How can you tell the thickness of a hair strand?

[Amenahh]

I've read a bit about how to tell the thickness of the hair strand but I still don't really know what mine is. Either F or M, but I don't know what to compare it with.

Basically, it's almost translucent if I hold a hair in the light. And hair dye and flat irons used to really damage it. So maybe F?
But then, I never get tangles. I only use a tangle teaser after washing my hair usually, and I don't need to brush it for the 3/4 days afterwards. Does F usually tangle easy?

I just don't know. Maybe F/M?

[Cg]

My superfine hair rarely tangles, but it is not WL yet.

[Amenahh]

Oh does it start tangling a lot more past a certain length?
Maybe mine is fine too and will start tangling then...

[Cg]

Well, the more hair, the more chance it has to get into mischief. In wind or from being careless, yes, longer hair tangles more readily than short.

[Anje]

Well, I have some digital calipers, which are rather fun to play with... But generally, it's probably easiest if you just see how you compare to a bunch of other people.

[lapushka]

My mom, dad and me all have F hair. My dad has baby fine hair compared to mom. I have a bit of both worlds. I can tell because I have normal strands in between my F hair, so I can tell how F the bulk is. Coarse is a league of its own, I mean, that is *thick* hair.

If you can hardly feel it when rolling it between thumb and finger, then it's F. If you can feel it it is normal.

[meteor]

I used this "book" method to measure mine (for details, check out An easy method for measuring hair strand thickness: http://forums.longhaircommunity.com/showthread.php?t=136858), and I have a bunch of F hair (temple area, mostly), and lots of M and C hair (especially in the underlayers).

It's interesting that there isn't even an exact definition of F/M/C hair, and different sources provide different ranges of strand thickness in microns (e.g. here (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/1999/BrianLey.shtml)or here (http://science-yhairblog.blogspot.ca/2012/06/is-your-hair-fine-medium-or-coarse-how.html)or here (http://www.philipkingsley.co.za/hair-types)). And I agree with Anje: the easiest and most practical approach, if you don't have special tools, is probably to simply compare strand to other strands.

[lithostoic]

Sounds like F to me. Is it a huge pain in the butt to find the shed hair tickling your arm?

[Lavendersugar]

If it's hard to see I would say F.

Yes, the longer the hair the more lovely knots you may get. I'm M maybe a bit thinner on some hairs but when my hair is above armpit rarely do I get knots. Now it's just part of hair life. Had one so bad yesterday there was no choice but to trim it off.

[MsBubbles]

I liked the "rolling the strand between your thumb and forefinger" approach. I could barely feel my stands so I put myself down as F, and I think there's no denying it, based on photos of my hair twins' hair. I have a few (can count them on one hand) coarser hairs that grow towards the back of my head. When I roll them between my thumb and finger, I can definitely feel it.