Hair typing help :)

[ladylowtide]

Hi everyone, I have been on LHC for a couple of years, but I have never gotten any help typing my hair. When I first joined I was half hennaed and half bleached, so I had considerably different looking hair. The hair typing I have posted is my best guess, not sure if I'm totally off base. Now for the first time in years I seeing enough of my natural hair that I thought maybe I could take a crack at typing it. Other hair info: My hair is pretty layered. The ends have been bleached and dyed and bleached numerous times. The middle of my hair has been hennaed heavily with BAQ henna. The bleached ends tend to flick around and not stay straight. The hennaed part tends to hang heavily straight and the top.... some times gets a little naughty leaving me to believe it might not be 1b. I am usually in very dry weather, but when I travel to places with great humidity I tend to get a slight wave throughout. The picture is taken with no conditioner and no combing. My hair resists heat styling weather straightening or curling. As for strand thickness. The hennaed portion is significantly corser than the new growth. My hair tends to fly away and some strands are very delicate while others can be lifted to platinum blonde with bleach and look none the worse for wear. When I get splits they don't split per say, the whole end just breaks off in one piece. I was born with black hair that all fell out and was replace with medium golden blonde hair which has slowly darkened into the color you see at the top and for curiosity sake if you would name my natural color as well that would be appreciated (it is the source of some debate in my house and I would like to have an outside opinion). Thanks again.

PS: pony circumference is varies between 4" and 4.25" also wasn't sure which image tags would work so included two.

http://i1266.photobucket.com/albums/jj522/ladylowtide/hairtyping_pic.jpg (http://s1266.photobucket.com/user/ladylowtide/media/hairtyping_pic.jpg.html)

[stachelbeere]

oh wow, your hair is so much like mine, even the colour is the same and I'm also growing out henna and some left-over dyes in the last 3 inches - except for the pony circumference, I have less hair. My hair also doesn't split, and if it does the split probably breaks off and doesn't travel up, in general I get more breakage than splitting. Hello, hair twin with more hair :D

I think your hair is 1b - but if you find a 'visible' wave you can label yourself 1b/1c. My hair has a body wave which means that it just generally flicks in different directions at the ends and I have some volume at the roots, but nothing else is going on. I also get one or two waves behind my ears (I guess that could technically be categorised as 1c). When I occasionally sleep with damp hair thrown over the pillow I get some more 'definition' - as in my hair 'clumps' and becomes more "piecey" but I wouldn't call it waves, if that makes sense.

[ladylowtide]

Thanks stachelbeere! I saw one your other pics another thread and I too thought that we had very similar looking hair! Out of curiosity what do you call your hair color at the top?

[jeanniet]

I think I'd say 1bish, but it's hard to tell because of your ends and because henna tends to pull curl. If your hair was all natural, you might very well have more wave to it. Your signature pic shows enough wave that you easily be past 1b with all natural hair. I'd call your natural color a medium brown, but it sure is pretty!

[ladylowtide]

Thanks for your input jeanniet! I should clarify my signature pic waviness is the result of braiding.

[stachelbeere]

Thanks stachelbeere! I saw one your other pics another thread and I too thought that we had very similar looking hair! Out of curiosity what do you call your hair color at the top?

ash brown, very much on the cool, bluish, lead side. I think Natalie Portman's roots (http://www.allure.com/hair-ideas/2012/the-most-gorgeous-hair-color-ideas-for-brunettes#slide=4) are of a similar tone.
Have you seen the ash brown hair thread? (http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=112776)

[BrendaLoan]

I would say 1b too. And beautiful hair by the way :o

[ladylowtide]

Thanks BrendaLoan for your input. Looks like my guess was closer than I thought! Thanks everyone for saying nice stuff about my hair, means a lot coming from you guys that have such great hair. :)

[ladylowtide]

I actually have seen the thread! I knew I was on the cool side of brown, its been a matter of debate with my mom as to whether it is dark brown or medium brown. I think its because both of my parents have dark brown almost black hair, they insist I have it too. ?

[stachelbeere]

hehe your hair really is gorgeous! I hope mine will look a little like that when it grows up ;)
I was wondering where the henna demarcation line is as it's not really visible, lucky you! Mine is quiet visible :/
Could I ask what your henna history is? Have you done many applications?

eta: about the dark brown vs medium brown question - that link with Natalie Portman shows a wide range of brown shades, maybe that'll help? But I actually think it's hard to pinpoint where one shades starts and where one ends. It's like the colour turquoise which is right in the middle of blue and green. If you put a turquoise swatch next to a blue one it seems green, if it's next to a green swatch the turquoise one looks like blue. I think it's a similar concept with light browns and blonettes, light brown - medium brown, medium brown - dark brown, it's hard to draw a borderline :)

[ladylowtide]

Aw thanks stachelbeere, as for the demarcation line being somewhat faint it could be one of two reasons. The first being that my hair does not absorb henna well and I found myself needing to do 3-4 coats the first round, and then needing to redo all the hair along with my roots every 3 weeks. So the farther down you go there could be as many as 12 applications layered. Whereas near the top there is less and less coats of henna. The other factor I think is that I attempted, with some success I might add, to lessen some of the henna stain with the vitamin C removal method, as well as couple of honey lightening treatments. I found that crushed vitamin C tablets mixed with dandruff shampoo (the blue kind), really worked well on the parts of my hair with fewer applications (all though not completely) and made some of the heavier areas look slightly less red, though not any less dark. Also my line/gradient is more visible in harsh sunlight.

Just so you know, I actually was glad you posted that one picture because I thought to myself, here is another woman with ashy brown hair growing out henna and it actually looks nice, even with the visible demarcation line IMO.

[stachelbeere]

aw thank you! <3 sometimes, in certain lights I really dislike the demarcation line, because it looks so obvious. But normally I think it's less visible and looks quiet interesting and even nice. I think my hair really took the henna well and I must have done a little under 10 applications. I remember the last application I did last year in February was quiet faint which is good because it softens the demarcation line.

What's the recipe with the crushed vitamin C pills? I might actually try it and maybe lighten my hair slightly

[ladylowtide]

Sure, I don't have exact measurements because it has been a while. I did about 15-20 vitamin c tablets, but in ziplock bag to crush, mixed with enough dandruff shampoo to make make a not runny, but also not thick mixture. Saturated all of my hair and bagged it for like 1.5 hours. It was super drying, so wouldn't do it back to back. I had to wait a 2 weeks in between. Good thing was that it didn't mess with my natural hair color at all. I also did it on clean hair. Hope it works for you! I didn't see a noticeable change until the second time. I think I did it 4 times?

[stachelbeere]

thanks for the recipe! I'll try it. When did you do the honey lightening, after the vit C treatments?
Also, what does the dandruff shampoo do, does it have a special ingredient?

[divinedobbie]

I vote 1b too. I think your hair is literally in between medium and dark brown but if I really had to choose, I would say it leans towards medium.

ETA: I think it definitely leans towards medium.

[lapushka]

I'm going to go with 1a/b. Seems a little too straight to be 1b, IMO.