are often as thick as many peoples' single braids. I don't get it.
Regardless of whether it is considered thick, average or thin, I am learning to love my hair, care for it, and make pretty hairstyles.

[NightOwl26]

I feel exactly like this! People used to tell me how thick my hair was and hairstylists too!! And now I'm growing it out after many years and I'm surprised to find out my hair is so 'thin', while it's actually a solid 3 inches, which is totally average. The longer it grows, the thinner it feels. I even measured again last week and it seems like I even gained a quarter of an inch of thickness, but it just FEELS thinner. I even looked at old pictures because I thought I had lost hair and I'm constantly comparing my ponytail to others (not just on the board but a lot in 'real life' as well). I can now finally braid my hair (even do a tiny single English braid) and am just so disappointed to find out how thin it is! :(

It's kinda frustrating! And when someone here comments on how thick my hair is, I just want to say 'but it really isn't!!'. My hair is mostly fluffy anyway haha, so it LOOKS thick, but to me it isn't? :x

But you're right, it's not thin at all :) I guess we all get hair dysmorphia here, length or thickness-wise!

Based on your sig pics, your hair looks so thick to me! Even though you measure 3".
My fine hair measures at 2.75" in a high ponytail. I feel like my hair is so thin. I have a lot of taper though from damage. Most people I know have way thicker hair than me. I notice others ponytail sizes too ever since joining LHC.
It's ok for me now. Even thin fine hair that is healthy is beautiful. :heart:

[Cheele]

Interesting thread. All my life I've had hairdressers comment on how thick my hair is... coming here I first measured in at 4 inches.. which compared to the lot of you.. isn't really that THICK at all. Which, honestly, bummed me out. Oh yeah, kind of off topic, but I was JUST going through my old length shots when I first joined and my hair was much thicker. I just measured, and I've lost almost an inch. Damn me for going off birth control pills :(. I feel much better emotionally though.. Ah, trade-offs. Anywho, DBF has almost 6 inches of thickness!!! Now that is outrageous. He also has the color I dye my hair to be.. and the texture I wish I had. So basically... I would kill for his hair. It's gorgeous :crush:.

[Kaelee]

I just wanted to share an observation I've had and find out if anyone else has ever felt this way after joining the site and beginning their hair journey.

My whole life, I've had hairdressers, friends, and acquaintances tell me how thick my hair is. I've gone through life accepting the fact that I have thick hair. I joined this site last summer and got really excited when I got to measure and type my hair. I did all of the measurements, typed my hair and measured ponytail thickness. You can probably imagine how dismayed I was when my thickness came out around 3 inches and wasn't considered thick by LHC standards. I shamefully selected ii from the drop-down menu and looked myself over in the mirror. Had I lost a lot of hair recently? No. My hair looked just as thick and nice as it always had.

I also see a lot of people here with ii thickness commenting on how thin their hair is. I can totally understand the desire to have thicker hair. I mean, in theory, the thicker it is, the longer it can get before the ends get super thin. But, ii thickness is not thin. In fact, many ii's have thicker than average hair, and I've seen them on this forum. Some i's don't even look thin. i's with fine hair appear to have plenty of hair, the hair is just finer so when it's smooshed into ponytail holder it takes up less space.

I'm not trying to say that people shouldn't want thicker hair, but the general concesus around here that anything below a 4" circumference is considered thin seems a bit off base. I want to make sure I'm not the only one who believes this.

I'm a ii, and I have thick hair, and I'm not afraid to admit it. :)

Do you have fine hair? My hair is fine. It is thick. I'm at BSL and I can't manage a lot of styles that people were doing at APL or even shoulder. My braid looks like this: http://i10.photobucket.com/albums/a133/Danmara/001-56_zps883dd1b3.jpg (http://s10.photobucket.com/user/Danmara/media/001-56_zps883dd1b3.jpg.html)

Because my hair is so fine, it squishes down and I measure as a ii. :lol:

I think for us fineys, the measurement system is a bit flawed. :lol:

[Miss Catrina]

YES! It makes me so mad - even the stylists call it "thin" when it isn't. It's fine, and not extraordinarily fine, at that.

[Salmonberry]

Kaelee: Yeah, some parts of it are on the fine side. My canopy and the hairs around the temples are fine and everything else is medium. I'm also blonde, so I think I have a lot of follicles despite them being somewhat on the finer side. It makes sense that they take up a lot more volume unsmooshed, but can get squeezed down into a very small space.

Your braid looks so nice and healthy by the way :)

[sakuraemily]

I am not reading through all the posts but I think it has a lot to do with the way hair hangs if you know what I mean. Some people's hair sort of sticks(not in an oily way) and that's how 4.5" can look like i. While i may be bushy(not big or frizy though) and look like iii.

[oktobergoud]

Based on your sig pics, your hair looks so thick to me! Even though you measure 3".
My fine hair measures at 2.75" in a high ponytail. I feel like my hair is so thin. I have a lot of taper though from damage. Most people I know have way thicker hair than me. I notice others ponytail sizes too ever since joining LHC.
It's ok for me now. Even thin fine hair that is healthy is beautiful. :heart:

Yeah but it's mostly fluffy? My hair is fine, so I guess sometimes it just has more volume and looks really thick! And a day later it has gotten a bit more oily and it immediately looks like I lost half my hair! :p I think our hair is actually a lot alike! (mine is 1c/F/ii :)) Your hair doesn't look thin to me :)

[YumiYume]

havent read all the pages but found this page with hairtyping: http://archive.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=8954

so above 4 inch (5cm) is iii, 2-4 inch (5-10cm) is ii and less than that is i :)

mine is like 2.8 inch so an ii for me, to bad that at shoulder the sircumstance seems to have lost 0.8 inch(2cm)

but I must admit, I have wished for more strands to gain even more thicknes because when I see my braid in the mirro it looks thin, not as full as iii's and pretty paintings and so on....

[lapushka]

but I must admit, I have wished for more strands to gain even more thicknes because when I see my braid in the mirro it looks thin, not as full as iii's and pretty paintings and so on....

Hey, you have wat you have, and that is something to be proud of. Being a iii is not all *that* either. We have our fair share of problems because the hair is so thick. Problems ii's do not have. There's a good and a bad side to everything. Be proud of what you got. I believe that's the overall positive message of this thread!

[Syaoransbear]

I think the hair thickness typing system should be changed, because for some people someone in the same category as them who appears to be their hair twin could have twice as much hair as them, which makes a huge difference. Why is the texture system so specific but the thickness system is extremely broad? Why can't the number of i's correlate with the number of inches, so i for 1 inch, ii for 2 inch, iii for 3 inch, etc?

[cooklaezo13]

Syaoransbear, I agree. Making the number of i's correlate with the number of inches would make a lot more sense. I'm on the thicker end of ii, and I can't make many styles that a lot of people with the same length as me, who are also ii, can make, because of the extra thickness.

[Mesmerise]

I think the hair thickness typing system should be changed, because for some people someone in the same category as them who appears to be their hair twin could have twice as much hair as them, which makes a huge difference. Why is the texture system so specific but the thickness system is extremely broad? Why can't the number of i's correlate with the number of inches, so i for 1 inch, ii for 2 inch, iii for 3 inch, etc?

Agreed! This makes a lot more sense, especially for the iis who seem most variable given that 2" of circumference is actually less than half the volume of hair of someone with, say, 3.5" circumference. There's such an enormous difference between someone with low ii hair and someone with high ii hair! (I suppose the same is true of someone with 4" hair and 6" of hair, but it's pretty uncommon to have hair that thick, whereas hair between 2" and 4" is most common, so most people will fall into that range).

[WaitingSoLong]

I like that, too! How do we get it changed? Seriously. BU thten how do you do partials....like 2.75? ii.75?

[Rufflebutt]

A lot of people wrongfully call my hair thin because it's not very voluminous; it's straight, sleek, and flat. But in reality, my hair is quite thick and usually inviting them over to attempt putting my hair in a ponytail shut them up because then they really experience how thick my hair actually is.

Most people have the mentality of poofy hair = tons of hair while flat hair = no hair. This isn't the case at all. Texture does not correlate with thickness one bit.

[MsBubbles]

Maybe we should simply put the ponytail circumference (which is also somewhat limited as it doesn't account for taper) as its actual measurement? I.e., Mine would be 1a/F/3.25

Obviously we'd have to agree on which system to use (inches or cm). I can't imagine that this hasn't already been suggested and shot down, though.

[YumiYume]

Hey, you have wat you have, and that is something to be proud of. Being a iii is not all *that* either. We have our fair share of problems because the hair is so thick. Problems ii's do not have. There's a good and a bad side to everything. Be proud of what you got. I believe that's the overall positive message of this thread!

yes I know, sorry if my post gave the thread a bad mood, it was not my intention, just confessed that I have wanted more hair, but I think my hair to me is, hm there is no english word for the swedish term "lagom" but not to much and not to little :).


I like the idea of changing the system of ponytail circumstances, either have an "i" for every inch as syaoransbear suggested or as MsBubbles to just put the exact number in the signature :). both would work great :). think I like the one with an i for every inch the best because then you can have some shedding without having to remessure to often :P.

[Wildcat Diva]

But I really liked the point about the variances of freshly washed hair, braid waved hair, oiled hair, finger combed, etc. changing the variances of maybe an inch of measurements on one head of hair. So I'm gonna measure right after a wash when my waves are a kicking and my hair is all pouffy. Maybe I'll get a 3.5. No way I'm gonna wait til day 3 after its all brushed out after bunning and sebum coated and I get a 2.75. This is really all kinda silly now, and I'm frustrated with myself that I even have worried about it in the past.

[teela1978]

To a thin-haired coworker my hair is "so thick", to a thick haired co-worker it's "so thin!!!". It depends on where you're looking from. I do think a lot of the variance in measurements comes from how well your hair collapses down into a ponytail, and that some may have inflated measurements from measuring on a "fluffy" day, but I think they're mostly in line. I also see nothing wrong with average thickness though.

[MsBubbles]

That's interesting, Wildcatdiva!

My ponytail circumference stays the same measurement no matter what. There's something about the pressure on it that squashes it down evenly. Although it can look fuller when down, with braidwaves (which last all of ten seconds).

[Wildcat Diva]

Ms. Bubbles, I haven't tried that yet. I'm speculating based on previous posters commenting about measurement variance based on texture and volume, which changes I know for me depending on when I washed last, and also if I've brushed out my waves. It will be an interesting experiment should I decide to take on the task.

[MsBubbles]

Oh ok! I misread. If my hair did that, I'm just gonna go ahead and admit it now, that I would totally take the thickest measurement. :whistle:

[juliaxena]

If there was a different scale for thickness here, how much would count as thick?

[Sarahlabyrinth]

I like that, too! How do we get it changed? Seriously. BU thten how do you do partials....like 2.75? ii.75?

Why complicate it with partials? Just have i, ii, iii etc.

[mamaherrera]

gosh I've suffer from this too. All my life, they always said, "you've got such thick hair, so much hair." One because it was curly naturally, but we always brushed it so it was a poof, TWO because i lived in a humid environment, so it stayed poofy all day. Now i live in the desert, NM and it's really tamed down and I've left the brush to one side. so my volume halved!! Even my nieces have said, back in humid WI, "Did you lose half your hair?"" OK that tripped me out! Then I started measuring my pony, it's like 3.75 so see, not that much hair as "THEY" made me think, so it's been hard for me to accept and readjust to this realization. Then now that it's in curls, it's voluminous when it's dry and curly, I put it in a braid to sleep, and the next day, looks like i have no hair. And now that I can't brush it out, it stays like that. Or if I put it in a braid, when it's been slept on, the skinniest little braid. I think my hair only makes a 3.75 pony because its medium thickness, but number of hairs no my head, I don't think is that high, it feels like it's just a lot of air! Weird, I envy the straight-fine haired ladies, because you grab onto your pony, and you feel the heaviness, the thickness!!

[mamaherrera]

Same here, and I've got 2B/2C hair and come out not much thicker on my pony than you. Compare my hair to my daughter's, and although her hair is finer/she's got way more than I do. And I thought I was the hair queen. Guess not!

I'm exactly the same. Was told all through my life I had super thick hair. Upon typing I was 3" and ii :(

[Gurlytomboy]

I have a 3 inch pony at the top of my head and about 2.7 inches by the nape. However, my whole life..Every single hairdresser I went to, would mention how thin my hair is!(And would want to cut it) Never had someone comment on me having thick hair... Plus, my actual hair is very fine as well...

[AspenSong]

As a kid, everyone would remark on how my hair was fine but there was a "lot of it" and hairdressers would say I had fine hair, but it was thick in amount. I pretty much thought I was average thickness because of hearing that so often....now, not so much. Not until I got here and realized I was on the low end of thickness did I realize how thin my hair was. Have no idea why people told me otherwise so much, I guess to be nice? *shrug*
I will say though, that change has had a big affect on how I feel about my hair. I'm much more critical of it now and dislike the thinness that much more, where I did used to love it.

[chen bao jun]

Well there are iis who do have reasonably thin hair ;). There's a HUGE difference between 2" and 4" circumference (a person with 4" will have more than twice as much thickness as a person with 2").

I think, though, someone could have an apparently "average" thickness, but have a lot of hair, just hair that compresses a bit.

I have a friend with super thick hair (it's easily a iii but I've never measured it) and it's thick all the way to the ends (even at TBL hair). I mean, her ends are thicker than the top of mine! She will call a hairdresser for an appointment and tell them she's got thick hair. She will really emphasise how thick her hair is so they know what they're going to be dealing with. Then she'll get there and they'll freak out because they haven't enough time to trim her super thick hair because their idea of "thick" or even "really thick" is NOT nearly as thick as her hair!
Yea, this has happened to me, any hairdresser I have ever gone to. So I know I have thick hair. I have actually not even bothered to measure it since being on LHC, because I figure what will a number tell me, really? It doesn't add anything to my knowledge of how to care for my hair, so what's the point.
On this website, for the first time ever I have actually seen people with hair thicker than mine, which I have seen in real life rarely, if at all. It is interesting, but it does not make me think that my hair is not thick. I just assumed that, as someone posted before, it's a bit of a self-selected group on here. People with thick hair are more likely to want to grow it long, in my opinion (which may be wrong) because thick hair is so difficult to control at shorter lengths. If you have thinner hair, from what I have seen, you can look nice with your hair styled fashionably--it sort of works with you. While thick hair really shines in braids, buns and updoes but looks out of control worn loose and laughs at hairstyles. At least, mine does.
I do think, also, that people's hair is likely to get thicker as they use LHC methods. The part of my hair that has grown in since I've been on here is noticeably thicker than it was before--there's a distinct difference between the top and the ends. that's rather amazing to me at age 56, when one expects one to be thinning a bit and makes me think that at least some of what people think is thin hair might be poor hair care methods.

[ExpectoPatronum]

All my life I've been told I have thick hair and I believed it and was proud of it. Then I came here and saw that...Oh wait, my hair isn't really super thick at all! Especially compared to some of the ladies on here. I was actually starting to feel like I had been lied to my whole life about my hair and that maybe I had thin hair all along.

I measured my ponytail just now and found, to my surprise, that it was actually 4.5 inches! Needless to say, I feel much better!

[Kayleena]

Hi, everyone! :coolblue: Yes, I've also fallen victim to "thickness dysmorphia", but possibly in a different way than has been discussed so far.

Some of you have mentioned how thick the braids & ponytails look, but my hair thickness dysmorphia has to do with when my hair is down. When I first grew my hair past APL, it was pointed out to me that now my hair doesn’t stay "together" around my shoulders (like a big long towel draped over the head, I guess). I tend to divide my hair evenly with my hands & push all of it to the front & arrange it so that it looks like I have lots of hair; however none is left hanging down in the back. If I do leave some hair hanging in the back, it’s not very much, & the sides appear thinner because there’s not as much hair. Also, my hair ends up in 3 "sections" because it is "separated" by my shoulders. Does this bother anyone else? Also, after reading these posts, I'm wondering, might this have more to do with the volume/texture/liveliness of the hair rather than with how many inches of thickness? If so, then I’m bothered by the visual effect of the hair, not the number of inches of thickness. Does anyone have MBL-or-longer hair that stays together like that?

My hair is well-past WL (36") & Type 1c/2a-F-ii (3" thick). I've been learning to accept the hair I have, do with it what I can, & not compare it with others' hair most of the time, but I have been wondering about this for a while, & it seems this is a good opportunity to ask. Thanks & have a good hair day! :cool:

[littlemonster]

I have fine hair and always grew up being told I have so much of it. Here I'm average. If I measure around a tight ponytail I'm around 3", a comfortable one about 3.5, if I compress it as much as humanly possible, just over 2.5, it does compress a lot if you try. Was a bit more a couple of months ago but I shed in spring. Not sure which measurement I'm supposed to use :D But it was a bit of a surprise to realise here it's not "thick" until 4 inches!!! Mine may well have hit that in a comfortable ponytail before hormones went wrong and I did tons of chemical damage.

I'm glad I'm not alone though, I've been feeling a bit inadequate! I guess though numbers and letters don't matter that much :) So long as I can care for it better and have it looking healthy!

[mamaherrera]

No I hear ya about having lots of compression. My daughter's hair doesn't compress as much as mine, here's is not as curly, maybe that's the difference, but mine also does not come around the shoulders. Most of my hair tends to stay in the back, so the sides look so so thin. I think that has to do a lot with the direction of how the pores go, I think most of mine head towards the back so the bulk is there. Mine is always in clumps as well, so most of the clumps stay there and to get some in front, I'd have to separate clumps. Also, when I straightened it, I noticed too, gosh I don't get that drapey thing going on with my hair, which I see in a lot of straight-haired ladies. And mine was straight?? so I don't think it's a straight/curly issue, either, who knows what it is. I'm wondering WHO else has medium thick hair and a small ponytail. Everyone here seems to have a small ponytail but with fine hair, so you all STILL have more hair than I do.

[Foxylocks]

I can relate to you 100%. Classmates (especially girls) will remark about how "incredibly thin" and "paper thin" my hair is. It is very hurtful to me. I am a little less than a 3 in, so my hair isn't thin. I also feel better here, knowing that my hair is not what my peers describe it to be.

My circumference is 3" as well and I've been told that I have THIN hair all my life. I actually felt better when I came to this site and realized that it was average, but I also felt insecure and confused when I heard people call that thickness thin.

[kitschy]

Does anyone know if there is a world record for hair thickness?

[Beborani]

Wavy and curly hair look thicker. Mine is wavy and can be worn curly with little effort while my daughter's is fine and straight. Now our thickness is nearly the same but mine looks so much fuller--until recently mine was about a third this thickness but it still appeared thick enough that she used to get envious! I am heading towards actual thick hair after 30 years, so if anyone on this thread is struggling with lost hair as opposed naturally fewer hair, I will say there is hope. I tell my daughter with dead average thickness hair that it is beautiful because it IS! She can get up in the morning and go after finger combing a bit and it looks like she has made an effort to look like that. Every length, thickness is beautiful if worn with confidence!

[earthybee]

Mine is just average too.. I always thought I had thick hair until now.

[restless]

I have always been told I have thin hair by (female) friends and hair dressers. I actually had a hair dresser repeat to herself "Oh its so thin! So very thin!" (no Im not kidding :neutral: ) during a hair cut many years ago. Then at another occasion someone (whom I dont know well) that hadnt even seen my hair being worn lose told me I should cut my hair because it must be very thin (its true my buns arent massive...).

I believed them and their talk for 20-something years. Then I came on here and realised I belong in the ii-range. It doesnt look thin due to its wavy nature, but my hair is fine so my updos arent THAT big even when my hair is long. However I dont care. I actually like my "oh so thin hair" and plan on growing it to ridiculous lenghts ;)